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The Third Wave Comes Ashore....Tsunami warning!?
Just listened to a PBS NewsHour interview with Steve Case, co-founder of AOL which focused on his new book entitled Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future, which sees a future where "everything is internet". Sound like a familiar title? Yes indeed, a book by the same title was written by futurist Alvin Toffler a few decades ago and took the world by storm (he also authored the mega hit Future Shock). You also might recall that Toffler's book gained new notariety and broad acceptance in Washington when Newt Gingrich touted it as the new bible of political and social change.
When Newt fell out of favor one might have assumed that the Third Wave's influence as a playbook in political circles might also have fallen from grace. But after listening to this latest interview with Steve Case (and his shameless plagiarism of Toffler's vision AND title ), many leaders seem to still be navigating the future using Toffler as a pole star. So perhaps it's time to review the direction this political/corporate voyage is taking us in. How do we feel about the future that is being conjured and politically reinforced on 'our' behalf?
Here is a link to the Steve Case interview a couple of days ago (video and transcript).
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/this-online-pioneer-sees-a-future-where-everything-is-internet/
And then ponder this article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, CREATING A NEW CIVILIZATION: THE POLITICS OF THE THIRD WAVE that reviews
Toffler's then current book,
It must be nice to be on Congress's must-read list.
Alvin and Heidi Toffler found themselves there after long-time friend Newt Gingrich
became Speaker of the House. Previously known for such futurist works
as Future Shock, Powershift, and The Third Wave, the Tofflers' latest
disquisition provides a bold revolutionary tract. Whether or not readers
accept the Tofflers' vision of the future, Creating a New Civilization
deserves examination, if for no other reason than to know what Congress
is using as mind-fodder these days.
In Creating a New Civilization, the Tofflers describe an inevitable
new world order, and how to survive and even profit from -- its
arrival. The Tofflers assert that history is trisected into three potentially
clashing civilizations. First Wave civilization emerged around 8,000
B.C. as a result oftbe agricultural revolution. Second Wave civilization
arose with the Industrial Revolution and introduced mass production,
consumption, education, media, corporations, political parties, and a new
family structure. A Third Wave is now arriving, bearing a civilization of
information that conflicts with its predecessors.
The central resource buoying the Third Wave is not land, labor, or
capital, but knowledge, which the Tofflers suggest includes everything
from data, inferences, and assumptions, to values, imagination, and
intuition. Third Wave nations create and exploit this knowledge by
marketing information, innovation, management, culture, advanced
technology, software, education, training, medical care, and financial
services to the world. De-massification characterizes the Third Wave;
once it has fully arrived, mass manufacturing, mass education, and mass
media will no longer exist (p. 31). Short runs of customized products,
smaller labor unions, collapsing industrial giants, and weakening TV
networks will replace these mass structures (pp. 28-31). The Toffiers
view this transition as manifesting itself in computer-driven manufacturing
technologies that allow cheap customization and product diversity,
thus reducing economies of scale. Computers allow miniaturization
which decreases warehousing and transportation costs, as well as just-intime
delivery programs that slash the costs of waiting inventory.
Although the transition from Second Wave brute-force economies
to Third Wave brain-force economies began in the 1950s and accelerated
in the early 1970s, the transformation remains far from complete (p. 3 I).
Meanwhile, the upheaval caused by the transition has had and will
continue to have profound effects on family life, education, employment,
and polities. Recognizing the inevitability of the Third Wave will allow
people to direct its course. The Toftlers note that "It]he globally
competitive race will be won by the countries that complete their Third
Wave transformation with the least amount of domestic dislocation and
unrest" CO. 34).
Due to the rise in "mind work" and the accompanying decline in
manual jobs (in Tofflerian terms, the shift from a proletariat to a
cognitariat (p. 55)), workers in the Third Wave's economy will become
less interchangeable. As a result, manual workers should prepare
themselves for jobs in the human service industry, in fields such as
elderly care, child care, health service, personal security, training
services, leisure and recreation services, and tourism. The Terriers
suggest raising the traditionally low wages for service-sector jobs by
increasing productivity and inventing new forms of work-force organization
and collective bargaining that are more supportive of work-at-home
programs, flex-time, and job-sharing.
