New understanding of power by Alvin Toffler ("Metamorphoses of Power"). Changing the structure of power (O. Toffler) Alvin Toffler metamorphosis of power summary

METAMORPHOSIS OF POWER.

Knowledge, wealth and power on the threshold of the 21st century

Alvin Toffler - POWERSHIFT Knowledge, wealth, and violence at the edge of the 21st century. 1990

Translated from English: V.V.Belokoskov, K.Yu. Burmistrov, L.M. Burmistrova, E.K. Komarova, A.I. Mirer, E.G. Rudnev, N.A. Stroilova

ISBN 5-17-004183-7

P. Gurevich. POWER CONFIGURATION

The book of the American sociologist and futurologist Alvin Toffler (b. 1928) "Metamorphoses of Power" crowns a trilogy conceived by him dedicated to the transformations of modern civilization. The researcher does not consider his predictions to be either utopia or dystopia. He calls his genre "proctopia", that is, a practical utopia. There is no immeasurable idealization in it. This is a description of a more practical and more favorable world for a person than the one in which we live. But in this world, unlike utopia, there is a place for evil - disease, dirty politics, injustice.

The idea of \u200b\u200btechnical mutations that have a multidimensional impact on social progress has long been recognized in modern philosophy and sociology. Toffler holds the idea that humanity is moving to a new technological revolution, that is, the First Wave (agrarian civilization) and the Second (industrial civilization) are replaced by a new one, leading to the creation of a super-industrial civilization. The next wave is, according to Toffler, a grandiose turn of history, the greatest transformation of society, a comprehensive transformation of all forms of social and individual life. But we are not talking about a social revolution aimed mainly at changing the political regime, but about technological changes that mature slowly, evolutionarily. However, subsequently they give rise to deep upheavals. The sooner humanity realizes the need to move to a new wave, the less the danger of violence, dictatorship and other troubles will be.

Toffler seeks to describe the future society as a return to pre-industrial civilization on a new technological basis. Considering history as a continuous wave movement, Toffler analyzes the features of the coming world, the economic backbone of which, in his opinion, will be electronics and computers, space production, the use of the ocean depths and bioindustry. This is the Third Wave, which completes the agrarian (First Wave) and industrial (Second Wave) revolutions.

In the first book of the trilogy "Future Shock" (1970), Toffler warned humanity about the danger that is associated with rapid changes in people's lives. Not all researchers have accepted this point of view. Thus, the outstanding American sociologist D. Bell considered this idea deceptive. In his opinion, in everyday life Earthlings more changes occurred between 1850 and 1940, when railways, steamships, telegraph, electricity, telephone, automobile, cinema, radio and airplanes came into use - than in the subsequent period, allegedly characterized by acceleration. Bell believed that practically, apart from the innovations he listed, nothing new appeared in the daily life of people, except for television.

However, Toffler's idea about the difficulties of psychological adaptation of people to the acceleration of social change took root in futurological literature. Toffler writes about new complexities, social conflicts and global issuesthat humanity will face at the turn of the century. Toffler's main books are "Shock of the Future", "Clash with the Future" (1972); Ecospasm Report (1975); The Third Wave (1980); "Metamorphoses of Power" (1990) and others.

To what extent did Toffler's predictions come true? What has changed over the past decade in the consciousness of mankind? What are other cultural-civilization projects of people? The idea of \u200b\u200ba new civilization has retained its value. American sociologist Z. Brzezinski wrote about the "technotronic era", the French researcher J. Ellul called the society he represented "technological", D. Bell used the concept of "post-industrial society", while Toffler, reflecting on the terms "trans-industrial" and "post-economic", stopped on the concept of "super-industrial society". By it is meant, as he writes in Future Shock, "a complex, rapidly developing society based on the most advanced technology and post-materialist value system." D. Bell sarcastically: on the definitions of E. Toffler, it would seem that all the permutations and combination ideas associated with the word "post-" have been exhausted.

Large-scale and intensive transformations now concern not only the spheres of economy, economics, politics and culture. The fundamental foundations of human reproduction as a biological and anthropological type are also changing. The practice of education and thinking becomes different. Really begins new era... Sociocultural institutions and management technologies existing today must be radically reconstructed. Such is general meaning the last work of E. Toffler.

We are aware today that world development has been uneven. That is why thinking about the future should be systemic, because various mismatches between the processes of world consumption and management infrastructures, between the productive elements of the world economy and trans-regional flows of resources, goods and services are becoming more and more significant. Toffler ponders intensive forms of development as opposed to extensive models of social dynamics characteristic of former social thinking.

The scale of our life is changing. An era of global competition is emerging before our eyes. A new round of interethnic and geopolitical clashes is indicated. E. Toffler is convinced that it is important to adapt to rapid changes as quickly as possible. This primarily concerns the "golden billion" of people, that is, those who live in the developed economic world. But how can sustainable development be achieved?

The current "Third Wave", according to Toffler, is an "information society". It is caused by the ubiquity of computers, turbojet aircraft, flexible technologies. In the information society, new types of families, styles of work, life, new forms of politics, economics and consciousness are taking shape. The world ceases to seem like a machine, it is filled with innovations, for the perception of which constant development is necessary cognitive abilities... The symbols of the "Third Wave" are integrity, individuality and pure, human technology. The leading role in such a society is acquired by the service sector, science and education. Corporations must give way to universities, and businessmen to scientists ...

In pre-industrial society, according to Bell, life was a game between man and nature, in which people interacted with the natural environment - land, waters, forests - working in small groups. In an industrial society, work is a game between humans and built environments, where humans are obscured by machines that produce goods. In the “information society”, work becomes, first of all, a game of a person with a person (between an official and a visitor, a doctor and a patient, a teacher and a student). Thus, nature is removed from the framework of working and everyday life. People learn to live with each other. In the history of society, this, according to Bell, is a new and unparalleled state of affairs.

The computer revolution is a deep and versatile turn in the development of mankind, which is associated with the growth of productive forces, the widespread use of technology and science in production. The world is on the verge of an unprecedented technological revolution. Today it is difficult to imagine its full social consequences. A new civilization is born, where communication creates all the conditions for the full life support of a person ...

Modern communications have yet to play a transformative role in the century to come. Suffice it to say that new information technologies have already managed to change the traditionally dominant concepts of property. When passing from seller to buyer, information does not cease to belong to the seller. And this is not just some other version of the behavior of a product on the market. It's more than that.

For centuries and millennia, the main resources of the peoples were space and gold. Supernatural time has brought to life a new resource - information. In the coming century, this resource will become defining. Over the three decades of its existence, the information system has actually turned into an evolutionary factor. At the end of the past century, the concept of "network" has become a universal metaphor. We started talking about network economy, network logic, neural network, network intelligence, network graphics ...

