ABSTRACT
We have come a long way from the dream of computopia presented in Chapter 2. Information capitalism in Japan, as we have seen, has brought some benefits; for example, a broadening of the scope of certain types of factory work and a gradual increase in the number of information producers. But it has also generated new social problems. Unemployment has increased (particularly among the youngest and oldest groups of workers); trade friction has intensified; the wage gap between large and small firms has widened; some types of office work have become more routine and monotonous; insecure temporary and haken-system jobs have grown in number; the workforce appears to be becoming increasingly atomised. But perhaps the most alarming feature of the new economic and social order is the declining effectiveness of the very organisations which exist to articulate and confront these problems.
