ABSTRACT
We can see around us many of the elements of a great change. We know that the present wave of unemployment will eventually be followed by new and different kinds of work. But we do not know whether there will ever be enough work again. Large numbers of production and service activities are being transformed into computer-based activities – turned from a physical to an information mode. Even within the long recession of the 1980s certain areas of the economy and society are enjoying an unprecedented and rather uncanny boom, and most of these are connected with entertainment, the cultural sector or the storing and exchange of data. In other words, as so often in this country, it is painfully clear that much energy and skill is being, and has long been, deployed in public and private sectors without the commensurate rewards coming in and reaching society as a whole.