Today a society that seeks to preserve itself as an independent state cannot but be totally computerized. The American and Western European economies and the economies of Asian countries such as Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong clearly confirm this truth. However, this process develops in different ways. Despite impressive advances in electronics and telecommunications, the Japanese are increasingly falling behind in this competitive race. They lag behind not only the United States, but also Western Europe.

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Chapter 34. Global Warriors

As we ask which countries will dominate the 21st century, we play an exciting game. But this is actually the wrong question - or at least the wrong question, as it leaves out what could be the greatest revolution in global politics since the formation of states. This is the emergence of global warriors.

A new group of power seekers breaks into the world stage and seizes a tangible share of the influence that only states previously enjoyed. Some of these aspirants are inclined towards good, some strongly towards evil.

RESTORATION OF RELIGION

When Salman Rushdie published the novel Satanic Verses, drunk with blood, Ayatollah Khomeini declared the book blasphemous, called on the faithful to kill the author, and sent a historic message to the governments of all countries of the world. This message was instantly transmitted by satellite, it appeared on television and in print, and with all that remained completely incomprehensible.

It can be argued that Rushdie's book is of bad taste, that the author deliberately insults many Muslims, mocks an entire religion and transgresses the Koran. Indeed, Khomeini said so. But that is not the essence of his message.

Khomeini announced to the whole world that from now on the state is no longer the only or even the most important actor on the world stage.

At a superficial glance, it seems that Khomeini asserts: Iran, a sovereign state, has the "right" to dictate what the citizens of other, also sovereign countries can and cannot read. Claiming such a right, threatening to assert it through terrorism, Khomeini suddenly raises censorship from local to global.

In a world where economics and mass information are becoming global, Khomeini demands global mind control.

In earlier times, other religions claimed similar rights and burned heretics. However, by threatening murder outside his borders, Khomeini did more than just encroach on Salman Rushdie, an English citizen. He infringed on the fundamental right of the state to protect its citizens in their own home.

In fact, Khomeini declared that "sovereign" states are not at all sovereign, that they are subject to the authority of the supreme overlord, the Shiite church, and he, Khomeini, defines the limits of this authority. That a religion or a church has rights that are superior to those of states.

In fact, he challenged the entire system of "modern" international laws and customs, which until now has been based on the premise that countries are the main organizational units and protagonists on the world stage. In this situation, we see the planet as neatly divided into states that have their own flag and army, their territory accurately indicated on the map, a place in the UN and some reasonably established legal rights.

It is no coincidence that Khomeini seemed to most of the world as a cruel devil of the pre-industrial era. He was like that. Putting the rights of religion over the rights of the state, he reproduced the doctrine of the medieval papacy, which for centuries led to bloody conflicts between church and states,

This is an important development, for we may very well be returning to the world system that existed before the industrial era - before political power was distributed among clearly defined government units.

The pre-industrial world was a jumble of city-states, pirate seaports, feudal principalities, religious movements, and other autonomous entities. All of them fought for power and claimed rights that we now consider to belong only to governments. Countries - in the modern sense of the word - were rare. It was a heterogeneous system.

On the contrary, the system of states that developed over the centuries of the industrial era was much more standardized and uniform.

Now we are moving backwards, again moving towards a heterogeneous world system, but already in a rapidly changing world of high technologies, electronic communications, nuclear missiles and chemical weapons. It is a colossal leap forward and backward at the same time, which once again brings religion to the forefront of the world. And it's not just about Islamic extremists.

A completely different version of the same phenomenon is the growing global power of the Catholic Church. Papal diplomacy has recently been involved in major political shifts from the Philippines to Panama. In Poland, where the church was admired for its valiant opposition to the communist regime, it became the dominant force alongside the first non-communist government. Vatican diplomats argue that recent changes in the entire Eastern Europe were, by and large, initiated by Pope John Paul II.

Dad is not a fanatic, he keeps in touch with other faiths. However, in his calls for the creation of a "Christian Europe", in his constant criticism of the democracies of Western Europe, echoes of the distant past are heard, a time when the world was not yet secular.

The pope's policy brings to mind a long-forgotten document circulating in European capitals in 1918. It demanded the creation of a Catholic superstate from Bavaria, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Bohemia, Slovakia and Poland. Now the Pope proposes to create a Christian Europe (although, presumably, not purely Catholic) on the entire continent, from the Atlantic to the Urals, with a population of about 700 million people.

All of this religious activity is part of a rising offensive against the secular foundations of life that lie at the heart of industrial democracy and maintain a reasonable distance between church and state. If Europe becomes a Christian, not a secular community, what place will be occupied by non-believers, or Hindus, or Jews, or the 11 million Muslim immigrants who have recently become a cheap labor force in Europe? (Some Muslim fundamentalists actually dream of an Islamic Europe. Here are the words of the director of the Institute of Islamic Culture in Paris: "In a few years, Paris will become the capital of Islam, just like Baghdad and Cairo in other eras."

Play new global forces in future decades cannot be understood without taking into account the growing power of Islam, Catholicism and other religions - as well as global conflicts and wars of faith.

COCAINE EMPIRE

Religion is not the only force preparing to challenge the power of state entities. James Mill, in his fundamental study of the drug trade, writes: “... The underground empire today has more power, wealth and influence than many states. Its flag does not fly in front of the United Nations pediment, but it has a larger army, better intelligence, a more powerful diplomatic service than many countries. "

The ability of the drug cartel to corrupt, terrorize and shackle the Colombian government for many years, having previously altered its trade balance, indicates that other underground groups will be able to achieve the same results in the not too distant future. (These groups do not have to be involved in drugs.)

An indicator of the danger of the cartel was the enormous protection of US President Bush and the leaders of Peru, Bolivia and Colombia when they met at the so-called drug summit in Cartagena. The Colombians allocated a squadron of fighter-bombers, a flotilla of warships, teams of scuba divers and special forces, thousands of soldiers to guard. And all these forces were deployed not against a hostile country, but against a network of "families".

It turned out that governments are finding it increasingly difficult to deal with these new characters who have appeared on the world stage. Governments are overly bureaucratic. They are too slow to react. They are bound hand and foot by many international obligations, and they have to consult and negotiate with allies; they must cater to many political factions within the country. Therefore, governments take a long time to prepare responses to the actions of drug lords, religious fanatics and terrorists.

Unlike governments, most global warriors, especially drug cartels and guerrillas, are unbureaucratic or even extremely far from bureaucratic. A charismatic lone leader can call for battle, and the effect is frightening - or devastating. Sometimes it is not at all clear who is actually in the lead. Governments are hesitant and confused about conflicts with these organizations. Who do you have to deal with? If a deal with them is possible, then where is the confidence that these people can fulfill its conditions? Will they really free the hostages, stop the drug flow, stop bombing embassies, or pirate less?

