"Throughout the world there is an "emergent new group of high-tech workers, who will account for more than 60 percent of the income earned in the United States by 2020," reports Rifkin. These few workers, he predicts, "...are likely to retreat from civic responsibilities in the future, preferring not to have to share their earnings and income with the country as a whole "Distinguished from the rest of the population by their global linkages, good schools, comfortable lifestyles, excellent health care, and abundance of security guards, symbolic analysts will complete their secession from the union," Rifkin writes. "The townships and urban enclaves where they reside, and the symbolic-analytical zones where they work, will bear no resemblance to the rest of America."

The workerless society may be much closer than we think. 75% of the work force, in most developed countries, engage in work that is little more than simple repetitive tasks. Most of these jobs are vulnerable to replacement by automation. But that's not all - technology is increasingly taking over tasks previously thought to require human intelligence. Office workers and managers are now under threat as corporations restructure to take advantage of the huge productivity gains made possible by the new technologies. Just the other day I called a corporation that a good friend of mine works for. Instead of hearing a person's voice answer I was automatically transferred to a machine. It then took me through a variety of options to choose from. It asked me to type in the first three letters of the persons name I wanted to be transferred to. This is a perfect example of how a machine took the place of a persons job. Speech recognition software is becoming more and more popular and like in thi scase is being used to replace human customer service telephonists in many companies. These companies face a simple choice: use the new technology or lose competitive advantage and go out of business. In either case job losses will occur.

"At issue is the very concept of work itself. How does humanity begin to prepare for a future in which most formal work will have passed from human beings to machines?" Alternatives to formal work will have to be devised to engage the energies and talents of future generations, says Rifkin. "The hundreds of millions of workers affected by re-engineering of the global economy will have to be counseled and cared for. Their plight will require immediate and sustained attention if we are to avoid conflict on a global scale."

Economists have traditionally argued against the likelihood of the decline of work, believing that productivity gains produce wealth, which is used to expand markets, thereby creating new jobs. Admittedly, this has been the case in the past. For example, when technology began to displace agricultural workers, a new growing sector - manufacturing - was able to absorb those displaced. Then, between the mid fifties and the early eighties, as manufacturing became increasingly automated, displaced factory workers were absorbed into the growing service sector (banking, insurance, accounting, law, airlines, retail, etc). In most modern cities today, nine out of ten jobs are in the service sector.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2714
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)