ABSTRACT
In recent years, an unceasing stream of books, newspaper articles, conferences and television programmes have drawn our attention to profound technological changes which are transforming the structure of the world economy. The automation of factory and office work is increasing; communications networks are being radically reshaped; new areas of productive knowledge such as biotechnology and artificial intelligence are being developed; information-based industries are expanding. Some writers have welcomed these developments as ushering in an age of greater affluence, leisure and intellectual creativity, while others see them as posing profound threats to economic welfare and to political freedom; but almost all agree that they are changes whose implications we ignore at our peril.
