As we are unlikely ever to have a culture of full employment again, we need to stop basing our identities, individually and communally, around the idea of employment. Meanwhile, in France, Forrester' s book title has become the catch-phrase of all kinds of protest movements. It is a publishing success because it plays on people's fears. Minc argues that the prosperous French workers and their unions have refused to trade some of their benefits for wider employment. To my mind we are witnessing a profound change, a transformation of society and civilization, and we are finding it very hard to accept.
Job security is on the way out.
For the first time in history, the vast majority of human beings are no longer indispensable to the small number of those who run the world economy. The economy is increasingly wrapped up in pure speculation. The working masses and their cost are becoming superfluous. It is true that this state of affairs is not being concealed, but there is a tendency to avoid talking about it clearly. In democratic societies, at any rate, you don't tell people that they are regarded as superfluous.