Powershift: Knowledge, wealth, and violence at the edge of the 21st century

Bantam Books by Alvin Toffler

Ask your bookseller for the books you have missed

FUTURE SHOCK THE

THIRD WAVE

POWERSHIFT

POWERSHIFT: KNOWLEDGE, WEALTH, AND

VIOLENCE AT THE EDGE OF THE 21ST CENTURY

A Bantam Book Bantam hardcover

edition published November 1990

Bantam export edition I June 1991

Bantam paperback edition I December 1991

All rights reserved.

Copyright © .7990 by Alvin Tqffler and Heidi Toffler.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 90-1068.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmi tted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by any information

storage and retrieval system, without permission in

writing from the publisher. For

information address: Bantam Books.

Foreign Editions of Powershift (a partial list)

Bulgarian Narodna Kultura

Chinese The China Times Publishing

Danish Holkenfeldts Forlag

Dutch Veen Publishers

English (UK) Bantam Press

Finnish Otava Oy

French Librairie Artheme Fayard

German Econ Verlag

Indonesian P.T. Pantja Simpati

Italian Sperling & Kupfer Editore

Japanese Fuso Sha

Korean Korea Economic Daily

Malaysian Dewan Bahasa Dan Pustaka

Portuguese (Brazil) Distribuidora Record

Portuguese (Portugal) Livros do Brazil (trade):

Circulo de Leitores (bkclub)

Norwegian J. W. Cappelens Forlag

Spanish Plaza y Janes

Swedish Bokforlaget Bra Backer

Turkish Altin Kitaplar

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware

that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and

destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher

has received any payment for this "stripped book."

ISBN 0-553-29215-3 Published

simultaneously in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam

Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the

words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca

Registrada. Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

OPM 0987654321

PART ONE: THE NEW MEANING Of POWER_________________

1 THE POWERSHIFT ERA

The End of Empire

God-in-a-White-Coat

Bombarded by the Future

The Making of a Shabby Gentility

2 MUSCLE, MONEY, AND MIND

High-Quality Power One

Million Inferences Facts,

Lies, and Truth The

Democratic Difference

PART TWO; LIFE IN THE SUPER-SYMBOLIC ECONOMY

3 BEYOND THE AGE OF GLITZ

The Business Commandos

Dale Carnegie and Attila the Hun

The Consultant's Hidden Mission

4 FORCE: THE YAKUZA COMPONENT

Blood and Snow-Money

On Zeks and Goons A

Monopoly of Force The

Hidden Gun The

Trajectory of Power

5 WEALTH: MORGAN, MILKEN ... AND AFTER

The X-Shaped Desk

Milken versus Morgan

Opening the Gates

The Counterattack

Tampons and Car Rentals

The Post-Wall Street Era

The Zigzag of Power

The Looming Fight for Global Control

6 KNOWLEDGE: A WEALTH OF SYMBOLS

Inside the Skull

An Epitaph for Paper

Designer Currencies and Para-Money

Power Failures

21st-century Money

7 MATERIAL-ISMO!

The New Meaning of Joblessness

The Spectrum of Mind-Work

Lowbrows versus Highbrows

Lowbrow Ideology Highbrow

Ideology

8 THE ULTIMATE SUBSTITUTE

The Alchemy of Information

Knowledge versus Capital

PART THREE: THE INFORMATION WARS________________

9 THE CHECKOUT BATTLE

Behind the Shoot-outs The

Scent of Miss America The

"Push-Money" Ploy Beyond

the Supermarket The Double

Payment The Intelligent

Supermarket A Threat to the

"Shoguns"

10 EXTRA-INTELLIGENCE

Bach, Beethoven, and Wang

The Telephone Fad Secrets and

Secret-aries Electronic

Highways The Self-Aware

Network Messing with the

Message

11 NET POWER

The Search for Denim The

Bingo-ed Wholesaler Real

Estate and Rails Mobilizing for

Electronic War The Customer

Loop Business Blitzkrieg The

Rise of Info-Monopolies?

