Smart Machines and Service Work: Automation in an Age of Stagnation

In recent decades digital devices have reshaped daily life, while tech companies' stock prices have thrust them to the forefront of the business world. In this rapid, global development, the promise of a new machine age has been accompanied by worries about accelerated joblessness thanks to new forms of automation. Jason E. Smith explores the drivers of economic slowdown and expanding debt: low growth rates and an increase of labour-intensive jobs at the bottom of the service sector. He shows how increasing inequality and poor working conditions have led to new forms of worker struggle.