Work We Need

'Brimming with ideas to transform the future, Hilary Cottam takes us on a fascinating journey to discover how to make work work' KATE RAWORTH, author of DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS'Cottam is the humane revolutionary our turbulent century needs - and this book our roadmap to a better future' JONATHAN FREEDLAND, author of THE ESCAPE ARTIST'An act of radical hope, radical listening and radical humility . . . I loved it' RORY STEWARTWork, for decades, has been debated and discussed as a narrow economic category. Instead, Hilary Cottam identifies work as a cultural force at the heart of good lives, strong communities and a sense of a shared national destiny. Crucially, in these dramatic times, she shows how we can shape this force to meet technological change, our ecological crisis and the challenges of the world's deep injustices. We can create a work revolution. Ambitious but rooted in the ideas of everyday experts - real workers from all walks of life - this is a realistic and hopeful book. Hilary Cottam has crossed the UK and the USA; she's spent time in communities considered by outsiders as 'left behind' and in places at the centre of financial and technological power. Drawing on a fascinating range of sources - historians, trade unionists, business leaders, philosophers and most originally, hours of her imaginative workshops with workers - Hilary Cottam boldly asks: how can we redesign work? Our challenges - political, social, economic and environmental - are tangled and growing. But so are the imaginative solutions. In this exciting, inspiring and optimistic book, Hilary shows us how we could work differently and live better. 'Twenty-first century people cannot give their best if tied down to twentieth-century patterns of work. Hilary Cottam provides the roadmap for the required transformation. Timely . . . guides the changes needed' CARLOTA PEREZ'Exposes what motivates workers today - not the things most business leaders think - and shows how new thinking would benefit us all. Compelling' MARTHA LANE FOX'Urgent, compelling and ultimately hopeful . . . Cottam demonstrates that a better future, based on reciprocity and mutual collaboration, is not only possible but its seeds are already here. Necessary and Inspiring' CAROLINE LUCAS, Green Party MP and author of ANOTHER ENGLAND