CONTENTS | AUTHOR BIO | SUBJECT CATEGORIES
An analysis of the debate surrounding the future of "waged work" and the growth of an informal economy
Beyond Employment
Time, Work, and the Informal Economy
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Claus Offe and Rolf G. Heinze, translated by Alan Braley
This book examines the debate surrounding the future of "waged work" and the growth of an informal economy. Through detailed research, Claus Offe and Rolf G. Heinze contend that the nature of waged work, or exchanging time for money, is being transformed. They argue that the experiences of recent decades and the persistent crisis of employment have demonstrated this transition despite the fact that "being employed" is held to be the normal psychological, social, and economic state of affairs. This is the first sustained analysis of the relationship between work and the "informal economy."
Focusing on the middle-ground between the two institutionalized sectors of employment—private households and the labor market—the authors explain how an informal economy has emerged within which goods and services are exchanged, not for money but for mutual assistance, cooperation, and payment in kind. They show how these non-monetary exchanges are becoming organized not only between friends, neighbors, relatives, or members of a club, but through larger scale, innovative systems which they call "cooperation circles." Offe and Heinze cite examples of exchange networks in Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, and Canada.
Contents
Foreword
1. Introduction
Part I: Household Needs and Systems for Meeting Them: Initial Assumptions and Trends
2. Time, Money and Types of Household: The Example of the Federal Republic of Germany
3. Value Problems and the 'Cooperation Circle'
Part II: Local Moneyless Exchange Systems in Historical and International Perspectives
4. 'Useful Activities': An Overview
5. Historical Excursus
6. Canada's 'Local Employment and Trading System'
7. The 'Service Credits' System in the United States
8. The Netherlands: A Case Study of the Exchange Economy
9. The Search for New Ways of Organizing Social Commitment in the Federal Republic of Germany
10. Functional Weaknesses of Moneyless Exchange Networks
Part III: Towards a Theory of Moneyless Exchange
11. Strategic Advantages of Money as a Medium of Exchange
12. Examples of Moneyless Transactions Outside the Informal Economy
13. Transactions in Exchange Networks: The Problems Reviewed
Part IV: The Cooperation Circle System
14. Proposals on the Practical Design of the Cooperation Circle System
15. Cooperation Circles and Social Reform
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author(s)
Claus Offe is Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Bremen.
Rolf G. Heinze is Professor of Sociology at the Ruhr-Universität, Bochum.
Subject Categories
In the series
Labor and Social Change, edited by Paula Rayman and Carmen Sirianni.
Labor and Social Change, edited by Paula Rayman and Carmen Sirianni, includes books on workplace issues like worker participation, quality of work life, shorter hours, technological change, and productivity, as well as union and community organizing and ethnographies of particular occupations.