World without Work

A couple of articles with this title (here and here) inspired me to rehearse the history of commentary on this subject. It was Charles Handy’s 1984 book “The Future of Work” which first warned me that the familiar contours of our world were moving under our feet; that the notion of life-long jobs wa;s gone for ever and which introduced us to the term “portfolio life”. And I vividly remember the impact on me of Zuboff’s In the Age of the Smart Machine (1988) which drew on the evidence of the new information technology industries to underline the threat the future held to our notion of a normal working life….

We have all subsequently taken advantage of the speed, choice and capacity with which we have been richly endowed by the new information facilities - but perhaps been a bit slow to recognize the scale of its consequences. Google's driver-less car and the speed with which companies such as Uber and Airbnb have scaled up brought it all home to us….But people like Frithjof Bergmann and Jeremy Rifkin – the latter with his “the End of Work (1995) were amongst a few at the time who appreciated what Handy was onto……Since then there have been quite a few books with the title “The Future of Work” (2004), David Bollier (2011), Jacob Morgan (2014) to which I should have been paying more attention…..

But, very suddenly it seems, the scale of the impact of IT and robots on jobs previously thought safe from automation has hit people and the prospect of the majority of people living without paid work is now beginning to both excite and frighten….Race against the machine (2011) is perhaps the most famous of the books about this....The air is thick with talk, for example, of the necessity of a Basic Income; and of the writings of both Keynes and Marx on this subject…..Inventing the Future – Postcapitalism and a world without work (2015) is typical of the titles which are now appearing. You can read it for yourself in full here

I’m currently in the middle of Future Politics – living together in a world transformed by Tech by James Susskind (2018) which must be one of the first popular books to explore the likely impact of the new world of algorithms and artificial intelligence

The premise of ‘Future Politics’ is that relentless advances in science and technology are set to transform the way we live together with consequences that are both profound and frightening. We are not yet ready for the world we are creating. Politics will not be the same as it was in the past.

For Susskind, three changes are of particular note: increasingly capable systems that are equal or superior to how humans function; increasingly integrated technologies that are embedded in the physical and built environment (the internet of things); and an increasingly quantified society, whereby details of our lives are captured as data and processed by digital systems. Those who control the technologies will exercise power over us, set the limits of our liberty, and determine the future of democracy. One of the problems is that the engineers devising and implementing these technologies rarely engage with consequences of these developments.

So, it is up to the rest of us to correct this deficiency and take responsibility for understanding and analysing the implications of this transformed world. We must, says Susskind, engage with political theory if we are to think critically and develop appropriate intellectual tools to tackle these digital developments. With this as the agenda, Susskind sets out to examine this future under the headings of power, liberty, democracy, justice and politics itself, devoting sections of the book to each of these subjects in turn.

Further Reading
Automation and the future of work; Aaron Benanov (2020)
How to Run a City like Amazon and other Fables; ed M Graham…. J Shaw (2019)
https://www.e-ir.info/2019/02/21/review-future-politics-living-together-in-a-world-transformed-by-tech/
automation and the future of work HMSO 2019
The People v Tech – how the internet is killing democracy (and how we save it); Jamie Bartlett (2018)
Living Together – the future of politics in a world transformed by technology; James Susskind (2018) 
A World without Work? (Values and Capitalism network 2018)
The Future of Work (ILO 2015)
A World without Work (The Atlantic 2015)
https://williamtemplefoundation.org.uk/blog-review-future-politics/
http://bostonreview.net/politics/clara-hendrickson-jamie-susskind-future-politics-review
The Second Machine Age; Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee (2014)

Management of Public Services - Best Reading on Reform

It’s remarkable how few titles are available to help the concerned citizen (or official) make sense of the “reforms” which have deluged the public sector in the past few decades – whether privatisation, restructuring or austerity. There are, of course, thousands of academic books – but they have a weird focus on arcane and incestuous matters and simply don’t ask the sort of questions most people are interested in….An ex-civil servant, Martin Stanley, has ploughed a lone furlow in his writing about government and civil servce reform on his great site

Last year I spent a lot of time trying to identify what we had learned from 50 years of efforts to improve our public services (see Change for the Better? A Life in reform) The key group acting as a bridge between the public and the (extensive but generally arcane) writing on the subject are journalists too many of whom choose to titillate readers with tales of blunders and corruption. Whether they mean it or not, this only serves to develop cynicism and fatalism

It’s interesting that the book which helped spark off the global interest in what became known as New Public Management – Reinventing Government (1992) was written by a consultant and journalist (David Osborne and Ted Graeber respectively).
I've offered reading lists before on this subject - but this is my most up-to-date and considered shot yet....Interesting that there are more by activists and journalists than I had imagined!

