10.7 New Avenues in Production, Transportation, and Marketing
207
out that the competitiveness of countries will depend on the sharing and reuse of
data.
21 This will be crucial, in particular, to avoid mass unemployment by creating
opportunities for small and medium-sized companies, and for self-employment, too.
10.8 Where Are We Heading? New Forms of Work
The digital economy will profoundly affect the world of work. In the past, longterm employment at one company was common (at least in large German companies
such as Daimler Benz, BMW, or Bosch). In the meantime, however, companies
increasingly opt to employ their staff on rolling, short-term contracts. A growing
percentage of the workforce already works on a temporary basis, and we will probably
see a further rise in short-term employment. Amazon Mechanical Turk, for instance,
enables companies to outsource certain tasks to a casually employed workforce,
where the “working relationship” between employer and employee often lasts for a
few minutes only!
22 In this way it is, for example, possible to translate a 1000-page
document within minutes, by splitting the task into 1000 subtasks, done by 1000
people.
Such short-term commitments may come at the cost of significant increases in
the stress levels of employees. In view of the growing insecurity and existential risk
created by these new forms of employment, an increasing number people advocate
the introduction of a basic income enabling everyone to survive, even though not very
comfortably.
23 This is a hotly debated topic: Why should people be entitled to get
an unconditional payment? Would the state be able to pay for it? Would people still
work hard, or would they get lazy? Probably, even if a basic salary were introduced,
our economy and society should continue to build on merit-based principles such
that most people would try to increase their incomes through paid work in order to
reach a higher quality of life.
21 Open Data in the G8: A Review of Progress on the G8 Open Data Charter, see http://www2.dat
ainnovation.org/2015-open-data-g8.pdf.
22 In some countries such as Great Britain, many people work on so-called “zero hour contracts”.
Besides Mechanical Turk, there are now a number of other platforms such as oDesk, guru, freelance,
Elance, online outsourcing, 99 designs, or crowd flower.
23 Some institutions have already calculated whether this would be affordable. If everyone
got an unconditional “minisalary”, a complicated and expensive social welfare system
would not be necessary. As a result, the overall public budget would not change significantly. See also Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Die Idee des Grundeinkommens – Ein
Weg zu mehr Beteiligungsgerechtigkeit?, http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_20403-544-1-30.pdf?
100831182341, http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/bedingungsloses-grundeinkommen-waswaere-wenn--1.1785811; Finland has recently decided to commit to a basic income,
see https://basicincome.org/news/2015/06/finland-new-government-commits-to-a-basic-incomeexperiment/. The Netherlands is currently making experiments: https://web.archive.org/web/
20150626120829/, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dutch-city-ofutrecht-to-exp
eriment-with-a-universal-unconditional-income-10345595.html.
207
out that the competitiveness of countries will depend on the sharing and reuse of
data.
21 This will be crucial, in particular, to avoid mass unemployment by creating
opportunities for small and medium-sized companies, and for self-employment, too.
10.8 Where Are We Heading? New Forms of Work
The digital economy will profoundly affect the world of work. In the past, longterm employment at one company was common (at least in large German companies
such as Daimler Benz, BMW, or Bosch). In the meantime, however, companies
increasingly opt to employ their staff on rolling, short-term contracts. A growing
percentage of the workforce already works on a temporary basis, and we will probably
see a further rise in short-term employment. Amazon Mechanical Turk, for instance,
enables companies to outsource certain tasks to a casually employed workforce,
where the “working relationship” between employer and employee often lasts for a
few minutes only!
22 In this way it is, for example, possible to translate a 1000-page
document within minutes, by splitting the task into 1000 subtasks, done by 1000
people.
Such short-term commitments may come at the cost of significant increases in
the stress levels of employees. In view of the growing insecurity and existential risk
created by these new forms of employment, an increasing number people advocate
the introduction of a basic income enabling everyone to survive, even though not very
comfortably.
23 This is a hotly debated topic: Why should people be entitled to get
an unconditional payment? Would the state be able to pay for it? Would people still
work hard, or would they get lazy? Probably, even if a basic salary were introduced,
our economy and society should continue to build on merit-based principles such
that most people would try to increase their incomes through paid work in order to
reach a higher quality of life.
21 Open Data in the G8: A Review of Progress on the G8 Open Data Charter, see http://www2.dat
ainnovation.org/2015-open-data-g8.pdf.
22 In some countries such as Great Britain, many people work on so-called “zero hour contracts”.
Besides Mechanical Turk, there are now a number of other platforms such as oDesk, guru, freelance,
Elance, online outsourcing, 99 designs, or crowd flower.
23 Some institutions have already calculated whether this would be affordable. If everyone
got an unconditional “minisalary”, a complicated and expensive social welfare system
would not be necessary. As a result, the overall public budget would not change significantly. See also Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Die Idee des Grundeinkommens – Ein
Weg zu mehr Beteiligungsgerechtigkeit?, http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_20403-544-1-30.pdf?
100831182341, http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/bedingungsloses-grundeinkommen-waswaere-wenn--1.1785811; Finland has recently decided to commit to a basic income,
see https://basicincome.org/news/2015/06/finland-new-government-commits-to-a-basic-incomeexperiment/. The Netherlands is currently making experiments: https://web.archive.org/web/
20150626120829/, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dutch-city-ofutrecht-to-exp
eriment-with-a-universal-unconditional-income-10345595.html.