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Shifts in the Social Contract
Understanding Change in American Society
- Beth Rubin - University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA
September 1995 | 224 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
Examining the changes in society in the United States, Beth Rubin explains how the current era differs fundamentally from the post-World War Two period; how and why that change has occured; and what its meaning is to everyday life. She traces the changes from a domestic to a global economy, the transformation of the workplace, and the impact that these changes have had on how other people are experiencing social aspects of their lives: their families and interpersonal relations, their communities and their experience of the culture of mass society.
PART ONE: SOCIAL CHANGE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Society in Transition
The American Dream
End of a Century, End of an Era
Implications
PART TWO: FROM INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY TO FLEXIBLE ECONOMY
The Labor-Capital Accord
The Breakdown of the Accord
The Emerging Economy
Conclusions
PART THREE: WORK IN THE FLEXIBLE ECONOMY
Labor Market Segmentation
Work in the Accord Years
Work in the Post-Accord Years
The Challenge to Education
Conclusions
PART FOUR: FLEXIBLE FAMILIES
From Pre-Industrial Families to Modern Families
Accord-Era Families
Forming Flexible Families
Conclusions
PART FIVE: THE CHANGING ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
Levels of Government Involvement
The Uninvolved State
The Involved State
The Distracted State
Conclusions
PART SIX: CULTURE IN A CHANGING WORLD
Culture
Forces of Cultural Change
Globalization and Cultural Change
Conclusions
PART SEVEN: TRANSITION TO THE FUTURE
The Decline of the Postwar Social Contract, Revisited
A New Era of Flexibility
Possible Worlds
Conclusions