12 THE WIDENING WAR

The Half-Trillion-Dollar Stake

Strategic Standards

The Main Bout

Computer Democracy

The Paradox of Norms

The Beer and Sausage Minuet

13 THE EXECUTIVE THOUGHT POLICE

Levels of Combat The

Two-Party Campaign

Strategic Retreat The Giant

Brain Era The Ethics of

Information The Paradox

Bomb

14 TOTAL INFORMATION WAR

Rusty Tracks and Hotel Love -Sounds INs

and OUTs Wholistic Espionage A 75-

Cent Error

PART FOUR; POWER IN THE FLEX-FIRM _______________

15 THE CUBBYHOLE CRASH

The Bureaucracy-Busters An Infinity of

Cubbyholes Power versus Reason

"Camelephants" and Hot Potatoes

Choked Channels Free-Flow Knowledge

Knowledge Is Power Is Knowledge

16 THE FLEX-FIRM

The End of the Cookie-Cut Company

The De-colonization of Business

Dancing on Tables Fam-Firms of the

Future

17 TRIBAL CHIEFS AND CORPORATE COMMISSARS

The Pulsating Organization The

Two-faced Organization The

Checkerboard Organization The

Commissar Organization The Buro￾baronial Organization The

Skiinkworks Organization

The Self-start Team A

Diversity of Powers The

Missing Panacea The

Limits of Control

18 THE AUTONOMOUS EMPLOYEE

Unblocking Minds

The Feckless Farmer

The New Chains

The Electronic Proletariat

Tomorrow's Work Regimen

The Non-interchangeable Person

Two Imperatives

The Demand for Access

19 THE POWER-MOSAIC

From Monoliths to Mosaics Meat￾Cleaver Management The

Monopolists Inside In the Belly of

the Behemoth Relational Wealth

Power in Mosaics Beyond the

Corporation

CODA: THE NEW SYSTEM FOR WEALTH CREATION

The New Economic Metabolism A

Hailstorm of Pleas Tomorrow's

Wealth

PART FIVE: POWERSHIFT POLITICS __________________

20 THE DECISIVE DECADES

Dynasties and Democracies

Shifting Levels

Earth Politics

An Explosion of Ethnics

Mosaic Democracy

Pivotal Minorities

21 THE INVISIBLE PARTY

The Ministry of the 21 st Century

The Global Buzzword Stripping for

Action Disappearance of the

Hierarchs Secret Teams and

Plumbers

22 INFO-TACTICS

Alfalfa Secrets and Guided Leaks

The Masked Source Back-stabbers

and Back-Channels The Double￾Channel Ploy On the Receiving End

Massaging the Message In-fighters

and Savvy Staffers

23 META-TACTICS

Eskimos and Mind-Workers

Truth versus Power The

Kidnapped Finger Chernobyl in

the Ballot Box Gimme a

Number! Data Base Deception

Phantom People

24 A MARKET FOR SPIES

Butterflies and Bombs

The Kremlin's Limousines

The Main Competitors

Swapping Secrets

The Looming Giants

Warplanes and "Watch Lists"

Line X versus James Bond

The Coming Eco-Wars

The Privatization of Spying

The New Meaning of "Private Eye"

Contradictions at the Core

25 THE INFO-AGENDA

A Hunger for Knowing Terrorist

Bombs and AIDS Victims The New

Global Feedback The Indiana Jones

Code

26 THE IMAGE MAKERS

The Multi-channel Society

The Arrival of Choice

The Coming Eurovision

The Global Sell

The New Barons

The Forging of Global Opinion

27 SUBVERSIVE MEDIA

The Nasty Little Man on TV

Three Media Modes

Media-fusion

Valleys of Ignorance

The Revolutionists' Media Strategy

The China Syndrome

28 THE "SCREENIE" GENERATION

The Slave Golfer A

Decadent Luxury More

Than Compassion

Electronic Activism The

Information Divide The

New Alliance

CODA: YEARNINGS FOR A NEW DARK AGE

Holy Frenzy

Eco-theocracy

The New Xenophobes

PART SIX; PLANETARY POWERSHIFT __________________

29 THE GLOBAL "K-FACTOR"

Pyramids and Moonshots

Hand-me-down Economics

30 THE FAST AND THE SLOW

Coming Home

Strategic Real Estate

Beyond Raw Materials

Expensive Cheap Labor

Hyper-speeds

Electronic Gaps and Dynamic Minorities

31 SOCIALISM'S COLLISION WITH THE FUTURE

The Breaking Point

The Pre-cybernetic Machine

The Property Paradox

How Many "Left-handed" Screws?

The Dustbin of History

32 THE POWER OF BALANCE

The Democratization of Death The

Ocean of Capital The New Architecture

of Knowledge The One-Legged Soviet

33 TRIADS: TOKYO ... BERLIN ... WASHINGTON

The Japanese Gun The

Economic Godzilla The Juku

Race The New Ost-Strategie

Europe's Morning After From

Leftism to Semiology The

Wounded Giant The Declining

Twins The Woody Allen

Impact A Choice of Partners

34 THE GLOBAL GLADIATORS

The Resurrection of Religion

The Empire of Cocaine

The Dispersed "Oppressor"

The Corporate Condottieri

The U.N.-Plus

New-Style Global Organizations

CODA: FREEDOM, ORDER, AND CHANCE

Assumptions

Bibliography

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

A PERSONAL PREFACE

Powershift is the culmination of a twenty-five-year effort to

make sense of the astonishing changes propelling us into the 21st

century. It is the third and final volume of a trilogy that opened

with Future Shock, continued with The Third Wave, and is now

complete.

