FUTURE SHOCK THE THIRD WAVE

Posted by admin_akashic on Aug 7th, 2022 in Space

THE THIRD WAVE

Nor were these “democracy machines” restricted to the national level. They were installed at state, provincial, and local levels as well, right down to the town or village council. Today in the United States alone there are some five-hundred thousand elected public officials and 25,869 local governmental units in metropolitan areas, each with its own elections, representative bodies, and election procedures.

Thousands of these representational machines are creaking and grinding away hi nonmetropolitan regions, and tens of thousands more around the world. In Swiss cantons and French departments, in the countries of Britain and the provinces of Canada, in the voivodships of Poland and the republics of the Soviet Union, in Singapore and Haifa, Osaka and Oslo, candidates run for office and are magically transmuted into “representatives.” It is safe to say that more than one- hundred thousand of these machines are now manufacturing laws, decrees, regulations, and rules in Second Wave countries alone.*

In theory, just as each human being and each vote was a discrete, atomic unit, each of these political units—national, provincial, and local—was also regarded as discrete and atomic. Each had its own carefully defined jurisdiction, its own powers, its own rights and duties. The units were wired together in hierarchical arrangement, from top to bottom, from nation to state or region or local authority. But as industrialism matured and the economy grew increasingly integrated, decisions taken by each of these political units touched off effects outside its own jurisdiction, thereby causing other political bodies to act in response.

A decision by the Diet regarding the Japanese textile industry could influence employment in North Carolina and welfare services in Chicago. A congressional vote to put quotas on foreign automobiles could make additional work for local governments in Nagoya or Turin. Thus while at one time politicians could make a decision without upsetting conditions outside their own neatly defined jurisdiction, this became less and less possible.

* Apart from governments as such, virtually all the political parties of industrialism, from extreme right to extreme left, routinely went through the traditional motions of choosing their own leaders by vote. Even contests for precinct-level or local cell leadership typically required some form of election, if only for the ratification of choices made from above. And in many countries the ritual of election became a standard part of the life of all sorts of other organizations, from trade unions and churches to Cub Scout packs. Voting became part of the industrial way of life.