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Social analysts Alvin and Heidi Toffler turn their attention to the revolution in wealth now sweeping the planet. This book is about how tomorrow's wealth will be created, and who will get it and how. But 21st-century wealth, they argue, is not just about money, and cannot be understood in terms of industrial-age economics. They write about everything from education and child rearing to Hollywood and China, from everyday truth and misconceptions to what they call our "third job"--The unnoticed work we do without pay for some of the biggest corporations. In earlier work, they coined the word "prosumer" for people who consume what they themselves produce. Here they expand the concept to reveal how many of our activities--parenting, volunteering, blogging, painting our house, improving our diet, organizing a neighborhood council--pump "free lunch" from the "hidden" non-money economy into the money economy that economists track.
712 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
117 people are currently reading
1507 people want to read
About the author
Alvin Toffler
55 books694 followersAlvin Eugene Toffler was an American writer, futurist, and businessman known for his works discussing modern technologies, including the digital revolution and the communication revolution, with emphasis on their effects on cultures worldwide. He is regarded as one of the world's outstanding futurists.
Toffler was an associate editor of Fortune magazine. In his early works he focused on technology and its impact, which he termed "information overload". In 1970, his first major book about the future, Future Shock, became a worldwide best-seller and has sold over 6 million copies.
He and his wife Heidi Toffler (1929–2019), who collaborated with him for most of his writings, moved on to examining the reaction to changes in society with another best-selling book, The Third Wave, in 1980. In it, he foresaw such technological advances as cloning, personal computers, the Internet, cable television and mobile communication. His later focus, via their other best-seller, Powershift, (1990), was on the increasing power of 21st-century military hardware and the proliferation of new technologies.
He founded Toffler Associates, a management consulting company, and was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, visiting professor at Cornell University, faculty member of the New School for Social Research, a White House correspondent, and a business consultant. Toffler's ideas and writings were a significant influence on the thinking of business and government leaders worldwide, including China's Zhao Ziyang, and AOL founder Steve Case.
Toffler was an associate editor of Fortune magazine. In his early works he focused on technology and its impact, which he termed "information overload". In 1970, his first major book about the future, Future Shock, became a worldwide best-seller and has sold over 6 million copies.
He and his wife Heidi Toffler (1929–2019), who collaborated with him for most of his writings, moved on to examining the reaction to changes in society with another best-selling book, The Third Wave, in 1980. In it, he foresaw such technological advances as cloning, personal computers, the Internet, cable television and mobile communication. His later focus, via their other best-seller, Powershift, (1990), was on the increasing power of 21st-century military hardware and the proliferation of new technologies.
He founded Toffler Associates, a management consulting company, and was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, visiting professor at Cornell University, faculty member of the New School for Social Research, a White House correspondent, and a business consultant. Toffler's ideas and writings were a significant influence on the thinking of business and government leaders worldwide, including China's Zhao Ziyang, and AOL founder Steve Case.
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May 12, 2017
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October 27, 2018
The whole book in summary: Things are rapidly changing, and all change is good. It's an exciting time to be alive. The future is going to be better and more impressive than anything we've ever seen.
The book did a good job assembling its facts but does a poor job remaining objective. It is very clear in its opinion that people who choose to farm for a living are "backward."
This book seems the complete opposite of the book I read right before it (Too Much Magic). This book is very optimistic about the future and praises all the scientific advancements of today and tomorrow. I found the optimism to be depressing because I don't think all this new technology is a good thing. Why are scientists wasting their time, energy, and money on things like exploring the inner workings of a grain of rice when there are much more important problems to solve in our society that don't require expensive technology? We have poverty, shootings, wars, corruption, poor education, drugs, teen pregnancy, pollution, an increasingly chronically sick population, extreme income inequality, fossil fuels running out, a Texas-sized garbage patch in the middle of the ocean, epidemics of obesity, autism, diabetes, etc. Instead of inventing fancy new unnecessary junk, we should be trying to solve the problems of our world that should be even easier to solve.
The book also acts like the wonderful "third wave" of wealth (service economy, developed countries, computerized) is the fate of every country as each country continues to develop and become more westernized. Farming was the first wave, and industrialism was the second wave. But the "developed countries" cannot survive without some other country farming their food and manufacturing their products. In order to keep our selfish third wave way of life, other countries have to remain undeveloped (and poor) to feed our endless consumerism.
Example of this biased optimism about the future: A family eating together used to be the norm. That was so rigid and prisonlike. Nowadays "schedules are so individualized." Cleveland, Ohio used to be a great center for industry. Now it's a pile of urban blight. But let's get excited about all the manufacturing happening in China! Let's not think about the probable possibility that it could meet the same fate as Cleveland! China used to be filled with "extreme peasant misery"! Now it's so much better! Now it's filled with factory worker misery!
At least the peasants could eat what they grew. Whether on a farm or in a factory, they're still poor. Factory work is worse because you don't own the fruit of your labor. You're working for someone else on someone else's terms, and you don't even get to keep what you make. Factory work may pay more, but that doesn't make it better.
China is guilty of many humans rights abuses, and still we trade with them. Why? FOR CHEAP LABOR AND EASY PROFIT!
The book criticizes people who glorify pre-industrial villages--"conveniently forgetting the lack of privacy, the sexism, and the narrow-minded local tyrants and bigots so often found in real villages." Modern American society is STILL filled with sexism, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness! Many say our president is a tyrant. And is privacy really so much better here? There are cameras everywhere, and the Internet makes people's private lives public for the whole world to see! How about leaving distant villages alone and let them manage their own affairs? The only reason developed nations like ours want to "globalize" is to exploit more cheap labor and natural resources from their land. It is NEVER about improving their lives.
The book calls the economy we're in now a "knowledge" economy, I suppose just because of the Internet. Seems to ignore the fact that the Internet is usually not used for gathering information, but for stupid stuff like sharing personal photos and looking at porn and exchanging pointless text messages. The book says 56% of the work force in America now performs work that is "managerial, financial, sales-related, clerical or professional." That's a pretty broad category. The authors want us to think this is a great thing, but it's really not. I'm willing to bet that the largest chunk of that 56% are sales-related, meaning restaurant waiters and store cashiers. And those kind of jobs require sooo much more knowledge than factory work or farming? NOPE! The majority of workers are in low paid jobs that don't require much knowledge at all. IQ is dropping.
The book seems to also think it's a good thing if some gadget can store all information and memories for a person so that "pupils will need to memorize nothing," because that could be great for Alzheimer's patients. Yeah, but what about all the younger people who are supposed to go to school to learn things?! It is NOT progress to encourage humans to get DUMBER just because one genius invented some machine to think for them!