In addressing the political impact of the Third Wave, the Tofflers
point out that the Second Wave-Third Wave schism has generated two
basic political camps (not to be confused with the Republican/Democrat
or liberal/conservative dichotomies). Those supporting Second Wave
civilization are "tenaciously dedicated to preserving the core institutions
of industrial mass society the nuclear family, the mass education
system, the giant corporation, the mass trade union, the centralized
nation-state and the politics of pseudorepresentative government" (p.
73). Second Wave elites, as well as middle-class and poor Americans,
resist the Third Wave because they fear being displaced by the new
order. Yet Third Wave proponents recognize that "today's most urgent
problems, from energy, war and poverty to ecological degradation and
the breakdown of familial relationships, can no longer be solved within
the framework of an industrial civilization" (p. 73).
The Tofflers also argue that the press focuses on conflicts among
Second Wave factions, while attention should be devoted to the struggle
between Second and Third Wave supporters. The authors note that
Second Wavers, when threatened, band together against Third Wave
interlopers -- witness Gary Hart's unsuccessful 1984 campaign for the
Democratic presidential nomination on a "new thinking," Third Wave
platform. This phenomenon explains other unlikely alliances such as the
one between Second Wave "Naderites" and "Buchananites" in opposition
to the North American Free Trade Agreement (p. 74).
The Tofflers claim that Republicans are better situated than
Democrats to benefit from the Third Wave, noting that "[f]rom Hart in
the '80s to Gore in the '90s, the [Democratic] party's core constituencies
make it impossible forthe Democratic Party to follow its most forward
thinking leaders" (p. 75). Republicans, meanwhile, are "less rooted in
the old industrial Northeast, and thus have an opportunity to position
themselves as the party of the Third Wave" (p. 75). The Tofflers believe
Republicans are "basically right" in supporting broad scale deregulation
and the privatization of government operations, and in relying on the
creativity made possible by market economies (p. 76).
However, the authors fault the GOP for three reasons: the failure of its free-market
economists to consider the new role of knowledge; its loyalty to
corporate dinosaurs; and its downplaying of the social dislocations likely
to accompany the Third Wave. While both parties need to avoid
nostalgic celebrations of America's industrial zenith, the Tofflers suggest
that since Republican "nostalgia pushers" exist on the fringes of the
party, Republican centrists, if"inclusive and open to change, [can] seize
the future -- lock, stock and barrel" (p. 77)
Alvin and Heidi Toffler found themselves there after long-time friend Newt Gingrich
became Speaker of the House. Previously known for such futurist works
as Future Shock, Powershift, and The Third Wave, the Tofflers' latest
disquisition provides a bold revolutionary tract. Whether or not readers
accept the Tofflers' vision of the future, Creating a New Civilization
deserves examination, if for no other reason than to know what Congress
is using as mind-fodder these days.
In Creating a New Civilization, the Tofflers describe an inevitable
new world order, and how to survive and even profit from -- its
arrival. The Tofflers assert that history is trisected into three potentially
clashing civilizations. First Wave civilization emerged around 8,000
B.C. as a result oftbe agricultural revolution. Second Wave civilization
arose with the Industrial Revolution and introduced mass production,
consumption, education, media, corporations, political parties, and a new
family structure. A Third Wave is now arriving, bearing a civilization of
information that conflicts with its predecessors.
The central resource buoying the Third Wave is not land, labor, or
capital, but knowledge, which the Tofflers suggest includes everything
from data, inferences, and assumptions, to values, imagination, and
intuition. Third Wave nations create and exploit this knowledge by
marketing information, innovation, management, culture, advanced
technology, software, education, training, medical care, and financial
services to the world. De-massification characterizes the Third Wave;
once it has fully arrived, mass manufacturing, mass education, and mass
media will no longer exist (p. 31). Short runs of customized products,
smaller labor unions, collapsing industrial giants, and weakening TV
networks will replace these mass structures (pp. 28-31). The Toffiers
view this transition as manifesting itself in computer-driven manufacturing
technologies that allow cheap customization and product diversity,
thus reducing economies of scale. Computers allow miniaturization
which decreases warehousing and transportation costs, as well as just-intime
delivery programs that slash the costs of waiting inventory.
