ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the process of commoditization has subsumed great tranches of industry, eliminated significant numbers of manual labourers and increased the general efficiency and effectiveness of society. It discusses the future and how commoditization might play out a variety of potential changes in the nature of work and employment and in some of the wider processes which govern and define society. The chapter focuses on technology and how it will continue to eliminate work at the low, mid and high end of the employment spectrum. It also focuses on the rise of protectionist behaviour to combat the worst impacts of commoditization. In the same way that blue collar labour has become commoditized and offshored, white collar work will become a commodity as organizations continually shift labour from country to country in order to exploit the differences in labour costs.