The book discounts philosophical wisdom from Aristotle and Plato, just because they believed in unrelated incorrect "facts" of their day. Just because a person was incorrect about something doesn't mean that everything that person ever said or thought was wrong and worthless.
The book is about revolutionary wealth--knowledge. The only kind of knowledge I see making people rich is the knowledge to manipulate others to believe lies. Such as: your government and corporations have your best interest at heart. When the reality is all they care about is money. Knowledge is worthless in today's world unless it generates money. Geniuses are not rewarded for their intelligence unless they invent some product to profit off of. No one cares about the knowledge of the inner workings of a grain of rice--unless that knowledge can get you thousands of dollars when you sell it. So this "revolutionary wealth" is no different than any wealth of the past. In the past, people sold their food, then they sold their factory created things. The people of the future will still be buying food and junk, so someone will still get getting rich off that, while poor people do all the hard work.
The authors imply that all science is good because it increases wealth. So let's forget if it results in tortured animals and poor health. Like it is so terrible for science to be "paralyzed." It is unwise to continue to seek knowledge for knowledge's sake. At what point will humanity ever be satisfied with our way of life? We should be trying to improve our existing lives with good health instead of seeking to prolong it with organ transplants and such. Science may one day find how to live forever, but the more important question is, should we? No, we shouldnt, when there are so many problems in society that can't be solved with technology. Technology is getting smarter, but people are getting dumber. We don't need science to solve income inequality; we just need common sense. Exploring a grain of rice is not helping society. GMO foods are not helping society.
Science is corrupt. It only gets funding if big profits are on the horizon. Data is manipulated. Unsafe things are put on the market without sufficient testing. People blindly trust science as if its the very same thing as an authority figure or consensus knowledge. Science has become a religion, a tool of the rich to persuade the public to buy what they're selling.
The authors think GMO food is going to solve poverty. Ha! As long as people have to BUY their food, there will always be poor people. There is no lack of food. There is lack of MONEY. GMO food has health risks. They are never tested in longterm studies. GMO food is invented so farmers can spray more poisons on the crops. Those poisons kill pollinators and harm humans as well. People would be better off being farmers. They may make no money but at least they would be fed by their produce! Not much use for money when you can live off the land. But oh no , the rich cats can't allow that. They want everyone to be a slave to the money, working for a boss, to enrich the ones at the top. Give a man a fish (food), and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish (grow food) and you feed him for a lifetime.
The book thinks its so great that scientists are going to put vitamins and vaccines into food to prevent things like vitamin a deficency and diarrehea. How about just improving sanitation and the cleanliness of wherever they get their water? Don't need fancy franken-foods to solve health issues. Just clean the area and make sure there's access to clean water and food. But I guess this solution is not considered because it doesn't make anyone any money!
The book is wrong about society becoming more individualized. As long as the majority of kids attend public school, most people will turn out the same. Not every kid may come from a nuclear family, but they will probably come from a liberal materialistic/consumerist family, or a republican Christian materialist/consumerist family. Doesn't matter if they're liberals or republicans, because they're all materialist/consumerist.
De-massification is a good idea, however it's not realistic for it to happen with our population being as high as it is and only continuing to increase, not decrease. The authors talk like there's going to be so much individualization in the future, which is pretty funny since it's just an illusion of choice. You basically have a choice between Coke or Pepsi. Just a few companies own everything.
The "revolutionary wealth" is the actions people take without pay (prosumption). The book says prosumption will somehow generate a bunch of real wealth (money). Like self-help products. While they can make someone money, they will never be encouraged by government, because the health care industry wants people to continue seeing regular doctors, who require insurance, so that doctors and insurance companies can keep making money. Self-sufficiency doesn't make people much money, so society will never encourage it. Sometimes people get lucky and their hobby can be sold for real money. But once it gets sold for real money, it is no longer prosumption but producing. And most people's hobbies do NOT result in money being made off them. Prosumption is not a new phenomenon. As long as humans have existed, they have created things or done things without pay. When societies began using money, people then started selling their prosumption and it became producing.
The authors say that capitalism is dying just because people share bought stuff for free. But this act is illegal because the capitalist society doesn't allow it. That doesn't mean capitalism is dying. The item still cost someone money. The authors seem to think that capitalism dying would be great because it's a change, and all change is good. But there is no wealth without capitalism. I doubt the authors would be happy if all the hard work they put into this long book got them no money in return. The authors later say, "the number and variety of buyable items available for purchase around the world is astronomical and growing every minute." That right there is proof that capitalism is not dying at all.
The book says that outsourcing has a positive effect because the foreign "well-paid" workers use their wages to buy American brand stuff. That helps U.S. COMPANIES, not U.S. Workers. So outsourcing is only good for the companies, not American workers. This book seems to assume that its readers are CEOs. No wonder it has such a positive outlook. The future only looks bright for those who are already rich.
The book did a good job assembling its facts but does a poor job remaining objective. It is very clear in its opinion that people who choose to farm for a living are "backward."
This book seems the complete opposite of the book I read right before it (Too Much Magic). This book is very optimistic about the future and praises all the scientific advancements of today and tomorrow. I found the optimism to be depressing because I don't think all this new technology is a good thing. Why are scientists wasting their time, energy, and money on things like exploring the inner workings of a grain of rice when there are much more important problems to solve in our society that don't require expensive technology? We have poverty, shootings, wars, corruption, poor education, drugs, teen pregnancy, pollution, an increasingly chronically sick population, extreme income inequality, fossil fuels running out, a Texas-sized garbage patch in the middle of the ocean, epidemics of obesity, autism, diabetes, etc. Instead of inventing fancy new unnecessary junk, we should be trying to solve the problems of our world that should be even easier to solve.
The book also acts like the wonderful "third wave" of wealth (service economy, developed countries, computerized) is the fate of every country as each country continues to develop and become more westernized. Farming was the first wave, and industrialism was the second wave. But the "developed countries" cannot survive without some other country farming their food and manufacturing their products. In order to keep our selfish third wave way of life, other countries have to remain undeveloped (and poor) to feed our endless consumerism.
Example of this biased optimism about the future: A family eating together used to be the norm. That was so rigid and prisonlike. Nowadays "schedules are so individualized." Cleveland, Ohio used to be a great center for industry. Now it's a pile of urban blight. But let's get excited about all the manufacturing happening in China! Let's not think about the probable possibility that it could meet the same fate as Cleveland! China used to be filled with "extreme peasant misery"! Now it's so much better! Now it's filled with factory worker misery!
