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Review:The Third Wave 62

Posted by Hemos from the alvin-speaks dept.
Probably a name familar to most of you, Alvin Toffler, authored the well-known book The Third Wave. This is a book that explores the emerging change in the world, called, (duh) The Third Wave. Thanks to joshy for sending this review our way.
The Third Wave
author Alvin Toffler
pages
publisher Bantam Books
rating 8
reviewer joshy
ISBN 0553246984
summary he Third Wave is an in-depth study of the forthcoming information economy and the rest of the civilization surrounding it. I can only recommend reading it if you plan to have a job or purchase anything in the next hundred years.

Overview

Alvin Toffler is an historian and futurist. In The Third Wave he presents an historical view of our two previous civilizations types, a look at the new Third Wave economy, and an analysis of the conflicts that arise between the warring forces of these three civilization types as change sweeps across the globe. Now sure, we've all read the endless Wired articles about the New Economy with it's virtuous circles, network effects, and general cyberiffic rosy view of the future, but this book is where it all came from. The truly amazing thing is that Toffler wrote the third wave almost 20 years ago, in an era before the World Wide Web, before the IBM PC, and before anyone knew that Vader was Luke's father. While some of the ideas never came to fruition, it remains an amazingly accurate picture of the future.

Structure

The book starts off with a lengthy description of First and Second Wave civilizations. A First Wave economy is agrarian society where everyone makes their own products for their own consumption and there is little or no trading between households. A Second Wave civilization is an industrial society. Rampant specialization and economies of scale have taken over as people form into larger and larger groups like corporations and nation-states. The key indicators of a Second Wave economy are standardization, specialization, and centralization. Almost no one creates products for themselves, but instead people spend most of their time working in a factory creating products to be sold to others. This split of producer and consumer is the primary sign of a Second Wave economy and, according to Toffler, one of the major reasons for strife and chaos in the modern world.

After covering the first two economies (with most of his time spent on the second) Alvin Toffler begins his description of a Third Wave economy, which America has already started to become. (This was true at the time of the writing. I'd say it's well underway now). The key tenets of a Third Wave economy are de-massification and de-centralization. Products will no longer be standardized in huge factories, but, using new manufacturing technology, will be customized in extremely small production runs; sometimes a single unit. Consumers will have a bigger part in the creation of the products they buy, turning the producers and consumers into 'prosumers'. All bureaucratic structures will be de-centralized. National governments will divest more power to regional governments and global organizations that deal with the problems of our new world wide economy. Corporate structures will also be de-massified, giving more power (and economic payoff) to people lower on the ladder.

The key to a Third Wave civilization is flexibility: people work when they want, where they want, and for whom they want. These are all traits found in technology startups and are becoming more common in traditional industries. Flextime, tele-commuting, and stock options all fit very nicely into this future. And they are all features we should look for in prospective companies.

What's Bad?

The Third Wave is an amazing book, but it's not without it's flaws. First of all, it's too long. Minus the ninety odd pages of index, notes, and bibliography, the book weighs in at a hefty 445 pages. That's not huge, but it's pretty big for a non-fiction, non-narrative book. The Third Wave is very in-depth and covers a lot of ground in detail, but a smaller book of one to two hundred pages would give the reader the basics without being so heavy on history and examples.

Secondly, as surprisingly current as the book is, it still is dated in some areas. He had big hopes for the space and undersea industries that haven't panned out. And even with as much time as he spent talking about the possibilities of computing, he was unable (understandably) to anticipate the true growth of the industry.

So What's In It For Me?

This is a good book that should be read by anyone planning on being a part of business in the Information Economy. We can see de-centralization and de-massification all around us, and it's growing in power. Slashdot, MP3s, tele-commuting, block grants, indie-films, non-nuclear families are all signs of the coming 21st century civilization. The Third Wave may be a little out of date and a little too optimistic, but it's still the closest thing we have to a history of the last fifty years and a roadmap of the next hundred.