Those few international laws that in the past have reduced the level of global anarchy are absolutely unable to cope with the new universal realities.

In the world of satellites, lasers, computers, "bombs in suitcases", high-precision sights, viruses to influence people or computers - in this world, the states to which we are accustomed may well face potential rivals, some of which will be in the millions times less than the state.

DISPERSE "DESPOT"

States were unable to cope with terrorists or religious madmen, and then found that it became more difficult for them to control corporations that could operate abroad and transport funds, waste and people there.

Financial liberalization has resulted in the growth of some 600 superfirms, commonly referred to as “transnationals”. They now own about a fifth of the world's agricultural and industrial products. However, the term "transnational" is outdated. Superfirms are absolutely non-national.

Until recently, corporations spanning the entire globe were usually "owned" by a particular country, even if they operated around the world. IBM was undoubtedly an American firm. Under the new system of creating material values, with the emergence of companies from different countries, gathered in global "alliances" and "constellations", it became difficult to determine the nationality of the corporation. Japan's IBM Japan is in many ways an American firm. Ford owns 25% of Mazda. Honda builds cars in the United States and ships them to Japan. General Motors has the largest stake in Isuzu. Management consultant Kenichi Oma writes: “It is difficult to determine the nationality of ... global corporations. They carry the flag of their customers, not their country. "

What is the "nationality" of Visa International? Her headquarters may be in the United States, but she owns about 21,000 financial institutions in 187 countries and territories. Its board of governors and regional councils have a responsibility to ensure that one country does not receive 51% of the shareholder vote.

In case of transnational mergers, amalgamations and re-buying of companies, a firm can in principle move from one country to another in a day. Thus, corporations are increasingly becoming extra- or transnational; they raise capital and the management elite from many different countries, create jobs in many countries, and there they distribute the stream of income among the shareholders.

Such changes will force us to reconsider such emotionally charged concepts as economic nationalism, neo-colonialism and imperialism. For example, the people of Latin America have a firm conviction that the Yankee imperialists are siphoning super profits from their countries. But what will happen if tomorrow "super profits" from activities in Mexico are distributed among investors in Japan, Western Europe and, say, Brazil (or someday in China)? Who then turns out to be a true neo-colonialist?

What if a multinational company is nominally based in Macau or, say, on the island of Curacao, if its shares are owned by 100,000 constantly changing shareholders from dozens of countries and it participates in a dozen stock exchanges - from Bombay and Sydney to Paris and Hong Kong? What if its main contributors are also transnational? And its managers are recruited all over the world? Which country should then be considered an "imperialist despot"?

When such companies lose their precise nationality, the entire relationship between them and governments changes. In the past, the "home" governments of the host countries defended their interests in the global economy, exerted diplomatic pressure for them and, if necessary, often threatened with military actions to protect their property and personnel (and not only threatened).

In the early 1970s, in Chile, the CIA, at the request of IT and other American corporations, vigorously undermined the power of President Allende. In the future, governments may be much less willing to respond to cries for help from firms that are no longer national or multinational, but truly transnational.

But then, what happens when terrorists, guerrillas or hostile countries threaten the personnel or production facilities of one of the giant corporations? Who will she turn to for help? Will she have to humbly say goodbye to her property?

CONDOIERS SERVED BY CORPORATIONS

Military power is precisely the kind of state ownership that other power seekers usually lack. But if the troops of one country or the international forces fail to ensure order, the day may come when quite ordinary multinational corporations decide that it is time to use their own battalions.

Perhaps I am expressing an extravagant opinion, but there is a historical precedent for that. Sir Francis Drake waged war not only with the Spanish ships laden with silver, but also with the cities of the entire Pacific coast of Central and South America and Mexico. It was funded by private investors.

And is it really so hard to imagine something like Italian condottieri in the service of 21st century corporations?

In the novel "The Apocalyptic Brigade" Alfred Koppel portrayed this situation exactly: an oil super-corporation organized its own army to protect the oil fields from the attack of terrorists. The company acted on its own because it could not get help from its government.

The situation portrayed by the writer may seem extreme, but there is some logic in it. The failure of states, with all their armies, to stop terrorism has already led some large corporations to take matters into their own hands. They keep trained drivers, armed bodyguards, modern security specialists, and so on. And when Iran took several employees of billionaire Ross Perot hostage, the latter hired and sent them to the rescue of the retired special forces of the US Army. From here - only a small step to the mercenary units.

UN - PLUS

Undoubtedly, we will end up in chaos if new international laws are not created, as well as new organizations to enforce these laws, or if the main "global warriors" such as transnational corporations, religious movements and similar forces refuse to participate in this. ...

From all sides, projects of new global institutions for environmental management, arms control, money circulation, tourism, telecommunications, and regional economic affairs are pouring in. But who should run such institutions? Nation states alone?

The less responsive governments and intergovernmental structures become to the needs of multinational firms, the more likely they are to turn their backs on governments and demand direct participation in global institutions.

It is not hard to imagine a World Council of Global Corporations providing a counterbalance to the power of national governments and acting on behalf of a new type of firms. Alternatively, leading corporations may demand representation in organizations such as the UN, World Bank, GATT  - under their own names, as members of a new type.

Given the growing and diverse power of the "global warriors", the UN, which until now barely went beyond the professional association of governments, may eventually be forced to admit non-governmental organizations into its ranks (as full members, and not on the symbolic role of observers, now bestowed on some non-governmental organizations).

It is very possible that the UN will have to establish an additional type of membership with the right to vote for multinational companies, religious and other associations, which will greatly increase its influence in the world. If the states that run the UN do not wish to expand their representation, and global corporations multiply in number and gain strength, organizations that compete with the UN may appear.

NEW TYPE WORLD ORGANIZATIONS

The question of whether some non-national "warriors" should have representation in world structures is closely related to the form of new international organizations. The key question for architects of the new world order: how should power be built - vertically or horizontally?

The European Community is a clear example of vertical organization. It seeks over time to build a super-government that - according to critics of the Community - will reduce the status of European countries to the status of provinces, introducing supranational control over currency and central banks, educational standards, the state of the environment, agriculture and even national budgets.

The traditional vertical system tries to solve problems by adding another tier to the power hierarchy. This is the "multi-storey" organizational architecture.

The alternative system corresponds to the forms of organization emerging in the business world and highly developed structures; it is the “alignment” of the power hierarchy instead of its vertical development. Such a system, more extensive than any state, will be based on networks of associations, consortia, and specialized management agencies. It does not have the highest level of vertical management, and specialized agencies are not divided into levels under the leadership of a single non-specialized unit. It is equivalent to "one-story" architecture. It is a flexible-rigid system.

