id or at all, is still unknown. Nevertheless, it did, and it changed the shape of the world forever. Now, Toffler claims there is a third wave in progress that is tearing our families apart, paralyzing our political systems, shattering our values, and challenging the power elite of today. The third wave is highly technological and anti-industrial. The new civilization of the third wave will topple bureaucracies, reduce the role of nation-states and give rise to semi-autonomous economies in a post-imperialist world (p. 11).
Further Toffler thinks that the historic breach between producer and consumer will be overcome and a new and truly humane society will be the result. He insists that the second wave, industrialism, is on the decline, and that those who continue to support it are like people who have reserved a deck chair on the Titanic.
As industrialism took hold in America, and the world as well, standardization was the key word. Efficiency and mass production prevailed, even though many a worker was bored to tears with routine and repetitive work tasks. Along with this came specialization and when a group of specialists had a chance to monopolize esoteric knowledge (p. 50) and keep newcomers out of their field, professions emerged.
According to Toffler, a synopsis of the second wave would be a civilization based on fossil fuels, factory production, the nuclear family, the corporation, mass education, and the mass media. All of these would be based on a widening rift between production and consumption, and all managed by a set of elites whose task it was to integrate the whole (p. 71). Toffler maintains that this system is now obsolete and the third wave will r
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