6
" Like the human heart, societies and economies, too, are subject to premature beats, local tachycardias, fibrillations and flutters, as well as “chaotic” irregularities and paroxysms. While this has long been true, the uneven, ever-accelerating pace of change and the continual de-synchronization that comes with it may now be pushing us toward temporal incoherence—without a defibrillator on board. What happens to us as individuals when our institutions, companies, industries and economy are out of sync with one another? "
― Alvin Toffler , Revolutionary Wealth
10
" The current political system was never designed to deal with the high complexity and frenetic pace of a knowledge-based economy. Parties and elections may come and go. New methods for fund-raising and campaigning are emerging, but in the United States, where the knowledge economy is most advanced and the Internet allows new political constituencies to form almost instantly, significant change in political structure comes so slowly as to be almost imperceptible. One hardly needs to defend the economic and social importance of political stability. But immobility is another matter. The U.S. political system, two centuries old, changed fundamentally after the Civil War of 1861–1865 and again in the 1930s after the Great Depression, when it adapted itself more fully to the industrial era. Since then the government has certainly grown. But as far as basic, institutional reform is involved, the U.S. political structure will continue crawling along at three miles per hour, with frequent rest stops at the side of the road, until a constitutional crisis strikes. "
― Alvin Toffler , Revolutionary Wealth