To purchase this book, head over Amazon.

Table of Contents

  1. A Collision of Waves
    1. Super-Struggle
  2. The Second Wave
    1. The Architecture of Civilization
    2. The Invisible Wedge
    3. Breaking the Code
    4. The Technicians of Power
    5. The Hidden Blueprint
    6. A Frenzy of Nations
    7. The Imperial Drive
    8. Indust-Reality
    9. CODA: The Flash Flood
  3. The Third Wave
    1. The New Synthesis
    2. The Commanding Heights
    3. De-Massifying the Media
    4. The Intelligent Environment
    5. Beyond Mass Production
    6. The Electronic Cottage
    7. Families of The Future
    8. The Corporate Identity Crisis
    9. Decoding the New Rules
    10. The Rise of the Prosumer
    11. The Mental Maelstrom
    12. The Crack-Up of the Nation
    13. Gandhi with Satellites
    14. CODA: The Great Confluence
  4. Conclusion
    1. The New Psycho-Sphere
    2. The Personality of the Future
    3. The Political Mausoleum
    4. Twenty-First Century Democracy
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
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Review:The Third Wave More

Review:The Third Wave

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  • Review of the Iliad: (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Although it was written almost 3000 years ago, it's a really cool book. It's got lots of fighting and screwing and gods and demi-gods and stuff. I think the prediction that "Trojan Horses" will be a threat to computers was really forward looking. Basically, though, it's a rip-off of "Gilgamesh" which was written at Palo-Alto Research Center in Sumeria.

  • Re:A comment in the present (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The fact that millions of people consider themselves Scottish or Welsh as opposed to British simply indicates the successful exploitation of latent primordial identities by interested political parties. Needless to say, these identities can be rather randomly chosen among the countless ones characterizing every person as belonging to some group. They might've very well pushed Edinburgh as the defining commonality. Hence 'imaginary.'

    AC

  • Insightful? BS... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I read this book 20 years ago, on the recommendation of a friend. I continue to think that his "insights" are not as profound and pervasive as claimed.

    What immediately occurred to me was the nonsense of small scale manufacturing alone. What is the dominant scale of the larger enterprises? As a US citizen, it's clear that it's no longer just "nationwide" that companies aspire to, and occasionally become. It's now multinationals that stretch beyond the legal systems that nations have established over the years. There are many other examples: the spread of fast-food (e.g. McDonalds) over the whole planet); and even the development of Linux, which has taken inspiration from the minds of individuals in many countries [hey, I didn't say it was *all* bad]. I just think that Toffler's view of the future wasn't terribly insightful, at least in comparison with other thinkers of that book's time. In contrast, there are a number of books that you can think of that have had a much bigger impact on peoples' thinking, for a much longer time-span. Toffler is no better than your average science fiction writer.

  • Re:A comment in the present (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why do you think Wales and Scotland's national identities are imaginary? Surely the fact that millions of people consider themselves to have a Welsh or Scottish nationality means that they have one. By definition, a national identity is what people consider themselves to be.

    If you are saying that the idea of an ethnic identity is imaginary, that is wrong too. Welsh and Scottish are more ethnically different as, say, the Serbs and the Albanians.

  • Re:A comment in the present (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 14, 1999 @08:04AM (#1892280)
    Yow. I'm gonna go home, put on Neil Young and Pink Floyd, and contemplate suicide. Yikes.

    Unfortunately, I agree with the tone of your post.

    I don't agree with all of your presumptions, let alone all of your conclusions, though. For instance, there hasn't been a breakdown of "national identity," because there's been little national identity at all. Almost all of these ethnic confilicts have been festering in the populace for many years. This whole Kosovo thing is a direct result of re-drawn political lines in post-WWII Europe, driven by the US and its insane egoism. Scotland (and Ireland) have always maintained their own distinct ethnic identity.