At least the peasants could eat what they grew. Whether on a farm or in a factory, they're still poor. Factory work is worse because you don't own the fruit of your labor. You're working for someone else on someone else's terms, and you don't even get to keep what you make. Factory work may pay more, but that doesn't make it better.
China is guilty of many humans rights abuses, and still we trade with them. Why? FOR CHEAP LABOR AND EASY PROFIT!
The book criticizes people who glorify pre-industrial villages--"conveniently forgetting the lack of privacy, the sexism, and the narrow-minded local tyrants and bigots so often found in real villages." Modern American society is STILL filled with sexism, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness! Many say our president is a tyrant. And is privacy really so much better here? There are cameras everywhere, and the Internet makes people's private lives public for the whole world to see! How about leaving distant villages alone and let them manage their own affairs? The only reason developed nations like ours want to "globalize" is to exploit more cheap labor and natural resources from their land. It is NEVER about improving their lives.
The book calls the economy we're in now a "knowledge" economy, I suppose just because of the Internet. Seems to ignore the fact that the Internet is usually not used for gathering information, but for stupid stuff like sharing personal photos and looking at porn and exchanging pointless text messages. The book says 56% of the work force in America now performs work that is "managerial, financial, sales-related, clerical or professional." That's a pretty broad category. The authors want us to think this is a great thing, but it's really not. I'm willing to bet that the largest chunk of that 56% are sales-related, meaning restaurant waiters and store cashiers. And those kind of jobs require sooo much more knowledge than factory work or farming? NOPE! The majority of workers are in low paid jobs that don't require much knowledge at all. IQ is dropping.
The book seems to also think it's a good thing if some gadget can store all information and memories for a person so that "pupils will need to memorize nothing," because that could be great for Alzheimer's patients. Yeah, but what about all the younger people who are supposed to go to school to learn things?! It is NOT progress to encourage humans to get DUMBER just because one genius invented some machine to think for them!
The book discounts philosophical wisdom from Aristotle and Plato, just because they believed in unrelated incorrect "facts" of their day. Just because a person was incorrect about something doesn't mean that everything that person ever said or thought was wrong and worthless.
The book is about revolutionary wealth--knowledge. The only kind of knowledge I see making people rich is the knowledge to manipulate others to believe lies. Such as: your government and corporations have your best interest at heart. When the reality is all they care about is money. Knowledge is worthless in today's world unless it generates money. Geniuses are not rewarded for their intelligence unless they invent some product to profit off of. No one cares about the knowledge of the inner workings of a grain of rice--unless that knowledge can get you thousands of dollars when you sell it. So this "revolutionary wealth" is no different than any wealth of the past. In the past, people sold their food, then they sold their factory created things. The people of the future will still be buying food and junk, so someone will still get getting rich off that, while poor people do all the hard work.
The authors imply that all science is good because it increases wealth. So let's forget if it results in tortured animals and poor health. Like it is so terrible for science to be "paralyzed." It is unwise to continue to seek knowledge for knowledge's sake. At what point will humanity ever be satisfied with our way of life? We should be trying to improve our existing lives with good health instead of seeking to prolong it with organ transplants and such. Science may one day find how to live forever, but the more important question is, should we? No, we shouldnt, when there are so many problems in society that can't be solved with technology. Technology is getting smarter, but people are getting dumber. We don't need science to solve income inequality; we just need common sense. Exploring a grain of rice is not helping society. GMO foods are not helping society.
Science is corrupt. It only gets funding if big profits are on the horizon. Data is manipulated. Unsafe things are put on the market without sufficient testing. People blindly trust science as if its the very same thing as an authority figure or consensus knowledge. Science has become a religion, a tool of the rich to persuade the public to buy what they're selling.
The authors think GMO food is going to solve poverty. Ha! As long as people have to BUY their food, there will always be poor people. There is no lack of food. There is lack of MONEY. GMO food has health risks. They are never tested in longterm studies. GMO food is invented so farmers can spray more poisons on the crops. Those poisons kill pollinators and harm humans as well. People would be better off being farmers. They may make no money but at least they would be fed by their produce! Not much use for money when you can live off the land. But oh no , the rich cats can't allow that. They want everyone to be a slave to the money, working for a boss, to enrich the ones at the top. Give a man a fish (food), and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish (grow food) and you feed him for a lifetime.
The book thinks its so great that scientists are going to put vitamins and vaccines into food to prevent things like vitamin a deficency and diarrehea. How about just improving sanitation and the cleanliness of wherever they get their water? Don't need fancy franken-foods to solve health issues. Just clean the area and make sure there's access to clean water and food. But I guess this solution is not considered because it doesn't make anyone any money!
The book is wrong about society becoming more individualized. As long as the majority of kids attend public school, most people will turn out the same. Not every kid may come from a nuclear family, but they will probably come from a liberal materialistic/consumerist family, or a republican Christian materialist/consumerist family. Doesn't matter if they're liberals or republicans, because they're all materialist/consumerist.
De-massification is a good idea, however it's not realistic for it to happen with our population being as high as it is and only continuing to increase, not decrease. The authors talk like there's going to be so much individualization in the future, which is pretty funny since it's just an illusion of choice. You basically have a choice between Coke or Pepsi. Just a few companies own everything.
The "revolutionary wealth" is the actions people take without pay (prosumption). The book says prosumption will somehow generate a bunch of real wealth (money). Like self-help products. While they can make someone money, they will never be encouraged by government, because the health care industry wants people to continue seeing regular doctors, who require insurance, so that doctors and insurance companies can keep making money. Self-sufficiency doesn't make people much money, so society will never encourage it. Sometimes people get lucky and their hobby can be sold for real money. But once it gets sold for real money, it is no longer prosumption but producing. And most people's hobbies do NOT result in money being made off them. Prosumption is not a new phenomenon. As long as humans have existed, they have created things or done things without pay. When societies began using money, people then started selling their prosumption and it became producing.
The authors say that capitalism is dying just because people share bought stuff for free. But this act is illegal because the capitalist society doesn't allow it. That doesn't mean capitalism is dying. The item still cost someone money. The authors seem to think that capitalism dying would be great because it's a change, and all change is good. But there is no wealth without capitalism. I doubt the authors would be happy if all the hard work they put into this long book got them no money in return. The authors later say, "the number and variety of buyable items available for purchase around the world is astronomical and growing every minute." That right there is proof that capitalism is not dying at all.
The book says that outsourcing has a positive effect because the foreign "well-paid" workers use their wages to buy American brand stuff. That helps U.S. COMPANIES, not U.S. Workers. So outsourcing is only good for the companies, not American workers. This book seems to assume that its readers are CEOs. No wonder it has such a positive outlook. The future only looks bright for those who are already rich.
