Notes on The Future of Success: Working and Living in the New Economy
by Robert E. Reich, 2000
What is most intriguing about this very accessible work by Robert Reich is his analysis of the forces in the “new economy.” He points out that the increases in communication and technology spurs globalization and brings Americans a greater variety and higher quality of material goods than ever before. These changes are fuelled on our ability to choose what we want with greater ease: what we buy, where we live, where we work. The ability to make these choices decrease the stabilizing forces of consumer loyalty and the idea of the “company man.” Mobility is high. Producers and employers must work harder to keep consumers and employees. This is done, however, not by creating incentive packages (including health care and retirement benefits) to bind employees to a company for life, but rather by offering higher wages to those innovative employees in greatest demand. In all industries, from software to sports, people move from one employer to another constantly. Increasing competition bought us more material options but less stability.
This is the main reason, Reich argues, that Americans are working more than their counterparts in Europe and even Asia. We are more controlled by the demands of our work – we are accessible by cell phones, beepers, and e-mail at more hours of the day than ever before. It is also the reason why our society is more stratified than ever before. The pressures on industry have made innovative skill a higher commodity, so the workers with this skill are paid exponentially more than in the past. To fund this increase on the higher end of the pay scale, unskilled workers are paid less and less, and the stratification of society increases further. [This point is particularly relevant for ethical discussions of social justice.] Many are already familiar with statistics such as this one indicating recent trends: in 1990 the top 1% of population of the USA owned 11% of our national wealth, and in 1999 the top 1% of population owned 18% of wealth. That is a dramatic change over just a decade.
Reich explores various “sorting mechanisms” which have led, almost blindly, to greater economic and cultural stratification. As communities for the wealthy are developed, so too are public schools of greater quality only available to the wealthy. They reinforce the social divisions.
Reich’s conclusion is that we have to do a better job of finding a middle ground between (1) blindly accepting the changes inherent in our adaptation to the “new economy” and (2) Luddite reaction against the new economy. Clearly, Reich says, we are not going to turn our back on the increased material options afforded us. But, unless we do a better job of minimizing the social costs, our quality of life will decline. We need not accept that the new economy demands sacrifice of everything outside of work, nor that social inequality and economic stratification must increase. We can work for a saner, calmer, more rewarding “common ground” that serves us all. This liberal call to arms, while less intriguing than Reich’s analysis of the new economy, makes sense to this reader.