The EU is now closely watched and is very often regarded as the only model for regional organization. Therefore, loud proposals to copy the EU are heard from the Maghreb and the Middle East to the Caribbean and the Pacific. A more revolutionary approach would be to link together existing organizations in these regions without introducing a new governing body. The same can be done with countries.

For example, Japan and the United States are so closely intertwined economically, politically, and militarily that decisions made in one country have direct and very significant consequences in another. Under such circumstances, the day may come when Japan will demand voting seats in the United States Congress for its representatives. For its part, the United States will no doubt demand equivalent representation in the Japanese parliament. In this way, the first of many “bi-national” parliaments or other legislatures could emerge.

A democratic order assumes that those on whom decisions are reflected have the right to participate in making those decisions. If so, then many countries should actually have a voice in the US Congress whose decisions affect their lives more than those of their own politicians.

As the world becomes one and a new wealth creation system spreads, a wave of demands for bi-national political participation and even bi-national voting should rise. This will be demanded by large groups of the population who now feel excluded from the decisions that determine their lives.

However, whatever form the global organizations of tomorrow take, they will have to pay more attention - both positively and negatively - to "global warriors."

To what extent should religious and similar groups, global corporations, environmental and human rights movements and other components of civil society be represented in the institutions planned for the world of the near future?

How can the decisive separation of church and state be maintained at the global level and thus prevent the terrible bloodshed and dictatorship - the usual consequences of the merger of these two structures? How to deal with terrorists and criminals, military dictators and drug killers? How to give the right to vote at the global level to national minorities oppressed in their countries? What anti-missile and anti-chemical defense measures should become regional or global and leave the sphere of responsibility of national authorities?

No one has the right to dogmatically answer these dangerous questions concerning the not so distant future. Without a doubt, in a world that still sees itself built of nation states, the questions may seem strange. But after all, at the dawn of the industrial age, nothing could have looked more strange, more radical and dangerous than the views of the French, British and American revolutionaries, who believed that peoples and parliaments should rule by kings - and not vice versa - and that the absence of representative power was a reason for uprising.

The ideas outlined may provoke passionate objections from patriots in many countries. In the XIX century. French writer Charles Morras, the herald of fascism, expounded the traditional opinion that "of all freedoms, the most precious thing for a person is the independence of his country." But absolute sovereignty and complete independence have always been mythical.

Only countries that wish to forever stay away from new system production of wealth will not be pressed into the new global economy. The countries connected with the world will inevitably be drawn into the world system, consisting of independent elements, among which there will be not only countries, but also “global warriors”.

We are now witnessing a significant transition of power from individual states or their associations to “global warriors”. This means nothing more than another world revolution in the field of state formations.

In the developing world system, the movement towards heterogeneity will accelerate sharply if huge countries begin to split - and this now seems very likely. The Soviet Union is rapidly disintegrating despite Gorbachev's desperate efforts to keep the country together on freer terms. However, in the coming decades, some parts of it will almost certainly separate and take on strange new forms. Certain regions, whether part of the post-Soviet Union or not, will inevitably be drawn into the economic maelstrom of Europe, dominated by Germany.

Others are in Japan's nascent Asian sphere of influence. Backward republics, still dependent on agriculture and mining, can create a federation freer than the old one. However, economically rational decisions may well be swept away by the surging wave of religious and ethnic strife, so that Ukraine, the Russian Republic and Belarus will merge into a giant country based on Slavic culture and a resurgent Orthodox Church. Some republics of Central Asia can be brought together by Islam.

China may also split when the most industrially developed regions of the south and east of the country sever ties with huge peasant China and create commonwealths of new species with Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and, possibly, a reunited Korea. It is possible that as a result, a gigantic new Confucian economic community will emerge, opposing the rise of Japan, and the importance of the religious factor in the world system will increase.

The assumption that such change will take place without civil wars and other conflicts, or can take place within the dying framework of a global order based on state relations, would be extremely short-sighted. Only one thing can be said with certainty: the future will surprise us all.

However, it is quite clear that, embracing the globe, the new system of value creation upsets all our ideas about the economic development of the so-called South, destroys socialism in the East, draws allies into a destructive competition and brings to life a completely different world order - diverse and full of risk, inspiring hopeful and frightening at the same time.

New knowledge turned our old world upside down and undermined the pillars of power on which it held. We examine the wreckage of the wreck and, once again preparing to create a new civilization, we stand now - now all together - at the zero level.

Today, the world is also looking for new ways of organizing. Bureaucracy, as everyone understands, will never disappear. For some purposes, it remains appropriate. However, new ones are born today organizational structures. Modern organization impossible to model by the standards of a car. It requires a more mobile look. Competition requires continuous innovation, but hierarchical power destroys creativity. It takes intuition, but traditional bureaucracy replaces it with mechanical rules. This means that the business will be rebuilt through a wave of shocks. Managing a huge variety of agile firms will require new leadership styles that are completely foreign to the bureaucrat manager.

The demassification of the economy is forcing companies and work units to interact with more and more diverse partners than before. History has repeatedly shown that new advanced technologies require truly innovative methods and organization. effective work... According to Toffler, the great irony of history is that a new type of worker is emerging who does not really own the means of production.

The common core of movement in modern economy - from monolith to mosaic. The new system goes beyond mass production to flexible, adaptable or “demassified” production. Thanks to new information technologies, it is able to produce small batches of extremely diverse products. Traditional factors of production - land, labor, raw materials, capital - become less significant, as they are replaced by symbolic knowledge. Electronic information becomes a means of communication. The bureaucratic organization of knowledge is being replaced by free flow information systems. The new social type, who is also a hero, is no longer an under-prepared worker, not a financier or a manager, but an innovator who combines imagination and knowledge with action.

The shift to a knowledge-based economy is dramatically increasing the need for communication and contributing to the demise of the old symbol delivery system. The new economy is not only tightly bound up with formal knowledge and technical skills, it also cannot do without mass culture and an ever-expanding market for images. Globalization in Toffler's interpretation is not synonymous with homogeneity and uniformity. Toffler examines the processes leading to this diversity, ambiguity. There are ecological movements and a religious renaissance here. As a result, the sociologist shows power as the most significant social phenomenon that is associated with human nature itself.

Power, as Toffler shows, is possible only in a world that combines chance and necessity, chaos and order. Here, Toffler's reasoning about the role of the state in ensuring order is very interesting. He tries to show under what conditions order provides the stability necessary for the economy, and under what conditions it stifles its development. States that seek to usurp power lose what the Confucians call the "Mandate of Heaven." In a world where everyone depends on each other, they lose their legitimacy in the moral sense.

Deploying a very dramatic picture of the future, Toffler comes to the conclusion that conflict is an inevitable social event. But the power struggle, he said, is not necessarily evil. At the same time, over-concentration of power is dangerous. But its insufficient concentration is also not good. The world that Toffler describes is not idyllic. It is harsh, full of anxiety and collisions.