The following may appear a long list – of the generalist books from the past 30 years I would recommend to the activist. But it works out as one significant book every 2 years!!

Title	Author’s profession	Takeaway
Short-term thinking in a long-term world;	B Spurling (2020) public servant	an Australian public servant reflects on his experience
“STRATEGIES FOR GOVERNING - reinventing Public Administration for a dangerous century”	Alasdair Roberts (2019) Canadian public admin academic	what will hopefully be the start of a long overdue reassessment of the subject
A New Politics from the left	Hilary Wainwright (2018) Activist	a rare defence of Public Admin from one of the British left’s most creative thinkers
“Radical Help – how we can remake the relationships between us and revolutionise the welfare state	Hilary Cottam (2018) activist	should be read in conjunction with the recent Demos' pamphlets on the social state and the preventative state.
Dismembered – the ideological attack on the state	Polly Toynbee and D Walker (2017) journalists	a clear analysis of the tragic UK situation by two british journalists
“The 21st century public manager – challenges, people and strategies”	Z van der Wal (2017) Dutch academic and consultant	who has spent the past 7 years as a Prof at the University of Singapore
Reclaiming Public Services – how cities and citizens are turning back privatisation;	TNI (2017) a radical Dutch Think-tank	An excellent overview by the radical international think tank of this very welcome trend
How to Run a Government so that Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers don’t go Crazy;	Michael Barber (2015) consultant	A clearly written book about the approaches favoured by who became Tony Blair’s favourite "go-to" fixer. His optimism is a bit underwhelming
The Fourth Revolution – the global race to reinvent the state;	J Micklewaithe and A Woolridge (2015) journalists and Editors of no less a journal than The Economist	a breathless neoliberal analysis
The Tragedy of the Private – the potential of the public;	Hilary Wainwright (PSI 2014) activist	an important little pamphlet
Public Sector Reform – but not as we know it;	Hilary Wainwright (Unison and TNI 2009) activist	A rare readable case study (Newcastle) of a bottom-up approach to reform. We need much more of this....
Leadership for the Common Good;	Crosby and Bryson (2nd edition 2005) academics	Probably the most comprehensive of the practical guides to getting the public services working well. Clicking the title gives the entire 500 pages!
The Essential Public Manager;	Chris Pollitt (2003) political scientist	A great and very practical analysis of the political and technical aspects of the search for effective public services
The Values of Bureaucracy	Paul du Gay (2003)	“ Proceedings of an academic conference on du Gay's 2000 book which was a rare attempt to rescue aspects od this all-too-easilymaligned institution. Full book acessible by clicking the title

The Captive State – the corporate takeover of Britain;	George Monbiot” (2000) journalist	“A powerful critique of the nature and scale of corporate involvement in our public services which first alerted me to the nature of public-private partnerships
In Praise of Bureaucracy - weber, organisation, ethics;	Paul du Gay (2000) political scientist	It may be academic, but is clearly written and has become a classic defence of a much maligned institution. Well reviewed here
Change the World;	Robert Quinn (2000) management academic	Simply the best analysis of the process of social and organizational change
Creating Public Value – strategic management in government;	Mark Moore (1995) Harvard acacemic	One of the few books which actually looks at examples of effective leaders in the public sector. Started a wave of (in-house) discussion which led to what could be the third stage of public admin
Reinventing Government;	David Osborne consultant Ted Graeber, journalist (1992)	The book which started the New Public Management revolution

Administrative Reform

Gerard Caiden (1969)

.More specialist recommended reads

A Governance Practitioner’s Notebook – alternative ideas and approaches Whaites et al OECD 2015) a series of notes for the aspiring professional - delightful reading

Rethinking policy and politics – reflections on contemporary debates in policy studies ed C Ayres (2014) This looks a fascinating collection of contributions

Reinventing Organisations; Frederic Laloux (2014) a classic and radical view of organisations

People, Politics and Change - building communications strategy for governance reform (World Bank 2011) This and the 2008 book offer the greatest insights

Governance Reform under Real-World Conditions – citizens, stakeholders and Voice (World Bank 2008)

The 21st Century Public Servant; C Needham and Mangham (undated) Results of a British research project

The Blacksburg Manifesto and the postmodern debate about PA; Marshall and White (1990)

a useful insight into how things were seen in those days

Public service trade unions

The International Trade Union Confederation

European Trade Unions (ETUC)

https://publicservices.international/resources/publications

Public Services International

TUC (Trade Union Council) UK

Prevention is a no-brainer – so why doesn't it work?