April 3, 2016
I was a huge fan of the Toffler’s “The Third Wave”, which came out when I was in high school. Given its timing and its message, it was one of the books that set the direction of my education and career, and one of the few I’ve read multiple times. Now I read their “Revolutionary Wealth” thinking, or hoping, that this would describe wealth generation as we move farther into the third wave – the information economy. The Tofflers write like they always do, short chapters with leading questions going into the next. But in this case, I found a lot repetitive, both within the book and compared to their earlier books. This was written ten years ago, and “The Third Wave” about 30 years ago. I put myself into my 2006 mind and think about what is presented and I think it’s all reflecting what “The Third Wave” said or implied about the future. I didn’t really get any great new insights into the future with this one. I was also a bit disappointed with the content given the title. I expected more specifics on wealth creation, but I didn’t get it. OK for a Toffler junkie, good for a review of “The Third Wave” concepts, but not necessary reading.
August 30, 2011
Astonishing. Can anyone tell you about the future? Maybe Alvin Toffler, the author, can do. we have begun the knowledge-based era as versus to industrial era which, the later, was based entirely on materials. the new era has different terms when it speaks of wealth. how the [NEW] wealth is created and distributed and how it will affect our life is what you will find in this amazing book.
Highly Recommended.
Highly Recommended.
April 2, 2007
The Plow, the Assembly Line, the Computer
These are the three waves we have seen so far and the latter will change everything.
If you liked Future Shock, The Third Wave, Powershift, War and Anti-war, you will like this.
Do not read this book if you are stuck in the industial age of rival goods. It will only make you mad. If you believe that anything based on a factory model will fail and that everything we know will become some form of information, you will love this book.
These are the three waves we have seen so far and the latter will change everything.
If you liked Future Shock, The Third Wave, Powershift, War and Anti-war, you will like this.
Do not read this book if you are stuck in the industial age of rival goods. It will only make you mad. If you believe that anything based on a factory model will fail and that everything we know will become some form of information, you will love this book.
July 15, 2018
A book that really opens your eyes to how the relation of money with time and effort has changed and how to be prepared for a world which is increasingly moving at a faster pace
June 6, 2022
I remember being blown away as an undergraduate in the 1970s by popular sociological and futurist books on socio-technological challenges about the future such as Alvin Toffler's Future Shock (1970) and The Third Wave, (1980), David Riesmann (The Lonely Crowd, 1950), Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders (1957), The Status Seekers(19 59) and The Waste Makers(1960), Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), Marshall MacLuhan (The Medium is the Massage, 1967), the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth (1972), Herman Kahn and Anthony J. Wiener's The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years. Dizzy and heady stuff indeed!
Years later I read the Toffler's Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Centur (1990) and War and AntiWar (1993). For me, the spell spun by Future Shock still persisted into the first book but fizzled out for me in the second book. I was quite disappointed by Revolutionary Wealth(2006), when I read it in 2022 -perhaps the problem was reading it so long after it had been published. It strikes me as a book written at breakneck speed, firing off scattershot tidbits of striking, under-researched news, uneven, shallow and embarassingly market and. Techno-optimist. Very little analysis or view of the forest, occluded by unevenly and unsteadily planted treelets and hype:
Logic is not always a strong point of the book and it is frequently lost in the froth of excitement about the new and wonderful opportunities that the authors feel could come about. For example, the Tofflers are scathing about present-day education in the US, and are over-optimistically excited about new media's educational potential:
Some of the Tofflers throw-away comments are startling spot on, others are downright silly, or wrong on so many levels:
If you are willing to suspend disbelief and have factoids and snippets of snappy ideas flood over you, you will probebly love this book. If you hope to make more sense of what is going on, you can buckle down and start trying to reengineer the structure of this book, cross out the obsolete, incorrect ideas and the hype filter out the interesting and vauable insights. Be warned though, this salvage attempt will take (considerable) time and effort.
Years later I read the Toffler's Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Centur (1990) and War and AntiWar (1993). For me, the spell spun by Future Shock still persisted into the first book but fizzled out for me in the second book. I was quite disappointed by Revolutionary Wealth(2006), when I read it in 2022 -perhaps the problem was reading it so long after it had been published. It strikes me as a book written at breakneck speed, firing off scattershot tidbits of striking, under-researched news, uneven, shallow and embarassingly market and. Techno-optimist. Very little analysis or view of the forest, occluded by unevenly and unsteadily planted treelets and hype:
A new way of life based on revolutionary wealth is still taking form in America -plug-in/plug-out jobs, glitter and hype, speed, commercialism, 24/7 entertainment, speed, cleaner air, dirtier television, rotten schools, speed, a broken health service and longer life, speed again, perfect landings on Mars, information overload, surplus complexity, reduced racism [sic], hyper-diets and hyper-kids[...]One might be forgiven for acerbically thinking that it is a mad inventor's lab, the experiments aren't thought about, planned, created or reviewed, they are simply tried out ...and to be brutally honest, some of “stupid, even cruel extremes” have not been rejected.
It might help to think about America not simply as the world's most powerful nation-state, which is it currently is, but as the world's greatest social and economic laboratory [...] It is the main place where new ideas and new ways o life are eagerly tried -and sometimes pushed to stupid, even cruel extremes- before they are rejected, Experiment are under way in this lab not merely with technologies but with culture and the arts, sexual patterns, family structure, fashion, diets and sports, strat-up religions and brand-new business models.
Logic is not always a strong point of the book and it is frequently lost in the froth of excitement about the new and wonderful opportunities that the authors feel could come about. For example, the Tofflers are scathing about present-day education in the US, and are over-optimistically excited about new media's educational potential:
Young people have always educated -and miseducated themselves. Today, however they do with the dubious help of the new media. Games and cell phones are hidden behind open textbooks. Text messages fly back and forth even as the teacher drones on.Note how the final sentence undermines the second sentence's “dubious help pf the new media”assertion. So, are children to be left free to rove the contradctory thickets of news, games, sound-bytes, fake news and predators of the cyberuniverse? Is that the Tofflers solution to the education problem? Or consider the following concluding, supposedly cheerful, remark:
It is as though while teachers incacerate kind in classrooms, their ears, eyes and minds escape to rove the cyberuniverse. From a very young age, they are aware that no teacher and no school can make available even the tiniest fraction of the data, information, knowledge -and fun- available online. They know that in one universe they are prisoners. In the other, free.