However, in his work there is no analysis of the negative consequences of such a civilization that is being born before our eyes. Back in the late 70s, E. Fromm spoke about the possibility of creating information imperialism. Information can actually become a means of information pressure and domination. More and more people write that science does not know how new technologies will affect a person. Philosophers warn against political dictatorship. The latest political technologies, armed with informatics, can confidently shape public opinion, manipulate public consciousness. The dominance of information technology can drastically change the entire social life.

Can a person live in the information space? So far, there is no serious research that would show the beneficial effects of new technologies on the human psyche. On the contrary, many researchers show that widespread computerization transforms human nature, changes human consciousness... People who are deprived of the emotional world appear. These are the children of the era of computerization. Communication with new technology must be verified by human standards ...

At the same time, the cultural-philosophical intuitions of modern philosophers and psychologists have raised the question of a radical criticism of our entire civilization. The growth of schizoid and schizophrenic tendencies shows that the neurosis of our culture is partly in the fact that the degree of human security is determined by material wealth. Wild animals in nature feel safe, but they have no wealth. It seems that having both - "security" and "prosperity" - is impossible. Material needs are a tremendous force that keeps a person "in contact" with everyday reality.

Our civilization is such that it excommunicates a person from the spiritual, ideal side of being. A man of our civilization has no opportunity to penetrate into the great unknown - into the world of the spirit. The fundamental splitting in the personality of a schizophrenic is the splitting of aggressive drives and eros, spiritual forces. A paradox is born - it is the schizoid who in his consciousness is identified with his spiritual feelings. This is where the opportunity for radical criticism of the entire modern civilizational cultural project is born. This understanding of culture gives impetus to the search for alternative forms of human life along the path of a "healthy society".

In this sense, the lines of the Russian poet Yuri Kuznetsov can be a well-known controversy to Toffler:

Why are we trudging, delirious

Is it different in the millennium?

We won't find our relatives there.

Everything is not right there, everything is alien there.

Pavel Gurevich,

doctor of Philosophy, Professor.

METAMORPHOSIS OF POWER

KNOWLEDGE, WEALTH AND POWER ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE XXI CENTURY

Karen with love

from both of us

FOREWORD

The “Metamorphoses of Power” is the culmination of 25 years of attempts to comprehend the amazing changes that are leading us into the 21st century. This is the third and final volume of a trilogy started by Tomorrow Shock, continued by The Third Wave and completed now.

Each of these books can be read as an independent work. But together they form a coherent, logical whole. Their central theme is the analysis of the changes that happen to people when society is suddenly transformed into something new and unprecedented. The book Metamorphoses of Power continues the analysis from earlier and focuses on the rise of a new system of power, replacing the power system of the industrial past.

Describing the accelerating change, the media unleashes a flood of fragmented data on us. Experts fill us with mountains of highly specialized monographs. Popular forecasters list unrelated trends without any model to reflect their interdependencies or identifying forces that are likely to reverse them. As a result, the change itself begins to seem anarchic, almost insane.

This trilogy is based on the assumption that the rapid transformations taking place today are not as chaotic and random as we think. This work shows that there are not only individual models behind the headlines, but also certain forces. Once we understand these patterns and forces, we can deal with them strategically, not haphazardly, acting alone.

To make sense of the great changes taking place today, we need more than bits of information, screen glare and checklists. We need to understand how the various transformations depend on one another. Thus, "Metamorphoses of Power", like the two previous parts of the trilogy, represent a clear and comprehensive image of a new civilization that is spreading across the planet.

The book of the American sociologist and futurologist Alvin Toffler (b. 1928) "Metamorphoses of Power" crowns a trilogy conceived by him dedicated to the transformation of modern civilization. The researcher does not consider his predictions to be either utopia or dystopia. He calls his genre "proctopia", that is, a practical utopia. There is no immeasurable idealization in it. This is a description of a more practical and more favorable world for a person than the one in which we live. But in this world, unlike utopia, there is a place for evil - disease, dirty politics, injustice.

The idea of \u200b\u200btechnical mutations that have a multidimensional impact on social progress has long been recognized in modern philosophy and sociology. Toffler holds the idea that humanity is moving to a new technological revolution, that is, the First Wave (agrarian civilization) and the Second (industrial civilization) are replaced by a new one, leading to the creation of a super-industrial civilization. The next wave is, according to Toffler, a grandiose turn of history, the greatest transformation of society, a comprehensive transformation of all forms of social and individual life. But we are not talking about a social revolution aimed mainly at changing the political regime, but about technological changes that mature slowly, evolutionarily. However, later they give rise to deep upheavals. The sooner humanity realizes the need to move to a new wave, the less the danger of violence, dictatorship and other troubles will be.

Toffler seeks to describe the future society as a return to pre-industrial civilization on a new technological basis.

Considering history as a continuous wave movement, Toffler analyzes the features of the future world, the economic backbone of which, in his opinion, will be electronics and computers, space production, the use of the ocean depths and bioindustry. This is the Third Wave, which completes the agrarian (First Wave) and industrial (Second Wave) revolutions.

In the first book of the trilogy "Future Shock" (1970), Toffler warned humanity about the danger that is associated with rapid changes in people's lives. Not all researchers have accepted this point of view. Thus, the outstanding American sociologist D. Bell considered this idea deceptive. In his opinion, in the daily life of earthlings, more changes occurred between 1850 and 1940, when railways, steamships, telegraph, electricity, telephone, automobile, cinema, radio and airplanes came into use - than in the subsequent period, supposedly characterized by acceleration. Bell believed that practically, apart from the innovations he listed, nothing new appeared in the daily life of people, except for television.

However, Toffler's idea about the difficulties of psychological adaptation of people to the acceleration of social change took root in futurological literature. Toffler writes about new complexities, social conflicts and global problems that humanity will face at the turn of the century. Toffler's main books are "Shock of the Future", "Clash with the Future" (1972); Ecospasm Report (1975); The Third Wave (1980); "Metamorphoses of Power" (1990) and others.

To what extent did Toffler's predictions come true? What has changed over the past decade in the consciousness of mankind? What are other cultural-civilization projects of people? The idea of \u200b\u200ba new civilization has retained its value. American sociologist Z. Brzezinski wrote about the "technotronic era", the French researcher J. Ellul called the society he represented "technological", D. Bell used the concept of "post-industrial society", while Toffler, pondering over the terms "trans-industrial" and "post-economic", stopped on the concept of "super-industrial society". By it is meant, as he writes in Future Shock, "a complex, rapidly developing society based on the most advanced technology and post-materialistic value system." D. Bell sarcastically: on the definitions of E. Toffler, it would seem, all the permutations and combination ideas associated with the word "post-" have been exhausted.