    The collapse of industrialism is not a direct condemnation of capitalism (as intrinsically evil as capitalism is), but rather a direct result of the collapse of industrialism itself. In the '70s, the US underwent some traumatic changes in the automotive industry. Even now, there are many under-employed ex-auto workers, but it isn't nearly the crisis it was 20 years ago. A lot of this is temporary, if scary, just as the collapse of the cotten plantations due to the industrial revolution led to the US Civil War. The crisis is over, even if we still bear the scars.

    The quality of life is going up in general, all over the world. (I'm disregarding warring nations, because in war, there is no quality of life. However, the wars fought today are smaller and less bloody, if more frequent.) This biggest slowdown in the increase in quality-of-life is the wealth-hoarding of the major corporations. (Wealth-hoarding and empire-building (which contributes to wealth-hoarding) are the two biggest flaws of unfettered capitalism, IMHO.) A corrallary: anyone who contributes to a corporation that practices wealth-hoarding or empire-building is stealing from the quality-of-life of someone. In a generic sense.

    Personal accountability is more important than political accountability. Politicians should be personally accountable for every decision made, and every life lost due to those decisions. And everyone should be personally accountable for every decision they make. At least, if you ask me. (Which you didn't.)

    Decadence? Perhaps. Are we in for a crash in a few years? Perhaps. But our world is expanding, and our only hope is to work for our beliefs-- no matter what those beliefs are. If you dislike what you see in the world, work to change it, to the best of your abilities. Help out a single person in a nightmare position. Do what you can to make the world the world you want, and not the world you were given.

    Anyway, just a long ramble. I'm working on a counteragent to your depression and cynicism, no matter how well-founded your cynicism is.

    At least, that's my opinion. I could be wrong.
  • The Fourth Turning, by Strauss and Howe, explains how generations drive cycles in history and what this means for the present and future.

    I don't know whether The Third Wave understands that a lot of what we're currently seeing has analogies in previous cycles of history. The whirling dervish of culture and society of the 90s echoes what was happening in the 20s. The scary aspect is that the next cycle is, inevitably, a "crisis" cycle in which society is likely to change quickly and enormously. According to Strauss and Howe, this should happen in the middle of the next decade.

  • The master author of "1945" himself. Wow!

    Seriously, I can't think of Toffler without thinking about Newt Gingrich. And to be honest, I hate the former speaker. I think when Gingrich left office, he had a popularity "rating" of 18% or so. So, did Gingrich misunderstand Toffler? Is Toffler a "right-wing" nut? Can Toffler redeem himself?
  • He was the driving force in getting House bills and proceedings on the Internet in a timely enough fashion so that the people could actually keep tabs on what their congresscritters were actually doing (assuming one had the time and inclination to do so). He also voted for the Communications Decency Act...
  • and wrong on many others...
  • "The master author of "1945" himself. Wow! [...]
    Seriously, I can't think of Toffler without thinking about Newt Gingrich."

    The first 2/3 of "1945" wasn't bad. Not up to what Harry Turtledove and Steve Sterling could have done, but reasonable for a first effort.

    The last third was unbelievably bad. A few interesting ideas spun to utterly extreme and totally unworkable conclusions.

    Not too much different from the Newtster's career in the House, if you think about it. And not too different from what happens to most futurists, either, although very few have as much power in their hands as Newt did.

    I think the key is that even the most successful/perceptive futurists need to keep a sense of proportion and also a sense of humour about their own work. IMHO that's where Newt fell apart - he started to believe too deeply in too many of his own ideas, and lost his sense of what is ridiculous.

    Of couse, Toffler has never actually been in a position of social power, so even if he makes the same mistake he can't do as much damage as a Speaker of the US House.

    My 0.02 (discounted to 1980).

    sPh
  • Alvin and Heidi Toffler, "Creating A New Civilization: Politics of the Third Wave". It summarizes the main points of the larger tome, and is 112 pages long and published first in 1994.