Having generated more new data, information and knowledge than all our ancestors combined, we have organized it differently, distributed it differently and combined and recombined it in new and more transient patterns. We have also created new cyberworlds in which ideas, magnificent and terrifying alike, bounce off one another like trillions of intelligent Ping-Pong balls.What does this metaphor of ideas as trillions “Ping-Pong”balls bouncing against each other, supposed to mean?
Some of the Tofflers throw-away comments are startling spot on, others are downright silly, or wrong on so many levels:
As sex ratios change in many countries, with male babies outnumbering baby girls -120:100 in China, for example- the shortage of women is likely to promote male homosexuality, leading writer Mark Steyn ask, tongue in cheek, whether China is “planning on becoming the first gay superpower since Sparta”.The authors are also blinded by their ideas on the importance of “prosumers” to the point of stating:
Prosuming could even, ultimately, transform the ways in which we deal with problems such as unemployment [...} The reasonable [textbook] assumption was that if a million workers were out of jobs, the creation a million jobs woud solve the problem.This is breathtaking, even offensive, blindness to the very real problems of unemployment, subemployment and the worst abuses of the gig economy, on the level of Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake" supposed rejoinder to the starving crowds demand for bread during the French Revolution.
In the knowledge-intensive economy, however, that assumption is false. First, the United States and other countries no longer even know how many unemployed there are, or what that term means when so many people combine their “job”with self-employment and/or create unpaid value by prosuming [...] The problem of unemployment thus becomes qualitative rather than merely quatitative [...] The largely overlooked reality is that eveb the unemployed are employed. They are as busy as all of us are, creating unpaid value.
If you are willing to suspend disbelief and have factoids and snippets of snappy ideas flood over you, you will probebly love this book. If you hope to make more sense of what is going on, you can buckle down and start trying to reengineer the structure of this book, cross out the obsolete, incorrect ideas and the hype filter out the interesting and vauable insights. Be warned though, this salvage attempt will take (considerable) time and effort.
May 4, 2020
Revolutionary Wealth; Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler
It is May 2020 and across the globe 2.5 billion people are in various stages of finding their feet after a brutal Coronavirus induced lockdown that all but closed entire economies.
Everywhere the talk is of a ‘New Normal’. Economists, sociologists and media are all debating what the nature of post Covid-19 world will be like – the first global pandemic since the Spanish flu to impact the entire world and leave words like ‘Social distancing’ on the tongues of people in over 215 countries and territories.
Which is why I wanted to pull out ‘Revolutionary Wealth’ by that master of global macro and future trends, Alvin Toffler.
I was 14 years old and in school when he wrote Future Shock- so of course I never heard of it until 10 years later, in 1980, when he published ‘The Third Wave’. At 24, I was part of a young ambitious and energetic generation at work and when I read that I felt I was going to be part of what he wrote: The Knowledge driven wealth economy. It fired me. It helped me understand what the future was going to be. Toffler was not a historian nor was he a science fiction writer or an anthropologist. His gift was to be able to study global trends across centuries and build links to show what drove change and why. He and his wife travelled the world and took on all kinds of jobs including on factory floors, they met global leaders and wrote columns, consulted for computer giant IBM. The Third Wave is an important book- based on that many global leaders invited him to present his ideas- making an impact on policy directions for countries.
‘Revolutionary Wealth’ was published in 2006. The last book- Alvin Toffler died in 2016.
In the book, he traces the change in the meaning and form of wealth from the First Wave- Agrarian age to the Second Wave- mass industrialization and dwells upon the theme he developed in the book The Third Wave – knowledge as wealth.
He questions traditional economic arguments of ‘economy fundamentals’ and presents once again his view of what the ‘Deep Fundamentals’ – the future of the ‘Job’ and three factors that impact the globe: Time -the Clash of Speeds, the Synchronization industry and the Arrhythmic Industry. In presenting the different speeds at which various sectors change he presents a simple if effective analogy (this is for America):
Sitting astride a stationary motorcycle is a cop with a radar speed gun tracking speeding vehicles. This is what he tracks:
· At 100 mph, the fastest car representing fastest changing institution in America: business.
· At 90mph: civil society charging fast behind business
· At 60 mph, the American family trying to catch up.
· At 30 mph trailing far behind: Labour unions.
· At 25 mph sputtering along: government bureaucracies and regulations.
· At 10 mph, almost choking and shuddering: the American school system ( can a 10mph school system prepare people for a 100mph business asks Toffler)
· At 5 mph: Intergovernmental organisations such as IMF and WTO
· At 3 mph almost at standstill: US Political institutions, Congress, White house and Political parties.
· At 1mph, barely moving: The Law- the body of laws.
The analogy can be aptly applied to India and we can ask ourselves the same question here. The answer is likely to be similar!
This difference between inertia and hyperspeed is creating a huge demand for change.
He reviews the need for synchronization across sectors: the seasonal factor in agrarian economies to assembly line work of industries. He questions the phrase economists use’ balanced growth’. The chapter on Arrhythmic Economy shows up the vast difference in speeds demanded by changes in each sector.
Knowledge wealth is presented to show how unlike it is to traditional wealth of the agrarian age and the mass industrialization age. It is intangible, non-linear, is relational, mates with other knowledge, portable, can be stored in smaller and smaller spaces and cannot be bottled up. It also changes so rapidly he cautions us to watch out for the ‘Obsoledge Trap’. We can immediately relate to his presentation of ‘The Prosumer Economy’ and how rapidly that is changing the world. Prosumer was a word he invented in the book ‘The Third Wave’ and he goes back to it to show how it has grown so big that it is now almost impossible to estimate the true size of it and therefore definitions of GDP no longer remain relevant- he calls it the Grossly Distorted Product!! Simple examples such as replacing clerks in banks (which has a cost) with self-serviced ATMs (where the same actions done by you are not costed) to tests that diabetic patients conduct on themselves as against going to a lab change the impact on the GDP but hides the cost of our doing the action. He calls the coming explosion of Prosumers a defining change that will amplify as we go forwards. He analyses the costs absorbed by volunteers doing a plethora of activity – he calls ‘Free lunch’.
The growing complexity of activity and its impact on us is very interesting. The uses the analogy of the Sepulveda Boulevard in Los Angeles – which parallels the freeway to coin the phrase ‘The Sepulveda Solution’ to explain how we are witnessing the breakdown of every major institution and how we are forced to find alternative solutions. Are our notions of ‘Capitalism’ outdated? Is traditional Capitalism reaching an End Game? The ownership of Capital is changing rapidly- the way capital is collected, allocated and transferred from pocket to pocket is undergoing unprecedented change- and the nature of capital itself is changed- creating a knowledge based wealth system.
He reviews the great changes in Europe and the re-ascendance of Asia as both markets and drivers of change.
