Jobs: How people create their own (Beacon paperback ; 555)

Whether we've called it getting away from the rate race, or doing one's own thing, or confronting life's challenges 'my way'-for more than a generation now, millions of Americans have nourished and shared a dream of re-establishing that long-lost personal autonomy over the work they do to earn their livelihoods. For most, that hunger for a "little shop of my own" remained a fantasy until the last decade or so. But growing out of the counterculture of the 60s has been a surprisingly successful trend toward development of new enterprises which not only enable the participants to "own" their jobs, but also allow them to design the content of those jobs in personally satisfying ways. This book is a status report on the movement out of the traditional marketplace, and a pragmatic guide for the millions more who may wish to become part of that movement. William Ronco draws on specific case histories of a variety of self-employment situations in the crafts, the professions, and small business. From the cases themselves, as well as Ronco's interpretations of their significance, it becomes that this self-employment movement is encouraging innovations not only in our economic system, but also in our social structure. Ronco shows that the key to the gratification of so many find is not the mere ownership of one's job. It comes from control over the 'design' of that job. The need to structure individual assignments in large organizations in the simplest and most interchangeable way-to enable management to maintain control and coordination as the enterprise grows larger-has led to jobs designed for the gratification of the "system" rather than the gratification of the worker. 'Jobs: How People Create Their Own' is addressed to the disenchanted individual who seeks to escape from a demoralizing or dehumanizing job situation (or from the demoralization of unemployment), and to that entire new generation of students who are seeking ways to become economically self-sustaining.