Revolutionary Wealth
by Alvin Toffler, Heidi Toffler
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alvin Toffler, Heidi TofflerEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-04-25
ISBN: 0375401741
Number of pages: 512
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of Revolutionary Wealth
Book Review: "Powershift Redux"
Summary: 2 Stars
This book is really an update of "Powershift", the Tofflers 1990 work and the last of their now-famous trilogy. In my view, the whole "revolutionary" thing is over-hyped. Western Humanity has been in a revolutionary period for over a quarter millennium. So this current period of change is just another "chapter" in a long novel that is still evolving. A good subtitle for this book would be "How the high-tech, "intangible" business climate is forcing both corporations (and society at large) to re-shape their functions and re-examine their priorities." Even modern social trends owe their beginnings to technology - The Pill, the LP (rockn'roll), TV (images of Vietnam, among other things). But much of this stuff was covered 16 years ago in their book "Powershift", so I recommend starting there first......
A few more problems. First is the Tofflers survey-style writing approach. This really doesn't work, as the (many) trends and facts mentioned here could use a little more depth to better explain them. Besides, this method of writing gets dizzying after about the third chapter. We also don't need a "list" of every trend happening today. Much of the business trends - the author's strong point, are out of view to the average person. The next major problem is the almost no-mention of the service economy. Yes, it takes knowledge to build a computer system that's needed to support a business. But along with the development of the computer, the rise of the modern service economy is equally big news - it represents an entirely new mode of human life. A rent-car company was still unheard of when the Tofflers were writing their first book in the late 1960's. The authors also emphasize the word "knowledge" too much - it's the services, backed up by a high-tech support system that should be sharing the headlines. Their point about the volunteer work-economy is very good, however - this IS a big deal. Look at what we're doing on this website !!
The United States being a "laboratory" for social trends (as compared to the rest of the world) is a point they make but is "flat" wrong (pun - Friedman's book). It was Europe and/or New Zealand that started civil unions, stem cell reserch, liberal divorce laws, legalized abortion, medical marijuana etc, etc. They even freed the slaves before we did. America has always followed Europe - starting with Greek rationalism, then Roman-style government and continuing with today's contemporary social trends......
Lastly and most importantly, the Tofflers overlook the fact that despite the all-new way of doing things, we'll STILL be doing them. They mention "self check-out" at the grocery store (analogous to using an ATM machine) but we'll still be traveling to an external location to get our food (while still paying for it). They mention "social networking" fads that inflict today's youth but these youngsters will still have to meet the person they're talking to - if it's a serious conversation. Chatting with people you don't know over a computer network isn't NEARLY as revolutionary as what Gutenberg did for humanity a half a millenium ago, anyway. There will be new transportation fuels but we'll still HAVE fuels. There will be "auto-pilot" highways but we'll still HAVE highways (albeit with fewer accidents). On the job, we'll be working more on "teams" and on "projects" but we'll still be working !! As long as people in the Western World are working externally for someone else and still have to pay for things (some items never to own), I see no real "revolution" on the horizon.
No, I see this century as a "mass improvement" over the last, in terms of quality of life and treatment of the Earth. Everthing we have now - computers, medical care, pollution, television picture quality, cost (and quality) of food, transportation systems, "immoral" science procedures - whatever, will simply improve during this century. Because of technology, there's almost nothing we won't be able to do - take embryonic stem cells. To overcome the protesters, we'll have a myriad of ways to extract them, all of them will be "moral". We might be calling the 21st Century, once we're at the end of it, as The Great Improvement.....
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