This is an absorbing book. To be sure the book builds on what he has presented in The Future Shock and The Third Wave but it brings a current generation perspective.
To the Generation Z that is just coming into the economy, this is a great read to understand what the forces that are driving them are. To everyone else I recommend this book as it helps to link up mega trends and allows us to see the current world in an interesting perspective.
It is May 2020 and across the globe 2.5 billion people are in various stages of finding their feet after a brutal Coronavirus induced lockdown that all but closed entire economies.
Everywhere the talk is of a ‘New Normal’. Economists, sociologists and media are all debating what the nature of post Covid-19 world will be like – the first global pandemic since the Spanish flu to impact the entire world and leave words like ‘Social distancing’ on the tongues of people in over 215 countries and territories.
Which is why I wanted to pull out ‘Revolutionary Wealth’ by that master of global macro and future trends, Alvin Toffler.
I was 14 years old and in school when he wrote Future Shock- so of course I never heard of it until 10 years later, in 1980, when he published ‘The Third Wave’. At 24, I was part of a young ambitious and energetic generation at work and when I read that I felt I was going to be part of what he wrote: The Knowledge driven wealth economy. It fired me. It helped me understand what the future was going to be. Toffler was not a historian nor was he a science fiction writer or an anthropologist. His gift was to be able to study global trends across centuries and build links to show what drove change and why. He and his wife travelled the world and took on all kinds of jobs including on factory floors, they met global leaders and wrote columns, consulted for computer giant IBM. The Third Wave is an important book- based on that many global leaders invited him to present his ideas- making an impact on policy directions for countries.
‘Revolutionary Wealth’ was published in 2006. The last book- Alvin Toffler died in 2016.
In the book, he traces the change in the meaning and form of wealth from the First Wave- Agrarian age to the Second Wave- mass industrialization and dwells upon the theme he developed in the book The Third Wave – knowledge as wealth.
He questions traditional economic arguments of ‘economy fundamentals’ and presents once again his view of what the ‘Deep Fundamentals’ – the future of the ‘Job’ and three factors that impact the globe: Time -the Clash of Speeds, the Synchronization industry and the Arrhythmic Industry. In presenting the different speeds at which various sectors change he presents a simple if effective analogy (this is for America):
Sitting astride a stationary motorcycle is a cop with a radar speed gun tracking speeding vehicles. This is what he tracks:
· At 100 mph, the fastest car representing fastest changing institution in America: business.
· At 90mph: civil society charging fast behind business
· At 60 mph, the American family trying to catch up.
· At 30 mph trailing far behind: Labour unions.
· At 25 mph sputtering along: government bureaucracies and regulations.
· At 10 mph, almost choking and shuddering: the American school system ( can a 10mph school system prepare people for a 100mph business asks Toffler)
· At 5 mph: Intergovernmental organisations such as IMF and WTO
· At 3 mph almost at standstill: US Political institutions, Congress, White house and Political parties.
· At 1mph, barely moving: The Law- the body of laws.
The analogy can be aptly applied to India and we can ask ourselves the same question here. The answer is likely to be similar!
This difference between inertia and hyperspeed is creating a huge demand for change.
He reviews the need for synchronization across sectors: the seasonal factor in agrarian economies to assembly line work of industries. He questions the phrase economists use’ balanced growth’. The chapter on Arrhythmic Economy shows up the vast difference in speeds demanded by changes in each sector.
Knowledge wealth is presented to show how unlike it is to traditional wealth of the agrarian age and the mass industrialization age. It is intangible, non-linear, is relational, mates with other knowledge, portable, can be stored in smaller and smaller spaces and cannot be bottled up. It also changes so rapidly he cautions us to watch out for the ‘Obsoledge Trap’. We can immediately relate to his presentation of ‘The Prosumer Economy’ and how rapidly that is changing the world. Prosumer was a word he invented in the book ‘The Third Wave’ and he goes back to it to show how it has grown so big that it is now almost impossible to estimate the true size of it and therefore definitions of GDP no longer remain relevant- he calls it the Grossly Distorted Product!! Simple examples such as replacing clerks in banks (which has a cost) with self-serviced ATMs (where the same actions done by you are not costed) to tests that diabetic patients conduct on themselves as against going to a lab change the impact on the GDP but hides the cost of our doing the action. He calls the coming explosion of Prosumers a defining change that will amplify as we go forwards. He analyses the costs absorbed by volunteers doing a plethora of activity – he calls ‘Free lunch’.
The growing complexity of activity and its impact on us is very interesting. The uses the analogy of the Sepulveda Boulevard in Los Angeles – which parallels the freeway to coin the phrase ‘The Sepulveda Solution’ to explain how we are witnessing the breakdown of every major institution and how we are forced to find alternative solutions. Are our notions of ‘Capitalism’ outdated? Is traditional Capitalism reaching an End Game? The ownership of Capital is changing rapidly- the way capital is collected, allocated and transferred from pocket to pocket is undergoing unprecedented change- and the nature of capital itself is changed- creating a knowledge based wealth system.
He reviews the great changes in Europe and the re-ascendance of Asia as both markets and drivers of change.
This is an absorbing book. To be sure the book builds on what he has presented in The Future Shock and The Third Wave but it brings a current generation perspective.
To the Generation Z that is just coming into the economy, this is a great read to understand what the forces that are driving them are. To everyone else I recommend this book as it helps to link up mega trends and allows us to see the current world in an interesting perspective.
April 28, 2011
Toffler seems to have a lot of knowledge and insight about a broad ranges of topics covered in this book. I enjoyed the book, and each section seems to provide several topics for long discussion/research. My only complaint is that the book seemed to lack some focus. Many of the topics seemed to be discussed only at a shallow level, leaving me kind of wanting a more thorough analysis.
I tried an experiment to open the book to a random page and read a single chapter sub-section and then discuss this topic. Most of these little sections could probably be discussed at length.
Some specific topics I found interesting is the various discussions about "prosuming" which is the vast hidden economy of goods that are created and consumed directly without ever entering the commonly measured global economy. This includes things like digital photo creation and editing, self-checkout at the grocery, and in the future even creating our own physical products with 3D printers.
The deep fundamentals of time, space, and knowledge was also interesting.
I tried an experiment to open the book to a random page and read a single chapter sub-section and then discuss this topic. Most of these little sections could probably be discussed at length.
Some specific topics I found interesting is the various discussions about "prosuming" which is the vast hidden economy of goods that are created and consumed directly without ever entering the commonly measured global economy. This includes things like digital photo creation and editing, self-checkout at the grocery, and in the future even creating our own physical products with 3D printers.
