The Experience Economy, With a New Preface by the Authors

10

Finding Your Role in the World

In The End of Work, a book decrying the loss of agricultural, manufacturing, and service jobs caused by technological innovation, author and professional pessimist Jeremy Rifkin rightly points out, “We are entering a new phase in world history—one in which fewer and fewer workers will be needed to produce the goods and services for the global population.”¹ Rifkin acknowledges that a “fourth” economic sector exists, which he calls the knowledge sector, but he doesn’t believe it will “absorb more than a fraction of the hundreds of millions who[se jobs] will be eliminated in the next several decades.”² Still, he confesses, “There is reason to be hopeful that a new vision based on transformation of consciousness ...