17Information, technology, and work
Proletarianism, precarity, piecework
The publication of Fritz Machlup’s The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States (1962), a novel exploration of the role of knowledge in the postwar American economy, marked a turning point in analyses of economic activity and employment. He demonstrated that the most knowledge-intensive sectors in the economy (he counted education, research and development, publishing and other media production, telecommunications, ‘conventions,’ information machines, professional services, and government) had contributed a surprisingly large and growing amount to the gross national product in the 1950s and employed a correspondingly ...
