Third Wave Economy

The Tofflers’ perspective on the loss of Second Wave industrial age jobs to a technological Third Wave ignores the human context in which changes are taking place.

The ultimate challenge of the Third Wave society will consist of integrating “Global Village” technology with the broad spectrum of human talents. Otherwise, we are faced with a world where the term “haves and have-nots” will refer to those with certain technical abilities and those without, revealing a new class structure based solely upon the qualitative nature of one’s inborn talents.

As this process is currently evidenced by the growing legion of unemployed, our fingers point reflexively to the policy-makers chosen to handle our agendas while we sleep. The power wielded by lawyers, doctors, politicians, and now, technocrats, mirrors our own self-betrayal in surrendering to the “experts” in order to free ourselves up for the less strenuous pursuits of novelty, vanity, fast food and entertainment. Our appetites have played into the hands of the educated power elite whose ship is setting sail on the Tofflers’ Third Wave, leaving the rest of us stranded and helpless.

AUDREY GARDNER, Los Angeles