    Plus, it has a forward by Newt Gingrich hisself ... who can pass THAT up?
  • name me a famous congressman who wouldn't
  • this has nothing to do with newt. Besides, ideas aren't decided by popularity polls. Anyone think RMS will be the next president? If he lost (and I'm sure he would) does that mean we should throw out the gpl? come on
  • Can we now look forward to a review of Around the World in 80 Days? Or I, Robot?

  • It's easy and fun! Fool your friends! Win the lottery over and over again!

    First, you must accept the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

    Now that you accept the fact that every quantum action splits the universe into a vast number of alternate universes, the rest is simple.

    1. Randomly select your lottery numbers using a quantum process. 2. If numbers do not win, destroy universe. Implementation of step 2 is left as an exercise for the reader.

    Blatently stolen from the Jargon File [tuxedo.org] .

  • I was not aware that anyone had written a review of this before. When was it? I don't recall seeing one by anyone since I've started reading /. (a little over a year).

    - joshy

  • Re:Newt (Score:1)

    by joshy ( 9772 )
    A friend of mine talked to him about the CDA and Microsoft once. He thought that the CDA would be declared unconstitutional and that MS is part of a larger issue to early to decide on now.
  • Toffler says that the Third Wave is not communism or traditional capitalism.

    Under capitalisim today the means of production are not owned by a small elite. Most companies are owned by stockholders, and most stockholders are large scale investors like mutual funds and retirement accounts. However the people who run the company are the CEOs and upper managment. They are in this odd position where they neither work to create a product, consume the product, or own the company. This has created many problems in modern corporations.

    Under communism all of the people own the companies and make a standardized product for everyone to use. This isn't any better than before.

    What we need are small companies with self-interest who are owned by the employees. Then all of the companies compete with eachother to make the best product for a diverse set of markets.

    one to many is okay
    many to one is okay
    many to many is much better.

    - joshy
  • I agree completely.

    And just had to say it.

    Alejo.
  • Because the only reason I can come up with why slashdot would post as a news item a review of a book this ancient is to profit on the amazon hits.

    -Peter

  • Please Comrade, what did poor old KM do to deserve that. Nice to see him mentioned in a non-GNU context though.
  • I try to avoid essentialising nationality, simply because it is an empirical fact that all humans are almost entirely the same. Any two Scotsmen would be less alike than the 'average' Welsh and Scot.

    But nationality identity has provided a potent way of uniting a country, think how much the British empire depended on a cohesive notion of Britishness. Now the British empire committed some terrible crimes but national identity can function in a positive way, for example the USA, when it is based on progressive principals. Scottish and Welsh nationalism on the other hand is distinguished by being opposed to English 'oppression'. I can see very little good coming from it.
  • I disagree, US national identity was based on a shared ethos, it had its downside of course, but it wasn't based on opposition to another country.
    One can emigrant to the US and become an American citzen for example.

    I meant that the differences between two humans (from any ethnic group) are more than the differences between the averages of any particular ethnic group.
  • Well listen to an SNP member, what is the need
    for a separate Scottish state if not to escape
    English 'oppression'.

  • A comment in the present (Score:3)

    by RedGuard ( 16401 ) on Friday May 14, 1999 @07:15AM (#1892301)
    As with all books of prediction, this is really a comment on the present. The dominant trend of the past decades has been a declining industrial base in the advanced countries (second wave, or capitalist as they are usually called), now rather than seeing this as a failure of capitalism (which it certainly is), the theorists of the new economy redefine unemployment as flexibility, low paged, irregular work as service jobs, the breakdown in national identity and cohesion in favour of largely imaginary "ethnic" identities (for example Scotland and Wales) as decentralisation. When the author predicts that goods will be designed almost for each person this is clearly a fantasy, out of reach of all but the richest, the modern trend being noted here is twofold, first towards definitions of identity based mainly on consumption and secondly towards a shift of responsibility onto the individual. If we are 'prosummers' then we have no need or desire to put complain about our circumstances, join political parties or trade unions, in short social life is completely privatised. This is not a utopia, except for those who are benefiting from a lack of political accountability, but a nightmare. Decadence is the only way to describe it.
    It should also be noted that the computer industries growth has chiefly come from consolidation, it is only the fantasy world of the US stockmarket that makes it appear otherwise.

