Chapters 18&19

These pages analyze the effects of the Third Wave on the corporations that have dominated our destinies in the past years, with escalating importance throughout the 1970’s, with all their crises and the most important (and different) one, that of stagflation – simultaneous high inflation and high unemployment. Similarly, the rising importance of external currencies circulation led to the increase in the quantity of “Eurodollars” and other supra-national currencies, which, in turn, brought about unlimited credit loans and the subsequent problems.

In terms of what happens to corporations, they suffer an identity crisis as they search for a new place in the new context. Thus, the decision-making process is sped-up, while corporations become more varied and specialized on the market to satisfy demassified needs. In these new circumstances, companies have to be a mixture of economic, political, social, ethical, racial, sexual and ecological points of view, in order to ensure an actual social benefit. Moreover, these organizations are both economic and informational producers, with multiple purposes, which have to be classified according to a social outturn index.

Next, Alvin Toffler searches to prove how the main principles of the Second Wave are now being turned over, as even the most important resource, time, is being demassified, with the introduction of the sliding schedule, the flexible schedule, part-time jobs and more night shifts. This warrants the transition from a 9-to-5 society to a 24/7 society. Post-standardized/de-standardized mentalities, needs, tastes and the consequent consumption and production now account for the introduction of new hierarchies/organizational patters, leading from the pyramid complex to the matrix, a multiple command system.

Decentralization also occurs, both in businesses as microcosms and in the economy as a whole, giving birth to sub-national/regional/local economies and new sectors of activities. From this perspective, the conclusion is that nearly the entire structure and ethic of the Second Wave civilization are challenged and will probably be overhauled.