SOURCE: Lee, Earl. “Beyond the Third Wave: Prophets of a New World Order.” Midwest Quarterly 34, no. 3 (spring 1993): 351-62.

In the following essay, Lee describes Toffler as one of a series of “social prophets” who have made predictions about the future, comparing Toffler's Powershift to The Managerial Revolution by James Burnham. Lee criticizes Toffler for assuming that new technological developments will have a positive impact on society.

Alvin Toffler in his latest book, Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century, describes the effect on American society of the coming “third wave”—the so-called “information revolution.” Many theorists, including Toffler, believe that we are at the end of the industrial smokestack era and moving into an era of high-technology service-oriented development. Toffler's new book Powershift (1990), the third of his series, which includes Future Shock (1970) and The Third Wave (1980), is a propaganda document for this new...