Abstract
New technologies are emerging, including new ‘greener’ products, but also new production processes involving automation. This chapter looks at the need to rethink production in line with human values, needs and abilities, a ‘human-centred’ approach which differs fundamentally from the drive to automate-out skills and human involvement. It draws on the campaigns by workers in the UK in the 1970s for ‘socially useful work’, which were also linked to calls for changes in how production was organised. Their attempt to promote, and link up, alternative ‘products’ and ‘production’ may have failed, but the idea lives on. New views are emerging on the nature and value of work, the social purpose of production and the limits to consumption as a social end.
Due to space restrictions, this chapter focuses on manufacturing processes. Other areas of work are discussed in Parts III and VI of this volume.
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Tam Dougan provided useful insights and advice on some key aspects of this chapter.
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Elliott, D. (2021). Technology and the Future of Work: The Why, How and What of Production. In: Räthzel, N., Stevis, D., Uzzell, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Labour Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71909-8_36
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