Large-scale and intensive transformations now concern not only the spheres of economy, economics, politics and culture. The fundamental foundations of human reproduction as a biological and anthropological type are also changing. The practice of education and thinking becomes different. A new era is truly beginning. Sociocultural institutions and management technologies existing today must be radically reconstructed. This is the general meaning of the last work of E. Toffler.

The current "Third Wave", according to Toffler, is an "information society". It is caused by the ubiquity of computers, turbojet aircraft, flexible technologies. In the information society, new types of families, styles of work, life, new forms of politics, economics and consciousness are taking shape. The world ceases to seem like a machine, it is filled with innovations, for the perception of which the constant development of cognitive abilities is necessary. The symbols of the Third Wave are integrity, individuality and pure, human technology. The leading role in such a society is acquired by the service sector, science and education. Corporations must give way to universities, and businessmen to scientists ...

In pre-industrial society, according to Bell, life was a game between man and nature, in which people interacted with the natural environment - land, waters, forests - working in small groups. In an industrial society, work is a game between humans and built environments, where humans are obscured by machines that produce goods. In the "information society", work becomes, first of all, a game of a person with a person (between an official and a visitor, a doctor and a patient, a teacher and a student). Thus, nature is removed from the framework of working and everyday life. People learn to live with each other. In the history of society, this, according to Bell, is a new and unparalleled state of affairs.

The computer revolution is a deep and versatile turn in the development of mankind, which is associated with the growth of productive forces, the widespread use of technology and science in production. The world is on the verge of an unprecedented technological revolution. Today it is difficult to imagine the full extent of its social consequences. A new civilization is born, where communication creates all the conditions for the complete life support of a person ...

The modern economy presupposes the solution of such problems that require computer calculations at a rate of $ 3 trillion for their solution. operations per second. And the United States has already set itself the task: in ten years to ensure the speed of computers in 1000 trillion. operations per second. This is the global trend that E. Toffler writes about.

However, the main theme of E. Toffler's latest book is not the information revolution. In his field of vision is the problem of power and its transformation. Power is the ability and real ability of rulers or people to exert a radical and comprehensive influence on the activities, behavior, consciousness and thoughts of people, to dispose of their destinies. In the most primitive societies, where hunting or gathering was the main source of livelihood, power was exercised by a person who was generally recognized as competent to carry out the task. What qualities this person should have depended to a greater extent on specific circumstances. Typically, these qualities included life experience, wisdom, generosity, skill, "looks", courage. In many tribes, there was no permanent power. It was installed when the need arose for it. Different representatives of the government exercised it in various spheres: waging war, the administration of religion, resolving disputes. When the qualities on which the given power relied disappeared or weakened, the power ceased to exist.

In the XIX century. K. Marx revealed the importance of economic power. However, he exaggerated its importance. According to Marxists, whoever has money has freedom, since if necessary he can buy weapons and even gangsters. However, according to K. Popper, Marx would be the first to admit that this is not true for all states. There have been times in history when, for example, all exploitation was plunder, directly based on the power of military force. “And today, few will support the naive view that the“ progress of history ”put an end to this once and for all direct way exploitation of people. Proponents of this view mistakenly believe that since formal freedom was once won, it is no longer possible for us to fall again under the rule of such primitive forms of exploitation.

The American philosopher E. Fromm showed that our understanding of power in accordance with one way or another of existence depends on our understanding that the word “power” is a fairly broad term and has two completely different meanings: power can be either “rational” or "Irrational". Rational power is based on force and serves the exploitation of those who submit to it.

According to E. Toffler, a global battle for power awaits us. But what turns out to be its basis? Not violence, not money, but knowledge.This is the new concept of power, which E. Toffler justifies. The old system of power is falling apart. In the office, in the supermarket, in the bank, in the corridors of the executive branch, in churches, hospitals, schools, and homes, old models of government are crumbling, taking on new, unusual features. The collapse of the old management style is also accelerating in business and everyday life. The old leverage turns out to be useless.

The modern power structure is no longer based on muscle strength, wealth, or violence. Her password is intelligence. The proliferation of the new knowledge-based economy, Toffler says, turned out to be an explosive wave that provided a new stage in the race for developed countries. This is how, three hundred years ago, the Industrial Revolution laid the foundation for a grand system of wealth production. Factory buildings ascended into the sky. The factories were smoking. Now all this is a distant history ...

The previous government could be based on violence. Everyone knows that human history looks a lot like a chronicle of violence. Revenge played a colossal role in the primitive moral consciousness. Family revenge is a characteristic phenomenon of ancient humanity. She remained in the Christian consciousness as well. The instinct and psychology of patrimonial revenge, so opposed to Christianity, have passed into a kind of understanding of honor - it is necessary to defend one's honor and honor of one's kind with arms in hand, shedding blood. The ancient conscience had nothing to do with personal guilt. Revenge and punishment were not directed directly at the one who was guilty and responsible. Family revenge was impersonal.

The cult of power is godless and inhuman. This is the cult of the lowest material strength, disbelief in the power of spirit and law. But the false cult of strength, as N.A. Berdyaev believed, is not opposed to the defense of weakness and powerlessness, but spirit and freedom, in social life - right and justice. The law of this natural world there is a struggle of individuals, families, clans, tribes, nations, states, empires for existence and predominance. The demon of the will to power torments people and nations.

* Popper K. Open Society and Its Enemies. Part 2, M., 1992, p. 149.

Even F. Bacon emphasized that knowledge is power. But in history it has usually been associated with money and violence. Violence, wealth, and knowledge are the most significant attributes of power. Toffler emphasizes that knowledge overrides the virtues of other power impulses and sources. It is knowledge that can serve to increase wealth and strength. However, it works extremely effectively, since it is aimed at achieving a goal.

Toffler considers knowledge to be the most democratic source of power. However, today a worldwide battle for power is unfolding in the world. The new system for creating wealth is entirely dependent on instant communication and dissemination of data, ideas, symbols. The current economy can be called the economy of supersymbols. The power factor is inherent in all economies today. Power is an inevitable part of the manufacturing process.

What is the drama of the modern configurations of power? Monopolization of power is the first aspiration of every government, as soon as it is formed. Behind any law, good or bad, we run into a trunk. There has been a fundamental change in the balance of violence, wealth, and knowledge that serve the elite to rule and control.

Business management today involves the study of public consciousness. Business will not get down to business until it learns the language, culture, consciousness of people who will be involved in its sphere. Humanity is moving towards a new type of thinking. The phenomenon of intra-intelligence is similar to the intelligence that is embedded in our own autonomous nervous systems... Scientists and engineers struggle to keep messages clean. So, the wonders of labor, intelligence and scientific imagination overshadow the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, medieval cathedrals. The electronic infrastructure of tomorrow's supersymbolic society is being born.

