Book Review: Powershift by Alvin Tofler

John Berge

1991

Published in:

The Northwest Technocrat, 1st quarter 1991, No. 322

A new book Powershift, by Alvin Tofler, follows two other books by the same author: Future Shock and The Third Wave. Tofler has the reputation of being a pretty fair reporter of the current social scene, and his book will be read by many who seek understanding and fail to find it.

Tofler draws a fairly accurate picture of some changes. He sees that our society has changed from a "smokestack economy" to what he describes as one composed of a mosaic of more flexible means of production, from monolithic producers to smaller, more decentralized production establishments. The impetus behind this change, as he sees it, derives from the improvements in communication. Then he jumps from his observations to the conclusion that what we are evoloving toward is an economy where all the components of our adversarial relationships affect some sort of coalition, a refinement of democracy.

He leaves us there, still with questions unanswered concerning physical problems that threaten us. Many people will read his book looking for answers to the growing problem of people like themselves who are trending toward becoming "outsiders", people with no place in North America except a dim future, perhaps a cardboard box to live in, with no credit card and with no effect on the course of events. They need to know that there is a way out. They need to know that a system is in place that can deal with the problems that they see as getting more threatening.

Tofler is a good example of the lengths intelligent people will go to in trying to rationalize what they see around them, but we all do it. Our brains work automatically to give us an understanding of our environment so that we can deal with it. We have heard the story of the blind men feeling an elephant and describing what an elephant must be like. The one touching the elephant's leg said an elephant is like a tree; the others reported that an elephant is like a -- snake or a wall, or somesuch. At any rate, the lesson is that more facts were needed, especially, since the men were blind, they needed to conduct a more complete examination.

But sometimes humans can look, with good eyes and brains, directly at a thing and think they see something else. The fallibility of witnesses in court cases is coming to be better understood, as are visions that are the product of fervent wishing. However, here we have a different kind of blindness to describe -- call it "mind- set", or "being locked in a concept." Stubborness or bullheadedness won't describe it, nor will stupidity or perfidy. Perhaps, entertaining well intentioned, sincere but mistaken notions would be better.

The news is full of people crying out for "democracy" when they are starving. They need food and better social organization, not an empty-of-substance myth like "democracy." There is no proper substitute for correct information; people should know that there is no democracy anywhere -- nor can there be. The word is part of the lexicon of political idealogy and is taken to mean release from oppression, from the constraint of politics. And the constraint of politics is just what results from trying to practice what cannot be!

What Tofler apparently cannot see is that the steady growth and refinement of technology is leading toward a crisis, a crisis of choice between the foolish fumbling of political method and the institution of a techique of selecting excellence in leadership. Call it Technocracy if you will; the principle is well understood wherever physical concerns are dealt with successfully.

How can Tofler, or anyone else, sincerely believe that this society, rapidly becoming more complex and more technical, will be lucky enough to escape certain disaster if continuing with politicians directing what they cannot understand? But he does this. He concludes that political institutions must face radical change, but to what? A better grade of idiocy?

The essence of Technocracy is cooperation. The mechanics of how North Americans can be organized take advantage of this aspect of human nature is described in Technocracy's literature. Tofler would have been better advised to have first studied the subject more thoroughly instead of recommending adventures in further foolishness.