Shaping the Futures of Work: Proactive Governance and Millennials

The rise of digital technology, algorithms, and artificial intelligence is fueling a fourth industrial revolution, which appears to be generating a sense of both opportunity and fear in equal measure. In Shaping the Futures of Work: Proactive Governance and Millennials, Nilanjan Raghunath argues that changing technology has generated ‘‘societal flux,’’ which has complicated the incorporation of millennials into traditional social and economic structures. She uses the example of Singapore to explore how proactive governance can mitigate this societal flux, by working in collaboration with the population, businesses, and the education system to predict changes to the economy and help citizens ‘‘ride the waves of future trends,’’ potentially ameliorating the challenges technological change poses for the youngest generations. The book is framed around two overarching themes. First, Raghunath aims to explore how the creation of the flux society is affecting the millennial generation. She argues that flux means social capital is no longer enough, and millennials know they must also build their ‘‘skills-updating capital,’’ constantly working to improve themselves and their employability. This anxiety results in behaviors such as moving jobs frequently, which generates stereotypes of millennials’ work ethic and commitment that, Raghunath argues, are largely unfounded. Second, the book argues that the flux society and its impact on millennials and Gen Z demand a proactive governance, of which Singapore is presented as a useful archetype. Proactive governance is described as a process of anticipating the future and building the social, economic, and physical infrastructure to enable constant skills upgrading. Importantly, proactive governance in Singapore is just as much about the actual programs being implemented as their project of building a culture that promotes adaptation. Sociologists of automation, generations, and economic culture will find much to consider in this book. The exploration of automation is in debt to Mandel’s (1975) thinking on the subject as well as Beck’s (1992) notion of the risk society. Raghunath’s finding that automation produces anxiety that affects social behavior even among digital natives, such as millennials, presents interesting questions for how to shape work and the welfare state. Building on Mannheim’s ([1952] 2013) seminal conception of generations, the book presents a narrative of how older generations are struggling to incorporate millennials into firms. A central challenge is that millennials desire to find meaning in their work. Finally, the experience of Singapore with its unique cultural project of promoting deep multiculturalism and obsessive focus on meritocracy raises interesting Weberian ([1905] 2002) parallels to the protestant work ethic in thinking about how social culture affects economic outcomes. Although the issue of automation is discussed in detail, the book could have more deeply explored the theoretical issues of generations and the cultural-economic impacts of proactive governance. Following a preface and introduction, the book is essentially divided into two parts. The first part, composed of three chapters, presents the theory of flux, how flux affects millennials, and then the notion of proactive governance. The second part includes two chapters and a conclusion, which presents the book’s empirical findings through the example of Singapore’s model of proactive governance and then an account based on rich interview data of how this governance affects millennials in the country. The theoretical chapters present a lengthy consideration of the debates around automation, millennials at work, and the government response to these challenges. Chapter One presents the theory of the flux society that has been created by the fourth industrial revolution due to the rise of algorithms and AI. Flux necessitates workers constantly engaging in skills upgrading, which generates anxiety and fear. A model of the Reviews 475