The New Ruthless Economy

In the past 20 years the economy of the United States has gone through many drastic changes. There are economists who are argue that many of the changes we that have happened, have been for the good. However, Simon Head wrote “The New Ruthless Economy” with the intention of debunking certain theories about the booming economy, and directly opposing the idea that many changes in the workforce undergone in the past 20 years have been detrimental to the economy itself. The first main idea of the book is the correlation that is drawn between stagnant worker wages and the rise of information technology in the 1990s. A commonly held belief is that information technology is one of the major contributing factors to the “golden years” of the 1990s, but Head believes that while this simplified certain things and helped businesses grow, this left the worker in an uncomfortable position. The rise of information technology began to threaten many Americans job security as machines were being integrated into the workplace more and more, replacing the need for human labor altogether. The original cause of inequality in America was the increasing globalization of the manufacturing industry. Low wages from international workers drove factories out of the US, and many American struggled with losing work to foreign parties, thus damaging the economy. This was occurring while companies were developing the concepts of reengineering and enterprise resource planning (ERP). These new developments were designed to simplify and speed up specific business processes by integrating information technology into an organization. However, these concepts also relied on using old industrial assembly line techniques, or what we know as “Fordism” principles in order...

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...ults), in turn influencing work outcomes (job satisfaction, absenteeism, work motivation, and performance), (Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. 1976).” There must be something that managers are missing with the constant dissatisfaction of employees. I think exactly what Simon Head thinks about the workforce in that, principles need to be modified in order to stabilize it. However, I don’t believe the workforce has or ever will be stable. A large amount of unemployment is lack of motivation to pursue, or know-how for social interaction. We can only question any unethical practices and try our best to maintain a stable economy for our country. As long as we have happy workers, they’ll continue to go to work and work hard, go home and work hard, and spend the money they earn on their days off. Any concerns about the economy, cost of living, or unemployment will fade away.