Globalization, Neoliberalism, and the Future of Work: From Industrial to Post-Industrial Society

Globalisation is the emerge of a globalized economy based on new systems of production, finance and consumption. There are 4 approaches of globalisation. Fist of all, we have The world-systems approach which is based on the distinction between core, semi peripheral and peripheral countries in terms of their changing roles in the international division. Core countries develop high skills, while the periphery focuses on low-skill and intensive production. This situation favours the dominance of the core over the periphery.It is sometimes considered to be too economistic and not focus enough on the cultural issues. (EX: Nike`s factory in Cambodia). The second approach is the globalization of culture, which focuses more on ideas of an emerging global conciousness and their implications for global community, governance and security. Thirdly, the global society approach attributes significance to ideas such as global awareness. Lastly, the global capitalism is connected to the capitalism crises of 1970s onwards, where unemployment keeps rising as rich countries have problems paying for their welfare states.

Neoliberalism is the notion that markets on their own are fair, and governments are at times the problem and not the solution. It is characterised by its free trade, its de-regulation, and it was an answer to kenyanism and it was a theory by hayek which changed the way in which people adressed each other. The difference it has from liberalism is that liberalism puts competition over people, and neoliberalism doesn´t. Neoliberalism was based in trickle down economies which basically says that the rich will create jobs for the poor. It is still nowadays, the main theory in the european union. From the 73 onwards, a new workview has started, meaning that many of us are homo-economicus so we accept competition as a part of life. An example is that nowadays, you can’t just be a singer, you also have to marketize yourself, and be in social media such as spotify and instagram. Therefore, the consecuences are that the rich only get richer, and others that work really hard, don’t.

In the post-industrial sociesty (3^rd) the economy shifts from producing goods to producing services, productivity increases due to technological transformations and the main jobs during this revolution were scientists and engineers. Although, these specialists are incharge of controlimg inspections, they are just reworking, because the final value is brought by matchines. If you didn’t have money, you would get a credit card and get in debt and people hired by companies should already know whats happening and already have an experience. This is why nowadays people do “practicas” because when we enter a company, we are required to know how to do more than one thing at once. Also, another characteristic is just in time, which is very popular among companies and it explains why they usually do not have a big stock, because they produce what they are going to sell. Therefore, the profile of workers changes a lot, as they need more experience and more flexibale which means being able to work with several machines (not just one) and working anywhere. They also require to have problem-solving skills and supervise their own work.The 4^th industrial revolution is the one that we are living now, and it means the end of work and therefore the disappearance of the human being. Its main jobs are neuro scientists and bio engineers , and the work becomes more and more connected into the data control. The “end of work” basically means the end of employment, due to the fact that systems like artificial intelligence can carry out practically every task that humans did. The tertiary sector is in fact one of the losers in this new change.