The Division of Labor and Leisure in Modern Society [microform] : A New Form of Solidarity / Phillip Bosserman

The paper suggests that new values created by modern forms of leisure have intersected with critical changes in the work structure to form a new social pattern. The new pattern emerges from a crisis in industrial societies. Factors which have created this crisis include the rupture of the time frames of society (how work and non-work are allocated); changes in the division of labor (the decline of technical labor due to automation); scientific and technological changes; aesthetic-ethical mutations (new values evolving from people's use of and increasing desire for leisure); and major changes in the world's economy. The end result is a new social solidarity called corporate communalism. It is characterized by a scaling down of size, a recovery of community, an appreciation of tradition, and a new form of differentiated labor in which individuals diversify. However, one must be aware of two currents which run counter to these new patterns: the power of the marketplace, particularly advertising, and the ideology of progress which is closely related to growth and size. The author concludes that sociologists should study the contours of the new solidarity as a potential scientific research program. (Author/KC)