Arthur Cordell wrote,
>I recall reading the report of a US Commission (presidential or Senate?)
>looking at automation. Was it in the 50's? It seemed to come to the
>conclusion 'nothing to worry about.'
There were hearings of the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the
Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress in 1955 at which Diebold
testified on "Automation and Technological Change".
Jim Dator wrote,
>Yes, Tom, YES. That is what I was thinking about, and I would love to
>know more (maybe sending it privately if onthers on this list aren't
>intersted).
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce published a booklet in 1962 titled "A Shorter
Workweek?: an information manual on key questions." It contains a nine page
bibliography of material related to the shorter work week debate. The
citations are coded by categories so, for example, F. is "Employment,
Unemployment and Effects of Technological Change."
Since I don't have a scanner it would be impossible to send the bibliography
to the list, but I could photocopy it and mail it if you're doing primary
research on this. If you can get ahold of the Chamber of Commerce manual,
that's your best deal because it contains quite a collection of newspaper
clippings from the period.
Rifkin does cover the 1950s automation debates in _The End of Work_ and
you'd also find some discussion in _Our Own Time_ by Roediger & Foner. Let
me know if you want to mine the archives.
Regards,
Tom Walker
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Vancouver, B.C.
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The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