    --
    Yours, depressingly
  • Say what you want about Gingrich (and as a
    conservative/libertarian, *I* can say a lot of
    bad things), he at least had a reasonably good
    grasp of the importance of technology and
    information (certainly compared to most of the
    morons in DC).

    He was the driving force in getting House bills
    and proceedings on the Internet in a timely
    enough fashion so that the people could actually
    keep tabs on what their congresscritters were
    actually doing (assuming one had the time and
    inclination to do so).

    I also caught some of his course on American
    history and the Constitution -- he's really a
    pretty bright guy, even if you don't agree with
    him (which, of course, includes almost eveybody).
  • Y'all can have fun in your little world.
    See y'all on the other side :-)

    (Humming the refrain from Once in a Lifetime,
    "Same as it ever was..."), I'm...

    Saint Stephen

    P.S. Check out THX-1187 (or is it 1137) for a perfect description of "The World of Today"
  • actually, the republicans still hold both sides. Newt left because of a lack of an increase in results.
  • yeah i'm inclined to agree. ol' newty boy was pretty detestable but less so than most southern republican politicians (well okay thats not much of a standard...) seemed to at least have a _clue_ that half of what he was saying was bullshit, as opposed to most who seem to actually believe that they are righteous, and not just puppets for people with real power.
  • Toffler is management-guff. If you like the subject, try one of the serious books on it; Castells' _The Rise of the Network Society_, for instance.
  • I'd say the same, that the whole item was really engineered to lead up to the "buy it at Amazon" link at the bottom. But with a musty old book like "The Third Wave" you can go into any used bookstore and pick up a copy for a few bucks.
  • I haven't yet read The Third Wave, but I did read Future Shock, which covers how the individual deals with the changing society around him/her.
    It was written about the same time as The Third Wave, and from the above review, they tie into it in several key places.

    It even quantifies how people are changing, such as the number of words a mordern person is exposed to everyday versus their grandparents.

    Very interesting book, and very insightful.
  • No, actually, I don't think they're too old now. They may be slightly out of date as far as specific predictions, but otherwise contain perfectly valid insights.
  • Get your heads out of the encyclopedias and into the real world. Read a little history while you're at it.

    Communism is extreme socialism for control of power which represents that culture's medium of value for intellectual and emotional reasons. Note I don't subscribe to too many theories on cultural identity that discuss much beyond coincindence. Two people can have culture as I see it.

    Protectionism is extreme capitalism for control of money which represents that culture's medium of value for intellectual and emotional reasons.

    You want a real picture?
    Two erasable marker clipboards:
    One for social class and one for education in the ways of the world, that is, training to be a VB slave is not an education.

    In blue magic marker stands the current distribution of information. In black magic marker stands the need for information. In green magic marker we have the desire for information. In red magic marker we have the ability to use information.

    Our patented VersaFlip Clipboard Animator would show socialism and capitalism were around for a fleeting moment (a few years) before bleating sheep allowed the clowns to get away with murder.
    One last note:
    Everything from Open Source to religion to has been called a communist plot. The fact of the matter is the Cold War or what some refer to as Communism was just that the Cold War, a vague but self-justified self-perpetuating paranoia. We got out as the Greeks would say when the Gods began to pity mankind or rather everyone was sick and tired of it. It went from Communism to Nationalism to Militarism to Totalitarianism back and forth as electrons do when we're not watching them. That's just it. We weren't watching them. All we saw was the propaganda. No real hard evidence for anything that was going on was available.

