Sleepers Wake! by Barry Jones (ISBN 0-19-553756-4) investigates the post-industrial revolution - the revolution that is happening now. I read the first (1982) edition, now I have the 1995 edition.
The text includes Jones Eight Laws of employment and technology:
1. Employment levels are culturally determined.
2.Technological innovation tends to reduce aggregate employment relative to market size and to increase employment at lower wage rates in other areas.
3. Employment absorption tends to be in inverse relation to economic efficiency.
4. In production on a massive scale, employment tends to be in inverse proportion to demand.
5. The economic viability of a technologically advanced society may depend on having an increasing number of consumers, despite the number of large producers reducing.
6. Rising levels of employment depend on increased demands for a diversity of services: simplicity of personal needs contributes to low levels of employment, and complexity to high levels.
7. The amount of time spent by generalists in making technically based decisions is in inverse proportion to the complexity of the subject matter.
8. Most technological discoveries have an equal capacity for the enhancement and degradation of life, depending on how they are used.
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