ABSTRACT
The political economies of the major contemporary states face growing pressures including (a) the low productivity of the public sector and third-party payers; (b) the high cost of public goods; (c) shrinking tax-bases as post-industrial inefficiencies persist; (d) the modest performance of state pension and social insurance schemes; and (e) ageing populations with fewer employed workers supporting more persons in longer-lived retirement. The suggested answer to these problems is auto-industrialization: ranging from machine automation to autotelic work, auto-didactic learning, and autopoietic savings. The chapter sums up how auto-industrialization is driving a gradual long-term shift from wage-labor to capital, office work to self-employment, service industries to DIY industrialism. It looks at the effects of this on public finances and the public sector’s capacity to deliver social goods, specifically health, education and income security.
