FUTURE SHOCK THE THIRD WAVE

Posted by admin_akashic on Aug 7th, 2022 in Space

THE THIRD WAVE

Under socialism as well as capitalism, therefore, the integrators took effective power. For without them the parts of the system could not work together. The “machine” would not run.

THE INTEGRATIONS ENGINE

Integrating a single business, or even a whole industry, was only a small part of what had to be done. Modern industrial society, as we have seen, developed a host of organizations, from labor unions andtrade associations to churches, schools, health clinics, and recreational groups, all of which had to work within a framework of predictablerules. Laws were needed. Above all, the info-sphere, socio-sphere, and techno-sphere had to be brought into alignment with one another.

Out of this driving need for the integration of Second Wave civilization came the biggest coordinator of all—the in-tegrational engine of the system: big government. It is the system’s hunger for integration that explains the relentless rise of big government in every Second Wave society.

Again and again political demagogues arose to call for smaller government. Yet, once in office, the very same leaders expanded rather than contracted the size of government. This contradiction between rhetoric and real life becomes understandable the moment we recognize that the transcendent aim of all Second Wave governments has been to construct and maintain industrial civilization. Against this commitment, all lesser differences faded. Parties and politicians might squabble over other issues, but on this they were in tacit agreement And big government was part of their unspoken program regardless of the tune they sang, because industrial societies depend on government to perform essential inte-grational tasks.

In the words of political columnist Clayton Fritchey, the United States federal government never ceased to grow, even under three recent Republican administrations, “for the simple reason that not even Houdini could dismantle it without serious and harmful consequences.”

* Mao, leading the world’s biggest First Wave nation, repeatedly warned against the rise of managerial elites and saw this as a dangerous concomitant of traditional industrialism.