However, the transition to new thinking is dramatic. Toffler now and then writes about information wars, global conflicts, and the paradox of standards. How can the most sophisticated system predict exactly what and who will need information? For how long? How often? Therefore, information wars are now waged all over the world, covering everything from scanners in supermarkets and standards to television networks and techno-nationalism. A general information clash is brewing, a general espionage begins.

Today, the world is also looking for new ways of organizing. Bureaucracy, as everyone understands, will never disappear. For some purposes, it remains appropriate. However, today new organizational structures are being born. Modern organization cannot be modeled by machine standards. It requires a more mobile look. Competition requires continuous innovation, but hierarchical power destroys creativity. It takes intuition, but traditional bureaucracy replaces it with mechanical rules. This means that the business will be rebuilt through a wave of shocks. Managing a huge variety of agile firms will require new leadership styles that are completely foreign to the bureaucrat manager.

The demassification of the economy is forcing companies and work units to interact with more and more diverse partners than before. History shows every now and then that new advanced technologies require truly innovative methods and organization of effective work. According to Toffler, the great irony of history is that a new type of worker is emerging who does not really own the means of production.

The common core of the movement in the modern economy is from a monolith to a mosaic. The new system goes beyond mass production to flexible, adaptable or “demassified” production. Thanks to new information technologies, it is able to produce small batches of extremely diverse products. Traditional factors of production - land, labor, raw materials, capital - become less significant, as they are replaced by symbolic knowledge. Electronic information becomes a means of communication. The bureaucratic organization of knowledge is being replaced by free flow information systems. The new social type, who is also a hero, is no longer an under-prepared worker, not a financier or a manager, but an innovator who combines imagination and knowledge with action.

The shift to a knowledge-based economy is dramatically increasing the need for communication and contributing to the demise of the old symbol delivery system. The new economy is not only deeply rooted in formal knowledge and technical skills, but also without mass culture and an ever-expanding market for images. Globalization in Toffler's interpretation is not a synonym for homogeneity and uniformity. Toffler examines the processes leading to this diversity, ambiguity. There are ecological movements and a religious renaissance here. As a result, the sociologist shows power as the most significant social phenomenon that is associated with human nature itself.

However, in his work there is no analysis of the negative consequences of such a civilization that is being born before our eyes. Back in the late 70s, E. Fromm spoke about the possibility of creating information imperialism. Information can actually become a means of information pressure and domination. More and more people write that science does not know how new technologies will affect a person. Philosophers warn against political dictatorship. The latest political technologies, armed with informatics, can confidently shape public opinion and manipulate public consciousness. The dominance of information technology can drastically change the entire social life.

Can a person live in the information space? So far, there is no serious research that would show the beneficial effects of new technologies on the human psyche. On the contrary, many researchers show that rampant computerization transforms human nature, changes human consciousness. People who are deprived of the emotional world appear. These are the children of the era of computerization. Communication with new technology must be calibrated to human standards ...

In this sense, the lines of the Russian poet Yuri Kuznetsov can be a well-known controversy to Toffler:

Why are we trudging, delirious

Is it different in the millennium?

We won't find our relatives there.

Everything is not right there, everything is alien there.

Pavel Gurevich,doctor of Philosophy, Professor.

Foreword

Each of these books can be read as an independent work. But together they form a coherent, logical whole. Their central theme is an analysis of the changes that happen to people when society is suddenly transformed into something new and unprecedented. The book Metamorphoses of Power continues the analysis carried out earlier and focuses on the rise of a new system of power, replacing the power system of the industrial past.

This trilogy is based on the assumption that the rapid transformations taking place today are not as chaotic and random as we imagine. This work shows that there are not only individual models behind the headlines, but also certain forces. Once we understand these patterns and forces, we can deal with them strategically, not haphazardly, acting alone.

To make sense of the great changes taking place today, we need more than bits of information, screen glare and checklists. We need to understand how the various transformations depend on one another. Thus, Metamorphoses of Power, like the two previous parts of the trilogy, represent a clear and comprehensive image of a new civilization that is spreading across the planet.

Consequently, the conflicts that may become hotbeds of tension tomorrow, the conflicts we face, are reduced to the contradictions between this new civilization and the defending forces of the past. Metamorphoses of Power argues that the corporate takeovers and restructuring we've seen so far are just the first volleys of great, unprecedented battles to come in the business world. More importantly, we believe that the recent shifts in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union are only minor skirmishes compared to the global power battle ahead. And the competition between the United States, Europe and Japan has not yet reached its climax.

In short, Metamorphoses of Power is a book about the growing power struggle that we face at a time when the industrial civilization is losing its dominant position and new forces are gaining power on the planet.

For me personally, "Metamorphoses of Power" is a peak reached after a captivating journey. However, a personal clarification is required before proceeding. I have not made this journey alone. This trilogy - from start to finish - had an "unaccredited" co-author. This is a joint work of two minds, and not one, although the actual writing process is my handiwork, laurels and criticism are also accepted by me.

My co-author, as many already know, is mine best friend, spouse, partner, my love for 40 years - Heidi Toffler. Whatever blunders exist in this trilogy, they would be much more serious, if not for her skeptical mind, her intellectual acumen, sharp editorial instinct and a correct understanding of both ideas and people in general. She not only gave shine to what had already been written, but also formulated the basic models underlying this essay.

Despite the fact that the intensity of her participation varied depending on her employment - and these books required travel, research, interviews with thousands of people around the world, careful organization and planning, all this was followed by endless refinements and checks - despite all this, Heidi participated in all stages.

Nevertheless, for reasons partly personal, part social and part economic - these have sometimes varied over the past two decades - the final decision was made to declare as the author only the one who actually wrote.

Even now, Heidi refuses to put her name on the cover of the book because of honesty, humility and love - reasons that seem to be enough for her, although I do not think so. I can correct this omission only by prefixing the book with the words: I feel that this trilogy is as much hers as it is mine.

All three books explore the same time span - starting around the mid-50s and ending 75 years later, in 2025. This time period, which can be called a turning point in history, is the period when the civilization of "factory chimneys" dominated the planet over the past centuries, finally giving way to another, completely different from her, and all this is accompanied by a tremendous world power struggle.

But while all parts of the trilogy are focused on one time period, each of them uses different tools to look beyond the facade of reality, and it is probably useful to explain to readers what the difference is between them.

"Future Shock" considers processchange, its impact on people and organizations. Third Wave analyzes directionschanges affecting us. "Metamorphoses of Power" is dedicated to the problem management:who and how is shaping the ongoing transformations.

Future Shock, which we define as the disorientation and stress of coping with too many changes in too short a time, provides evidence that accelerating the course of history has consequences in and of itself, regardless of the direction of transformation. Simply accelerating the pace of events and the time it takes to react to them have consequences, whether the change is perceived as good or bad.