Although the transition from Second Wave brute-force economies
to Third Wave brain-force economies began in the 1950s and accelerated
in the early 1970s, the transformation remains far from complete (p. 3 I).
Meanwhile, the upheaval caused by the transition has had and will
continue to have profound effects on family life, education, employment,
and polities. Recognizing the inevitability of the Third Wave will allow
people to direct its course. The Toftlers note that "It]he globally
competitive race will be won by the countries that complete their Third
Wave transformation with the least amount of domestic dislocation and
unrest" CO. 34).
Due to the rise in "mind work" and the accompanying decline in
manual jobs (in Tofflerian terms, the shift from a proletariat to a
cognitariat (p. 55)), workers in the Third Wave's economy will become
less interchangeable. As a result, manual workers should prepare
themselves for jobs in the human service industry, in fields such as
elderly care, child care, health service, personal security, training
services, leisure and recreation services, and tourism. The Terriers
suggest raising the traditionally low wages for service-sector jobs by
increasing productivity and inventing new forms of work-force organization
and collective bargaining that are more supportive of work-at-home
programs, flex-time, and job-sharing.
In addressing the political impact of the Third Wave, the Tofflers
point out that the Second Wave-Third Wave schism has generated two
basic political camps (not to be confused with the Republican/Democrat
or liberal/conservative dichotomies). Those supporting Second Wave
civilization are "tenaciously dedicated to preserving the core institutions
of industrial mass society the nuclear family, the mass education
system, the giant corporation, the mass trade union, the centralized
nation-state and the politics of pseudorepresentative government" (p.
73). Second Wave elites, as well as middle-class and poor Americans,
resist the Third Wave because they fear being displaced by the new
order. Yet Third Wave proponents recognize that "today's most urgent
problems, from energy, war and poverty to ecological degradation and
the breakdown of familial relationships, can no longer be solved within
the framework of an industrial civilization" (p. 73).
The Tofflers also argue that the press focuses on conflicts among
Second Wave factions, while attention should be devoted to the struggle
between Second and Third Wave supporters. The authors note that
Second Wavers, when threatened, band together against Third Wave
interlopers -- witness Gary Hart's unsuccessful 1984 campaign for the
Democratic presidential nomination on a "new thinking," Third Wave
platform. This phenomenon explains other unlikely alliances such as the
one between Second Wave "Naderites" and "Buchananites" in opposition
to the North American Free Trade Agreement (p. 74).
The Tofflers claim that Republicans are better situated than
Democrats to benefit from the Third Wave, noting that "[f]rom Hart in
the '80s to Gore in the '90s, the [Democratic] party's core constituencies
make it impossible forthe Democratic Party to follow its most forward
thinking leaders" (p. 75). Republicans, meanwhile, are "less rooted in
the old industrial Northeast, and thus have an opportunity to position
themselves as the party of the Third Wave" (p. 75). The Tofflers believe
Republicans are "basically right" in supporting broad scale deregulation
and the privatization of government operations, and in relying on the
creativity made possible by market economies (p. 76).
However, the authors fault the GOP for three reasons: the failure of its free-market
economists to consider the new role of knowledge; its loyalty to
corporate dinosaurs; and its downplaying of the social dislocations likely
to accompany the Third Wave. While both parties need to avoid
nostalgic celebrations of America's industrial zenith, the Tofflers suggest
that since Republican "nostalgia pushers" exist on the fringes of the
party, Republican centrists, if"inclusive and open to change, [can] seize
the future -- lock, stock and barrel" (p. 77)
MORE -
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v09/09HarvJLTech225.pdf
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