Taylor & Francis Inc Double Shift: Transforming Work in Postsocialist and Postindustrial Societies

The wealth of a nation, as Adam Smith understood, depends on the productivity of labor. This fact challenges all actors in today's increasingly competitive, knowledge-intensive world economy. To varying degrees, all are experiencing profound changes in industrial structure and the organization of work.Restructuring on this scale is inevitably a lengthy, painful, and socially disruptive process. How daunting, then, is the challenge facing the postsocialist societies as they attempt to make a double shift - to the market system and to postindustrialism - in one great transformation. They have no road map, nor even a clear destination. Each postsocialist society faces the question not only how to make the transition to a market economy, but what kind of market economy to construct.This question animates the present book, which takes as its focus the labor dimension of the double shift. The Russian and American contributors - all labor experts - examine the peculiar features of the Russian transition and offer thoughtful perspectives on a desirable outcome. They move beyond the simple equation of free markets with efficiency to consider the role of such values as cooperation, participation, perceptions of fairness, and social protection in enhancing both labor productivity and, ultimately, the wealth of a nation. Autorid: Bertram Silverman, Robert Vogt, Murray Yanowitch