Dodkin's Job
Dodkin's Job is a dystopian science fiction novella by Jack Vance, written in 1959. It is on the theme of the organization theory of human society, which Vance depicts as a complex, interconnected machine. When society is a well-ordered system, all of the human parts interconnect well and the society will function well. However, in the story, a depressed man working for a huge corporation refuses to cooperate when the firm launches an efficiency initiative. The story combines the dystopian themes with satirical humour.

The novella first appeared in "Astounding Science Fiction", and later it was added to the Jerry Pournelle-edited anthology "The Survival of Freedom". The story starts with a quote from Leslie Penton's "First Principles of Organization", which argues that when humans are converted into "cogs" in an organization, they lose an important part of their freedom.
Q24925
science fiction
Concept
Q149537
novella
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Q312632
Jack Vance
PER
Q149584
organization theory
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Q42345
Astounding Science Fiction
MEDIA
Q578031
Jerry Pournelle
PER
None
The Survival of Freedom
UNK
Q97359259
Dodkin's Job
ORG
1959-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1959
DATE
author
genre