The deep fundamentals of time, space, and knowledge was also interesting.
May 4, 2010
For most of human history, man lived in autarkic (self-sufficient) communities where money and trade were greatly limited. The industrial revolution changed these conditions; it created a commodity based wealth system. The relatively new "third wave" of electronic networked knowledge-sharing is creating a new knowledge-based system of wealth. Big changes lie ahead and are occurring before our eyes. We just need to open our eyes and start thinking about the currency of knowledge.
March 12, 2014
This book is full of historical anecdotes, statistics and economic facts, thats the way the authors explain the main concept of the book. Although it can get a little boring at times it gave me great insight of how the world economy may be in the future. Will we still use money in a knowledge based economy? That question is still buzzing in my head.
It's one of my least favourite books of this author, nonetheless a good read.
It's one of my least favourite books of this author, nonetheless a good read.
February 4, 2017
بعضی از رخدادهای دهه گذشته و اطلاعاتی که به تاریخ اقتصادی و اجتماعی کشورها در صده گذشته وجود دارد را با هم در آمیخته و با توجه به این واقعیتها معانی جدیدی برای مصرف کننده و تولید کننده و قدرتهایی که در این زمینه فعالیت دارند را شرح داده و سعی در ایجاد دیدگاه یا اصطلاحی جدید به نام تولیصرف دارد.
April 3, 2009
All I can say it read it. Knowledge is wealth.
Read
May 1, 2009It is one of the best book i have read from Alvin Toffler
December 11, 2010
Honestly, I can't remember what it was about any more. I did not find it bad, but also did not find it memorable.
June 27, 2022
Excelente libro, muy amplio y algo complicado de leer ya que entra a profundidad en diversidad de temas y Alvin es un hombre muy culto que puede desarrollar temas que van desde el socialismo a la nanotecnología,pasando por explicar la energía potencial de la luna(helio).Veo complicado resumir este libro en unas cuantas palabras,les recomiendo leerlo si te gusta la economía y deseas conocer como está nueva economía del conocimiento cambiará todo lo sentado hasta ahora en nuestra vida,economía,teorías,vida,costumbres etc etc.
Read
June 12, 2020As usual, Toffler provides an amazingly insightful vision of the forces shaping both modern society and the near future.
In this book, he claims that the new information age creates a focus on knowledge (as opposed to the agricultural age's focus on land and the industrial age's focus on money), and plots some of the consequences of that focus.
Extremely useful and downright prescient.
In this book, he claims that the new information age creates a focus on knowledge (as opposed to the agricultural age's focus on land and the industrial age's focus on money), and plots some of the consequences of that focus.
Extremely useful and downright prescient.
March 27, 2021
My favorite author of all time!
A terrific explanation of the forces driving change throughout the world. One two three four five six seven eight nine......dear lord, really nine more words required. Smells like second wave thinking to me!
A terrific explanation of the forces driving change throughout the world. One two three four five six seven eight nine......dear lord, really nine more words required. Smells like second wave thinking to me!
July 7, 2017
A must read!
December 29, 2019
A book that explains why we're in trouble as a small group of corporate feudal lords control almost all the world's money and work to rule us as peasants.
Read
September 3, 2020Awesome book. The narrator's voice is strange
April 3, 2021
A quick look into digital impact for circular economy and how humankind might react upon the new "thread/wish" of disparities reduction...
April 19, 2021
Many of the same ideas from PowerShift, expanded towards wealth, poverty, and truth management
April 5, 2023
I read 'Future Shock' and it was very fascinating and accurate.
Hence I chose to read this one, but this one doesn't measure up to the quality of 'Future Shock' in my opinion.
Hence I chose to read this one, but this one doesn't measure up to the quality of 'Future Shock' in my opinion.
May 10, 2025
I think the book from the 80s which this books continues on has a more accurate description of the present than this one. Or maybe I'm just missing the author's rose tinted glasses.
August 23, 2016
Mientras leí este libro sucedió el deceso de su autor. Leí los seis libros más importantes de Toffler, la trilogía y otros tres que intentaron completarla. En buena medida la trilogía me abrió a un nuevo tiempo de lectura, donde la "no ficción" se me volvió sumamente interesante. Me abrió la cabeza. Hoy al terminar este libro no me deja tanto la misma sensación. Creo que es "de los otros tres" el que mejor merece el título del que completa la trilogía (algo así como el quinto beatle, o la cuarta parte de la trilogía del ataque de los tomates asesinos).
El libro no trae demasiadas cosas nuevas. Más aceleración, más tecnología, más aplanamiento. Lo que dice está muy bien, el tema está más bien en lo que no dice. Lo sentí en ese sentido más cercano a Fukuyama y Friedman que la trilogía. Pero creo que no es tanto porque él haya cambiado sino porque yo cambié. Cuando leí la trilogía no sabía quienes eran esos dos autores. ¡Pero El Shock del Futuro es un libro de 1970! Si el tipo sigue diciendo más o menos lo mismo en 2006, aprendió poco, la tenía muy clara entonces, o las dos cosas. Creo que la mirada que el presenta (anterior a Bauman, anterior a Georgescu-Roegen) es sumamente interesante. Es decir, es interesante y además es (si yo no entiendo mal) el inventor de la metodología, o uno de sus primeros grandes impulsores.
La gran macana de la trilogía es que hoy por hoy son libros muy viejos. Sería genial poder leerlos el día que salieron. Aún así creo que valen la pena. Más todavía este que no es tan viejo, y además se convierte ahora de alguna manera en su legado.
Una cosa que me llamó la atención de este y no recuerdo de los anteriores (además del gran centro en el prosumo y el conocimiento como primer fuente de riqueza) es la cuestión del origen del criterio de verdad.
Cuatro estrellas porque no fue tan innovador, deja discusiones burdamente afuera, carece un poco de rigor científico, etc... pero con mucho respecto y agradecimiento a Sr. y Sra. Toffler.
El libro no trae demasiadas cosas nuevas. Más aceleración, más tecnología, más aplanamiento. Lo que dice está muy bien, el tema está más bien en lo que no dice. Lo sentí en ese sentido más cercano a Fukuyama y Friedman que la trilogía. Pero creo que no es tanto porque él haya cambiado sino porque yo cambié. Cuando leí la trilogía no sabía quienes eran esos dos autores. ¡Pero El Shock del Futuro es un libro de 1970! Si el tipo sigue diciendo más o menos lo mismo en 2006, aprendió poco, la tenía muy clara entonces, o las dos cosas. Creo que la mirada que el presenta (anterior a Bauman, anterior a Georgescu-Roegen) es sumamente interesante. Es decir, es interesante y además es (si yo no entiendo mal) el inventor de la metodología, o uno de sus primeros grandes impulsores.