Each of these three books can be read by itself as an

independent work. But together they form an intellectually

consistent whole. Their central subject is change—what happens

to people when their entire society abruptly transforms itself into

something new and unexpected. Powershift carries forward the

earlier analysis and focuses on the rise of a new power system

replacing that of the industrial past.

In describing today's accelerating changes, the media fire

blips of unrelated information at us. Experts bury us under

mountains of narrowly specialized monographs. Popular

forecasters present lists of unrelated trends, without any model

to show us their interconnections or the forces likely to reverse

them. As a result, change itself comes to be seen as anarchic,

even lunatic.

By contrast, this trilogy starts from the premise that-today's

high-speed changes are not as chaotic or random as we are

conditioned to believe. It contends that there are not only distinct

patterns behind the headlines, but identifiable forces that shape

them. Once we understand these patterns and forces, it becomes

possible to cope with them strategically, rather than haphazardly

on a one-by-one basis.

However, to make sense of today's great changes, to think

strategically, we need more than bits, blips, and lists. We need

to see how different changes relate to one another. Thus l'<>\n-ishift,

like its two predecessors, sets out a clear and comprehensive

synthesis—an overarching image of the new civilization now

spreading across the planet.

It then zeros in on tomorrow's flashpoints, the conflicts we

face as the new civilization collides with the entrenched forces o f

the old. Power shift contends that the corporate takeovers and

restructurings seen so far are only the first salvos in far larger,

quite novel business battles to come. More important, it holds

that the recent upheavals seen in Eastern Europe and the Soviet

Union are mere skirmishes compared with the global power

struggles that lie ahead. Nor has the rivalry among the United

States, Europe, and Japan reached its full intensity.

In short, Powershift is about the crescendoing struggles for

power that still face us as the industrial civilization loses world

dominance and new forces arise to tower over the earth.

For me, Powershift is a high point reached after a

fascinating journey. Before continuing, however, a personal

note is required. For I did not make this journey alone. This

entire trilogy, from inception to completion, has had an

uncredited co-author. It is the combined work of two minds, not

just one, although I have done the actual writing and have

accepted the plaudits and criticisms for both of us.

My co-author, as many already know, is my best friend,

spouse, and partner, my love for forty years: Heidi Toffler.

Whatever the faults of this trilogy, they would have been far

more serious without her skeptical intelligence, her intellectual

insight, keen editorial sense, and general good judgment about

ideas and people alike. She has contributed not merely to after￾the-fact polishing but to the formulation of the underlying

models on which the works are based.

While the intensity of her involvement varied from time to

time, depending on her other commitments, these books required

travel, research, interviews with hundreds of people around the

world, careful organization, and drafting, followed by endless

updating and revision, and Heidi took part at every stage.

Nevertheless, for reasons that were partly private, partly

social, partly economic—and that varied at different times over

the past two decades—the decision was made to credit only the

actual writer.

Even now Heidi refuses to lend her name to a book jacket,

out of integrity, modesty, and love—reasons that seem sufficient

to her, though not to me. I can only redress this shortcoming

with these personal, prefatory words: I feel that the trilogy is as

much hers as mine.

All three books probe a single lifetime—the period

beginning, say, in the mid-1950s and ending approximately

seventy-five years later, in 2025. This span can be called the

hinge of history, the period in which smokestack civilization,

having dominated the earth for centuries, is finally replaced by

another, far different one following a period of world-shaking

power struggles.

But, while focused on the same period, each of the three

books uses a different lens with which to probe beneath the

surface of reality, and it may be useful for readers to define the

differences among them.

Thus Future Shock looks at the process of change—how

change affects people and organizations. The Third Wave focuses

on the directions of change—where today's changes are taking

us. Powershift deals with the control of changes still to come—

who will shape them and how.

Future Shock—which we defined as the disorientation and

stress brought on by trying to cope with too many changes in too

short a time—argued that the acceleration of history carries

consequences of its own, independent of the actual directions of

change. The simple speed-up of events and reaction times

produces its own effects, whether the changes are perceived as

good or bad.

It also held that individuals, organizations, and even nations

can be overloaded with too much change too soon, leading to

disorientation and a breakdown in their capacity to make

intelligent adaptive decisions. They could, in short, suffer from

future shock.

Against the then-current opinion, Future Shock declared

that the nuclear family was soon to be "fractured." It also

foreshadowed the genetic revolution, the rise of a throwaway

society, and the revolution in education that may now, at long

last, be beginning.

First published in the United States in 1970, and

subsequently all over the world, the book touched an

unsheathed nerve, became a surprise international best-seller,

and generated avalanches of commentary. It became one of the

most ciu-il works in social science literature, according to the

Institute lor Scientific Information. The phrase future shock

entered the daily