Such is the policy question just posed on the comment on Freed blog by Sam, son of military historian Lawrence Freedman. 

Novels, we are told, operate with 7 basic plots – viz Overcoming the monster; Rags to riches; The quest; Voyage and return; Comedy; Tragedy;.and Rebirth.
This raises the interesting question of how many basic themes political leaders use for their slogans and political rhetoric. The last century would suggest the following-

• scapegoating and blaming outsiders

• taking back control

• our country the greatest

• power to the workers

• prevention is better than cure

Let's explore Freedman's post which looks at the difficulties the last policy slogan has encountered when it is attempted

A recent review of the health system by Patricia Hewitt, the former New Labour health 

minister, argues for a greater focus on preventative health. More money should be spent reducing 

the risks of illness in the first place. This would save the NHS time and money, while enabling

 people to lead healthier and happier lives.
As far as I’m aware absolutely no one disagrees with this. Some dispute the idea that it will 

save much money, as healthier people live longer and ultimately may require more healthcare 

over their lives, but no one disagrees with the basic principle that it’s better to prevent illness

 than manage its consequences.
This includes the government. The report was commissioned, and welcomed by, the Chancellor

 Jeremy Hunt. When he was health secretary his “long term plan” emphasised prevention. 

Every health and shadow health secretary pays lip service to the idea. There have been

 hundreds of reports over the years making the unarguable case. And yet since 2015/16 

the public health grant to local authorities – the main budget for preventative health - has fallen 

by 24% in real terms, even as overall healthcare spending has continued to rise. As a result

 spending in every key area of preventative health, except childhood obesity, has fallen

So despite everyone agreeing with the policy – including the person who was health secretary in 2015 and is Chancellor now – funding has been cut rather than increased. Hewitt, being an experienced policymaker, explicitly asks the “why will it be different this time” question in her report but her answers are unconvincing because she doesn’t acknowledge the fundmental reason why it keeps happening.

What explains the paradox? Why are the most widely supported things the least likely to happen? The simple answer is that if an idea is that obvious and not ideologically contested, and has featured over many years in reports and speeches, and still hasn’t happened, then the reason it’s not happening has nothing to do with support for the principle. Something else is acting as a barrier. More advocacy for the policy will not change this. As I tell the eager young think-tankers I meet, there’s no point writing another report making the case. The blockage needs to be identified and removed.
In my experience there are three core categories of barrier that prevent the obvious ideas happening: 

• spending rules; 

• misdiagnosis; and 

• fear of the electorate.

And, sure enough, the Demos Think Tank recently and obligingly sustained this argument by publishing a couple of pamphlets arguing, variously, for a “Social, relational or preventative State” with the latter arguing that

Public services are facing an unsustainable rising tide of demand. In response, politicians across the political spectrum are calling for a greater shift to prevention in public services. This is necessary: public services today are too reactive, intervening too late. To address this we need to move from transactional public services to relational public services.

Yet this essay argues that focusing on a new model for public services is necessary but insufficient, we need a state which is more expansive in how it sees the challenge of reforming public services. That’s because to truly reduce demand for public services in the long run, we need to not only prevent problems from arising, but create the conditions for flourishing and resilience within communities. Achieving this means investing in those foundational goods which create the social capital that enables us to lead better lives, without state intervention. Only then can a truly preventative state emerge.

To which, Freedman's response would undoubtedly be along the lines of

Just because something hasn’t worked, or has been blocked, in the past, it doesn’t 

mean it can’t work now. But it is important to understand the history and explain why 

it can be different this time.
The more of these discussions I have the more I have come to realise that there’s an

 odd paradox that applies to every policy area: the more obvious the idea, the less likely it is to happen. I don’t just mean obvious to me. There are plenty of policies that I personally – as a member of the dissolute liberal new elite – think are no brainers that are nevertheless hotly contested. No, these are ideas that everyone, bar perhaps a tiny ideological fringe, agree with, and that, at any of those panel events, will get a room full of appreciative nods, but nevertheless don’t happen.

This, of course, takes us back to the issue of public admin reform to whicih I will retung in another post