    But who gives a crap? Feudalism, "Protectionism", Communism. It's all the same to me. Hierarchism is hierarchism is hierarchism regardless whether it is in fields of gold wheat, a meat packing plant, or a cubicle. Heck, early Egyptian cultures were socialist. Nothing new. Nothing to see folks. Move along.

    The future is the past and the past is the future or some shit like that. It's all a matter of abuse.


  • Just had to say it.
  • Your translation is incorrect. -nme
  • Where 'supply and demand' are the determining factors, there the
    egoistic type of value is the only one that can come into reckon
    ing. The 'market' relationship must be superseded by associations
    regulating the exchange and production of goods by an intelligent
    observation of human needs. Such associations can replace mere
    supply and demand by contracts and negotiations between groups of
    producers and consumers, and between different groups of
    producers...

    Work done in confidence of the return achievements of others
    constitutes the giving of *credit* in social life. As there was
    once a transition from barter to the money system, so there has
    recently been a progressive transformation to a basis of credit.
    Life makes it necessary today for one man to work with means
    entrusted to him by another, or by a community, having confidence
    in his power to achieve a result. But under the capitalistic
    method the credit system involves a complete loss of the real and
    satisfying human relationship of a man to the conditions of his
    life and work. Credit is given when there is prospect of an
    increase of capital that seems to justify it; and work is always
    done subject to the view that the confidence or credit received
    will have to appear justified in the capitalistic sense. And what
    is the result? Human beings are subjected to the power of
    dealings in capital which take place in a sphere of finance
    remote from life. And the moment they become fully conscious of
    this fact, they feel it to be unworthy of their humanity...

    A healthy system of giving credit presupposes a social structure
    which enables economic values to be estimated by their relation
    to the satisfaction of men's bodily and spiritual needs. Men's
    economic dealings will take their form from this. Production will
    be considered from the point of view of needs, no longer by an
    abstract scale of capital and wages.

    Economic life in a threefold society is built up by the
    cooperation of *associations* arising out of the needs of
    producers and the interests of consumers. In their mutual
    dealings, impulses from the spiritual sphere and sphere of rights
    will play a decisive part. These associations will not be bound
    to a purely capitalistic standpoint, for one association will be
    in direct mutual dealings with another, and thus the one-sided
    interests of one branch of production will be regulated and
    balanced by those of the other. The responsibility for the giving
    and taking of credit will thus devolve to the associations. This
    will not impair the scope and activity of individuals with
    special faculties; on the contrary, only this method will give
    individual faculties full scope: the individual is responsible to
    his association for achieving the best possible results. The
    association is responsible to other associations for using these
    individual achievements to good purpose. The individual's desire
    for gain will no longer be imposing production on the life of the
    community; production will be regulated by the needs of the
    community...

    All kinds of dealings are possible between the new associations
    and old forms of business--there is no question of the old having
    to be destroyed and replaced by the new. The new simply takes its
    place and will have to justify itself and prove its inherent
    power, while the old will dwindle away... The essential thing is
    that the threefold idea will stimulate a real social intelligence
    in the men and women of the community. The individual will in a
    very definite sense be contributing to the achievements of the
    whole community... The individual faculties of men, working in
    harmony with the human relationships founded in the sphere of
    rights, and with the production, circulation and consumption that
    are regulated by the economic associations, will result in the
    greatest possible efficiency. Increase of capital, and a proper
    adjustment of work and return for work, will appear as a final
    consequence...

    Exerpted from:
    http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Steiner-S ocial.html

  • I don't think an SNP member has ever said that, and even if s/he did, it would be irrelevant. There a very big sense of nationalism in the Celtic countries, and to say it is only because of a reaction to imagined English oppresion is wrong. I'm not sure how to take this any further except to say that I disagree with you; if you don't actually live in Wales or Scotland, I claim that my opinion is more informed.

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