The subject of this paper is this rather peculiar ideological use of the phenomenon of automation asserting the imminent end of labour. In sections 2and 3 we will approach the history and the content of these conceptions. In the following section we will deal with some statistical evidence, which will help usto comprehend the actual effects of automation to employment and the labourforce. In this way we will be able, in the last section of our paper, to trace theeconomic, social and ideological realignments (and antagonisms) which have brought to the fore the ideology of the end of labour, bearing in mind that everytheory or would-be theory articulates and/or supports particular standpoints in an ongoing dispute for ideological domination in contemporary societies.
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