La gran macana de la trilogía es que hoy por hoy son libros muy viejos. Sería genial poder leerlos el día que salieron. Aún así creo que valen la pena. Más todavía este que no es tan viejo, y además se convierte ahora de alguna manera en su legado.
Una cosa que me llamó la atención de este y no recuerdo de los anteriores (además del gran centro en el prosumo y el conocimiento como primer fuente de riqueza) es la cuestión del origen del criterio de verdad.
Cuatro estrellas porque no fue tan innovador, deja discusiones burdamente afuera, carece un poco de rigor científico, etc... pero con mucho respecto y agradecimiento a Sr. y Sra. Toffler.
December 11, 2013
Alvin and Heidi Toffler have gone through enormous lengths to write this book which incorporates concepts they have previously written about in "Future Shock", "Third Wave", and others.
"Revolutionary Wealth" is a book that should be read by economists, historians, scientists, political leaders, parents, ... (The list can go on, but generally is for anyone concerned about the future). The authors have incredible credibility with their predictions on the rise of information technology, the internet, new forms of war, the prosumer, and other vitally important concepts of our 21 century reality.
These predictions were made decades ago, and in 2006 a new book has arrived from the Futurists who actually got most of their predictions right. In "Revolutionary Wealth" the authors expand on the concept of the Prosumer to explain how modern economic theories are deeply flawed. Their analysis of "deep fundamentals" is something quite different than that which most in formal education are introduced to. Time and Space are undergoing radical changes as is the world market and international relations.
The central concept behind this work is that of change and our need to be flexible with the change that is happening all around the world. The authors argue that with the Third Wave revolution in knowledge intensive technology the world will forever be in a new state of growth, in that state the wealth generated to run our lives and the globe will be charting a revolutionary path.
The book is thick, dense, and difficult to finish as much of the reading needs time for interpretation and discussion to flesh out the theories and realities presented in the book. Regardless, the future laid out in it's pages will literally and figuratively shock the reader.
I did not agree 100 percent with everything the authors have presented by any means, however they do not set out to convince the reader of their correctness, rather they set out to explain the organized evidence that they so meticulously have gathered from around the world's most highly credible sources.
This book deals with the realities and problems in our 21st century, and surprisingly, bringing inspirational ideas and examples of how our imagination and innovation can still triumph over the tallest obstacles.
If possible it would deserve 6/5 stars for its exceptional contribution to the world's academia.
"Revolutionary Wealth" is a book that should be read by economists, historians, scientists, political leaders, parents, ... (The list can go on, but generally is for anyone concerned about the future). The authors have incredible credibility with their predictions on the rise of information technology, the internet, new forms of war, the prosumer, and other vitally important concepts of our 21 century reality.
These predictions were made decades ago, and in 2006 a new book has arrived from the Futurists who actually got most of their predictions right. In "Revolutionary Wealth" the authors expand on the concept of the Prosumer to explain how modern economic theories are deeply flawed. Their analysis of "deep fundamentals" is something quite different than that which most in formal education are introduced to. Time and Space are undergoing radical changes as is the world market and international relations.
The central concept behind this work is that of change and our need to be flexible with the change that is happening all around the world. The authors argue that with the Third Wave revolution in knowledge intensive technology the world will forever be in a new state of growth, in that state the wealth generated to run our lives and the globe will be charting a revolutionary path.
The book is thick, dense, and difficult to finish as much of the reading needs time for interpretation and discussion to flesh out the theories and realities presented in the book. Regardless, the future laid out in it's pages will literally and figuratively shock the reader.
I did not agree 100 percent with everything the authors have presented by any means, however they do not set out to convince the reader of their correctness, rather they set out to explain the organized evidence that they so meticulously have gathered from around the world's most highly credible sources.
This book deals with the realities and problems in our 21st century, and surprisingly, bringing inspirational ideas and examples of how our imagination and innovation can still triumph over the tallest obstacles.
If possible it would deserve 6/5 stars for its exceptional contribution to the world's academia.
February 22, 2017
A fantastic book that anyone with more than 20 years left of life should read. It is about the tectonic fundamental changes taking place. Those who take too long to learn the inevitable, will find difficult making sense of their surroundings.
I specially liked their take on why our present school system has failed us.
I specially liked their take on why our present school system has failed us.
September 15, 2014
A bit outdated (just a bit, in my opinion) after 8 years, but as any Toffler book is an interesting read that offers a consistent vision of the future with the panorama of the events happening at the time and development of history. On this one the Tofflers expose the value of wealth based on knowledge, and how it not only shakes the foundations of current systems in place but also seems to have no limits and how embracing it early might impact our present.
The major flaw this book has is without a doubt how it seems to jump from fact to fact in order to expose a point. It's clearly well documented but it didn't found its mean point, the redaction being too.. pragmatic I think, focusing on event after event which makes you feel like there's little or no effort to explore the underlying causes of the events. Nonetheless the Tofflers dare to throw some ideas here and there and develops some interesting concepts while exciting us about the vast array of opportunities the future might hold.
A pretty good read overall, just wished they delved some more into a few aspects (how to adapt the value of prosume or the needed change for institutions, for instance) but they clearly aimed to be as broad as they could with this one.
The major flaw this book has is without a doubt how it seems to jump from fact to fact in order to expose a point. It's clearly well documented but it didn't found its mean point, the redaction being too.. pragmatic I think, focusing on event after event which makes you feel like there's little or no effort to explore the underlying causes of the events. Nonetheless the Tofflers dare to throw some ideas here and there and develops some interesting concepts while exciting us about the vast array of opportunities the future might hold.
A pretty good read overall, just wished they delved some more into a few aspects (how to adapt the value of prosume or the needed change for institutions, for instance) but they clearly aimed to be as broad as they could with this one.
August 26, 2015
Thought provoking work that reads like a series of extended essays, the purpose being to show a true state of science, business and economics today and where it is headed. It does a great job of explaining how Japan rose to the top in electronics and computer field, and why China may very well be the next economic superpower. It also evaluates how the United States was able to stake a claim as the current economic superpower and why it may not hold on to that title for much longer. The book also evaluates how our education system and ways of thinking about business are outdated, conveniently modeled after the industrial age of our country while ignoring that we're no longer living in that age, but have evolved into a knowledge age. Our regimented schedules are becoming more flexible. Specialists are learning to customize alternatives. The assembly line factory consistency no longer thrives, and yet our schools are still training students for a past era. Very informative.
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