THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, a sociological critique

172pp., colour illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2021

Contributions include:

"The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Myth or reality?" by Trevor Ngwane and Malehoko Tshoaedi

"Why does the Davos World Economic Forum proclaim the second phase of a post-1970s Third Capitalist Industrial Revolution as the '4IR'?" by David Cooper

"The new 'Arcadia'? Racial capitalism, technological histories and the 'utopian' future of labour" by Bridget Kenny

"Fourth Industrial Revolution challenges to labour: COSATU's perspective" by Zingiswa Losi.

Trevor Ngwane is a senior lecturer of Sociology and the Director of the Centre for Sociological Research and Practice at the University of Johannesburg. He is the author of Amakomiti: grassroots democracy in South African shack settlements (2021), and co-editor (with Immanuel Ness and Luke Sinwell) of Urban Revolt: state power and the rise of people’s movements in the Global South (2017). He is the current president of the South African Sociological Association.

Malehoko Tshoaedi is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg.  She is co-editor (with Andries Bezuidenhout) of Labour Beyond Cosatu: mapping the rupture in South Africa’s labour landscape (2017) and (with Sakhela Buhlungu) of COSATU’s Contested Legacy: South African trade unions in the second decade of democracy (2012).