This document discusses economic systems and the history of work. It outlines the Agricultural Revolution, Industrial Revolution, and Information Revolution. It then defines and provides examples of capitalism, socialism, and communism as economic systems. The document also mentions telecommuting and includes links to clips from TV shows Reno 911 and COPS to analyze mass media and popular culture depictions of work.

1. The Economy, Work and Working
Kaitlyn Audet

2. Agricultural Revolution
• The social and economic changes that followed
the domestication of plants and animals and the
gradual increase of efficiency in food production.

3. Industrial Revolution
• The rapid transformation of social life resulting
from the technological and economic
developments that began with the assembly line,
steam power, and urbanization.

4. Information Revolution
• The recent social revolution made possible by
the development of the microchip in the 1970s,
which brought about vast improvements in the
ability to manage information.

5. Economic Systems
• Capitalism- based on the laws of free market
competition, privatization of the means of production,
and production for profit, with an emphasis on supply
and demand as a means to set prices.
▫ Example: You discover that all the newspapers in your
neighborhood are left by the curb. You ask your neighbors if
they would be willing to pay you $2.00 per month to move
them to their front door each morning on your way to
school. You see a potential need and devise a way to fill it. If
your ideas are good you will prosper to the limit of your
imagination, if your ideas are poor you will not do very
well. Capitalism allows you the freedom to exercise your
ideas and prosper.

6. Socialism
• An economic system based on the collective
ownership of the means of production, collective
distribution of goods and services, and
government regulation of the economy.
▫ Example: A bakery pays all staff the same amount
of money based on the profitability of the
business. Workers vote to make business
decisions.

7. Communism
• A system of government that eliminates private
property; the most extreme form of socialism,
because all citizens work for the government and
there are no class distinctions.
▫ Example: China and North Korea

8. Telecommuting
• Working from home while staying connected to
the office through communication technology.
▫ 2013- 3.3 million people consider home their
primary place of work

9. Analyzing Mass Media and Popular Culture
• Clip from Reno 911
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW0UhYfs1
es
• Clip from COPS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4klBt-1DTo