It also implies that very soon too drastic changes can overwhelm people, organizations and even entire countries, leading to disorientation and destroying the ability to make the intelligent decisions necessary for adaptation. In short, they may suffer from this shock.

Contrary to popular belief, Future Shock argued that the nuclear family would soon fall apart. The book also heralded a genetic revolution, the rise of a wasteful society, and a revolution in education that may be starting right now.

First published in the United States in 1970 and then around the world, the book struck a bare nerve, became an unexpected international bestseller, and generated an avalanche of comment. It has become, according to the Institute of Scientific Information, one of the most cited works in sociological literature. 1. The phrase “shock of the future” entered everyday language, appeared in many dictionaries and recent times flashes on the pages of newspapers.

The Third Wave, which followed in 1980, had a different focus: the recent revolutionary changes in technology and society and the prospects for the future were viewed from a historical point of view.

Defining the agricultural revolution that occurred 10,000 years ago as the First Wave of change in human history, and the Industrial Revolution as the Second Wave, this book described the major technological and social changes that began in the mid-1950s as the great Third Wave of change - the beginning of a new post-industrial civilization. Among other things, it notes the emergence of new industries based on computers, electronics, information, biotechnology, and the like, which I have called the "new commanding heights" of the economy. Expansion of flexible manufacturing, expansion of employment, part-time work and demassification of the media were also predicted there. This book described the unprecedented fusion of producer and consumer by introducing the term « prosumer ".It discussed the return of certain types of work to the home and changes in politics and the nation-state system.

Banned in some countries, The Third Wave became a bestseller in others and at one time was something of a “bible” for the reform fathers in China.2 First accused of spreading Western “spiritual pollution,” then realized and published in huge print runs, it became the best-selling book in the largest country on the planet and was used to compose Deng Xiaoping's speeches. Zao Ziyan, the then prime minister, called conferences to discuss it and urged politicians to study the work.

In Poland, censorship has reduced the book. Outraged by the actions of the authorities, students and those who supported Solidarity published an "underground" edition, and also distributed brochures with some missing chapters. Like Future Shock, The Third Wave drew numerous responses from readers, giving impetus to the creation of new types of products, companies, symphonies and even sculptures.

Now, 20 years after the release of Future Shock and 10 years after the Third Wave, the book Metamorphoses of Power is finally ready. It raises issues not addressed in previous works, the main focus of the book is focused on a decisive change in the relationship: knowledge - power. She presents a new theory of power in society and explores the transformations taking place in business, economics, politics and the world in general.

It hardly needs to be added that the future is not "knowable" in the sense of accurate prediction. Life is full of surreal surprises. Even the most "hard" models and "hard" data are often based on "unstable" assumptions, especially when it comes to human affairs. The subject of these books is change, gaining momentum, and of course the details quickly become obsolete. The statistics are changing. But since we have moved into the terra incognita * called "tomorrow", it is better to have a general and incomplete map of what needs to be revised and adjusted than not to have a map at all.

* Terra incognita (lat.) - unknown land. - Note. lane

While each of the books in the trilogy builds on an original but interoperable model, they are all based on documents, research, and reporting covering numerous and deeply various areas and different countries... So, for example, preparing this book, we tried to study power both at the top and in the depths of society.

We had the opportunity to hold four-hour meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, several Japanese prime ministers, and many others who are considered by the majority to be among the most influential people on the planet.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, we also visited the inhabitants of the South American "city of beggars" and women serving life sentences, together or separately. Both groups can be classified as the most powerless on earth.

In addition, we discussed the problems of the authorities with bankers, trade unionists, leading businessmen, computer experts, generals, laureates Nobel Prize in the field of science, oil magnates, journalists and top managers of many of the world's largest companies.

We met with those who prepare decisions in the White House, in the Elysee Palace in Paris, in the office of the prime minister in Tokyo and even in the offices of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Moscow. The conversation with Anatoly Lukyanov (then a member of the Central Committee, later the second most important state official in the USSR after Gorbachev) was interrupted by an unexpected call, which summoned him to a meeting at the Politburo.

Somehow I was in the drenched sunlight room surrounded by books. It was in a small town in California. If I hadn't been brought there blindfolded, I would never have thought that the smart young woman in a T-shirt and jeans sitting across from me at an oak writing desk was a murderer or convicted of a horrific sex crime. Or that we are in prison - a place where all the realities of power are not embellished. There I came to understand that even prisoners are by no means powerless. Some of them know how to use information to gain power, fromskill, comparable only to the manipulations of Cardinal Richelieu at the court of Louis XIII, which is directly related to our book. (This incident allowed my wife and me to conduct a seminar twice in a class that consisted mainly of assassins, from whom we learned a lot.)

Incidents such as these, complementing the exhausting reading and analysis of printed sources gathered in different parts of the world, made the preparation of Metamorphosis of Power unforgettable for us.

We hope that readers will find Metamorphoses of Power as useful, enjoyable and instructive as The Third Wave and Future Shock. The extensive research begun a quarter of a century ago has been completed.

Alvin Toffler.

METAMORPHOSIS OF POWER.

Knowledge, wealth and power on the threshold of the 21st century

Alvin Toffler - POWERSHIFT Knowledge, wealth, and violence at the edge of the 21st century. 1990

Translated from English: V.V.Belokoskov, K.Yu. Burmistrov, L.M. Burmistrova, E.K. Komarova, A.I. Mirer, E.G. Rudnev, N.A. Stroilova

ISBN 5-17-004183-7

P. Gurevich. POWER CONFIGURATION

In the first book of the trilogy "Future Shock" (1970), Toffler warned humanity about the danger that is associated with rapid changes in people's lives. Not all researchers have accepted this point of view. Thus, the outstanding American sociologist D. Bell considered this idea deceptive. In his opinion, in the daily life of earthlings, more changes occurred between 1850 and 1940, when railways, steamships, telegraph, electricity, telephone, automobile, cinema, radio and airplanes came into use - than in the subsequent period, supposedly characterized by acceleration. Bell believed that practically, apart from the innovations he listed, nothing new appeared in the everyday life of people, except for television.

However, Toffler's idea about the difficulties of psychological adaptation of people to the acceleration of social change took root in futurological literature. Toffler writes about new complexities, social conflicts and global problems that humanity will face at the turn of the century. Toffler's main books are "Shock of the Future", "Clash with the Future" (1972); Ecospasm Report (1975); The Third Wave (1980); "Metamorphoses of Power" (1990) and others.

New understanding of power by Alvin Toffler ("Metamorphoses of Power"). Changing the structure of power (O. Toffler) Alvin Toffler metamorphosis of power summary

Chapter 34. Global Warriors

Foreword

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