My analysis and comments
The End of Empire
The overall trend in Toffler's examples seems to be a shift away from a
centralized power to a more
evenly distributed power base. Another trend in his examples is the
questioning of authority by those
not in charge. A third trend seems to be the change from what was the
accepted way of doing things
to another, different way.
He seems to single out the most dominant changes while ignoring the
things that haven't changed. He
focuses on Western Europe, America, Japan, and the Soviet Union, while
ignoring the rest of the world.
It is as if Toffler is ignoring evidence contrary to the point he is
trying to prove. He writes that "so much
has been written about America's loss of global power that it bears
no repetition here," but he fails to
distinguish it from other countries' loss of power, such as Great Britain's
defeat by America. This is
important in the context of his overall argument, because he is trying
to say that the current powershift
is "the deepest powershift in human history."
He says that foreign companies are taking away compeition from IBM,
but doesn't account for American
companies like Gateway 2000, which have also taken a large portion
of IBM's market share. Toffler
claims that ABC, NBC, and CBS are "shrinking so fast, their very survival
is in doubt." I think that ABC,
NBC, and CBS are still dominant in America. They certainly aren't questioning
their survival.
Next section
God-in-a-white-coat
Here, Toffler discusses the changing power of doctors but fails to mention
that they still hold a great amount of power. We may have access to the
same information that they do, but they understand it much more than us.
He claims that "as knowledge is redistributed, so, too, is the power based
on it," and that may be true, to an extent. But the doctors haven't lost
all their power. They still know more than their patients.
However, his example here does support his idea of a powershift. It
is the focus on the redistribution of information and its importance that
helps support his theory. There is, indeed, too much medical information
for doctors to effectively keep up with it all. Information, as opposed
to money, may become the central focus in the medical field.
Next section
Bombarded by the Future
Toffler makes a point with his discussion of General Motors' condition.
However, he doesn't provide much support to his claims. There are no facts
or figures to back them up. Assuming he is correct, then he has chosen
a good example. It is Japan's focus on knowledge that helped propel it
ahead of GM, which stuck to more traditional methods focused on labor.
Japan realized that it could move ahead by embracing new developments,
which it did. The newer manufacturing methods, utilizing robots and computers,
were found to be more reliable than human workers.
Next section
The Making of a Shabby Gentility
This is mainly a summary of Toffler's ideas about
power, but he draws a conclusion at the end, saying that we are in
a new powershift. He intends the rest of his essay to be support for this,
but it seems more like a general statement of what is occuring, rather
than a proven theory. He doesn't provide enough of a link between the examples
in his essay and his statement that we are progressing to a new state of
wealth. It is more like an observation or opinion than a fact or proven
theory. Nor does he describe how information will become independent of
money, since we currently buy or pay for information and knowledge. It
would be befitting for him to show why all the events he mentions occuring
together aren't merely a coincidence.
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