Revolutionary Wealth
Alvin and Heidi Toffler’s new book, Revolutionary Wealth, argues that we, as a species, have been getting better at producing wealth. If we hadn’t, the planet would not now be able to support nearly 6.5 billion of us. And, for better or worse, we wouldn’t have more overweight people than undernourished people on earth — as we do.
Life expectancy at birth in the world, including the “poor world,” increased 42 percent over the past 50 years.
The titular wealth the Tofflers speak of comes from substituting ever-more-refined knowledge for the traditional factors of industrial production — land, labor and capital. The United States is producing more stuff than ever with fewer workers. Only 20 percent of the work force is now in the manufacturing sector, while some 56 percent (and growing) is engaged in “knowledge work” — managerial, financial, sales-related, clerical and professional tasks. Even activities like agriculture have gone high-tech, through biotechnology and increasingly sophisticated use of global-positioning satellites to customize irrigation and fertilization down to the individual acre.
Knowledge-based wealth is revolutionary not just because it gets more output from fewer inputs. Unlike such physical resources as oil, knowledge can be shared by an infinite number of people, and its value and benefits are generally increased by wider circulation.
This schema helps to explain why air quality has improved in American cities over the past 30 years and why American culture has become remarkably more accepting of alternative lifestyles.