Moraru Oana Andreea

               Democracy level in a society depends on the way “decision burden” is divided. In industrial societies of the Second Wave the market expansion, the complexity of the social life provoked a decisional implosion just like the one determined today by the Third Wave.

               Alvin Toffler also underlines the existence of two camps among us: the Second Wave camp and the third Wave camp. The Third Wave camp knows the fact that the most pressuring nowadays problems can’t be solved inside an industrial civilization, because of the fact that the most important decisions for us can’t be taken in a political background.

              The most important political event of our age is the fight between the Second Wave and the Third Wave. People like Mill or Madison, Montesquieu who were at the middle of two civilizations were destined to create and invent the nowadays forms of politics. We have to be just like them because we are designed to create a new civilization, not to maintain the old one.

              All in all, Toffler’s message for us is to do something not just to sit and stare how things collapse among us because we can fall with them.

Moraru Oana Andreea

                Despite the fact that our systems are base on majority principle, the rise of diversity leads to impossibility to form majority, even in the major matters of life or death. Because of this the representative democracy is discredited.

                Nowadays incompetence of taking decisions is explained by the fact that there are too many decisions that have to be taken and problems that have to be discussed in too short time. Moreover, a political system has to be capable not only in taking decisions, but also applying them.

             We have to accept diversity and change political institutions inherited from the Second Wave which will lead to social evolution and democracy based on minorities of the XXI century.  It is necessary to create possibilities for citizens to take part directly at their government.

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               The third idea says that it is felt the need of a new political Messiah, who can save us from the disaster, idea which starts from the fact that the real problem would be leader’s personality. One of the reasons of the failure of the political structures is that the decisions taken by national governments are expensive and dangerous.

               Governments and institutions of the Second Wave were conceived for taking decisions slow. Today, social change is accelerated, making pressure on the ones who take decisions. Breaking the political government into pieces is a consequence of the conflicts between technology, production, communication and culture. The situation is different from country to country. The only common thing between countries is the challenge between the Second Wave and the Third Wave.

Moraru Oana Andreea

              Toffler underlines the political message of The Third Wave which is the necessary appearance of a political revolution and it’s result to be new political instruments of application of decisions. He also talks about the energetic crisis from the 70’s, criticizing the political mechanism of the U.S.A., decisional blockage concerning matters of vital importance for society, showing that political technology of the Second Wave is bad because of the democratic crisis.

            Because of all these failures, people with good intentions start to demand a dynamic leader. This leads to the appearance of groups that aim profit from the falling of representative government. Therefore there are three mistaken ideas, the first one is the efficiency of puissant polities. For example: Germany. Comparing the Nazi Germany with the Great Britain, by the war organization, Toffler says that the Third Reich was an example of military efficiency or industrial is a funny legend. The second idea is that a good leadership from the past will also work at present or future, but in different civilizations there are needed different leader qualities.

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            What was the most important thing was to have control not to own.The governement was becoming bigger and bigger. The power based on land it was hard to be replaced by technology and heavy industry.

            People were fascinated by machinery. It was introduced the concept of votes. The formal machinery (the way society was structured) was the most powerful one. 

Moraru Oana Andreea

            In the next two chapters of "The third wave", the author presents the concept of the "invisible wedge". This is a very known concept in economics. Mostly it means the way in wich market maipulated people. The market become the only source of food and goods because the system couldn't allowed even farmers to produce their own food and goods.It made human beings dependent of the following two concepts: production and consumers.Therefore the family changed. While the husbands were going to work(usually labor or office work), wives stayed at home taking care of the children or producing goods or food only for the family. Women were considered unable to work.

            The fact that consumption became way higher than production changed every aspect in nowadays life. For example appeared concepts as standardization, specialization, syncronization, concentration, maximization, centralization. All these have one thing in common: are the result of the "invisible wedge.The standardization of products made by Vail or Taylor made them be compared with famous philosophers. 

            The idea is simple: school tests became the same for everyone, market strategies became the same for everybody with the aim to have a succesful business. Time and punctuality became important factors therefore the watch industry proliferated.The Second Wave concentrated people in certain places, at certain times, everything was controlled. Also, the idea that everything big was good was met everywhere. People tended to believe in maximization and thought it was good.

             In conclusion, because of all these concepts the rise of bureocracy was inevitable. 

The first ideas...

         For those of you who have read Alvin Toffler and are familiar with he's writings and style, I am about to talk abot some important matters concerning the book. Many people, after they read the book asked with what is different comparing Toffler's other book "Future Shock". Well my dears he's answer is simple. He said that it is different because of the way the book is structured. Also he added that there isn't quite a difference as content, is just like the second volume of the "Future Shock".
     "The third wave" is a book in which the author describes our society just like the sea, sometimes calm and sometimes full of rage. The world he describes is a messed up world, with a certain chance of drawning. The author tries to answer different important contemporary usul questions about different important matters.
    In the first chapter he introduces the methaphoric terms the "First wave" which is the discovery of agriculture, the "Second wave" is about Industrial Revolution and the "This wave" is us, the present generation. The first two waves have a huge impact on the present civilization. The writer explains that everyhhing that is happening at prsent has a huge impact on our way of thinking. Therefore we need to be more optimistic because there is some hope left.

      The "Second wave" has still a huge impact on us. The "First Wave" is gone becuse there are just a few tribes left. Visionars from today are all talking about the "future wave". They say that as a consequence, all technology will improve. This had an impact on politics. The world we live in is paradoxal. The only solution is to understand the impact between the first two waves and to prepare for the impact between the second and the third wave.

        The main consequence of the "First wave" is the rise of metropolises, the country who had more resources was richer. All revolutions in the 18 th century were just impacts between the "First Wave"- agriculture and the "Second wave"- industry. The "Second wave" grew uo technology at an unexepected level. Toffler talks about a new concept "techno-sphere" which summs up these two and presents a world of trade-offs between agriculture and technology. Children wew going at school at an earlier age. At the edge of the "Second wave" we find a very organized society, based on a stable model. An exmple is family which is perfect if it has the mother, the dad, few kids and some relatives. Also appeared music industry: concerts, artists, musicians, telephone and telegraph were invented.

           But I think I told you enough to keep you interested untill next time! A nice day in a humbled up society!