Description:
<jats:p>This article addresses social dimensions and implications of the rise of the information, skill‐intensive economy based on self‐managing teams. The basis of the paper is an historical analysis of how “Taylorist” industrialization suppressed the self‐directing, team‐based labour process which had characterized pre‐industrial America, in the process inflicting deep long‐term economic and social costs even as it helped produced unprecedented prosperity. Extrapolating from the historical analysis, in the second section of the paper social trends are discussed which seem likely to emerge in the future with the establishment of an information‐ and skill‐intensive economic organization based on self‐managing teams.</jats:p>