What these four visions have in common are the Tofflers’ assumptions about future affluence, the abundance of leisure, the benevolence of people with power, and our ability to get along with each other. Proliferation of entertainments, lateralized sharing of power in organizations, planning committees that serve local communities, and industries that not only work together but also live together—all these were predicted by the Tofflers in 1970. What these four visions have in common are the Tofflers’ assumptions about future affluence, the abundance of leisure, the benevolence of people with power, and our ability to get along with each other.
In all fairness to the Tofflers, Future Shock was written before the recession of 1973 to 1975, when the Vietnam War ended and so did a period of unprecedented economic growth that began with the Allied victory in World War II. The Tofflers were not alone at that time in believing that 28 years of continuous prosperity were going to continue.
Perhaps more importantly, the Tofflers failed to perceive that widespread affluence and abundant leisure are opportunities to steal. The Tofflers gave brief mention to the disparity of wealth and the possibility that an impoverished underclass will not sit still while the wealthy enjoy their lives of privilege, but in general, the Tofflers left the poor out of their discussion, as most people do. The future they predicted is available to those who already have the resources to take advantage of it, but not to the rest. Today the top 1 percent own 40 percent of the wealth, and the bottom 40 percent own nothing. The disparity of wealth follows racial lines: The average Black American owns one-tenth of the amount of the average White American.
Although wealth in America has grown, wages adjusted for inflation have not grown since the US Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping these statistics five decades ago. In 1964 the average wage was $2.50 an hour, which equals $20.27 in 2018 dollars. Consistent with the recession of 1973 to 1975, the average wage peaked in 1973 around $24.00 an hour (in 2018 dollars). Forty-five years later it was only $22.65 an hour. While America’s wealth has increased, the amount shared with the workers who produce that wealth has stagnated. Furthermore, large tax cuts for the wealthy during the Carter and Clinton administrations shifted the tax burden to the middle and working classes.
Eighty years ago Americans in manufacturing jobs worked 100 hours a week. Then the labor unions succeeded in getting an eight-hour work day. Today, however, 6.5 million Americans have to work two jobs to survive. We have made less progress than we had hoped. Political forces are at work to crush our labor unions, but even where the unions survive they are prone to lose interest in their members, collude with management, and become a new elite unto themselves. What this says about the nature of human behavior is too powerful to ignore.
Americans are buried in debt, and human services are starved of resources. Today 549,000 homeless people walk our streets and take shelter under our viaducts. An estimated 20 to 25 percent of them have mental illness.
Young children go to schools where they can be fed, and they are taught by underpaid teachers. State governments balanced their budgets by cutting off tax dollars to colleges and universities, which shifted the burden of a college education to the students and their parents. Today 15 percent of college students do not know whether they can buy food, and many are homeless. Many drop out, having to decide whether they will attend college or eat. Those who complete their education enter the work force with as much as five or six figures of debt, and they find only low-paying jobs. These young graduates look forward to a lifetime of paying off debt instead of buying a home, taking vacations, or having children.
The flesh eaters of the health insurance industry, dumbstruck by the amount of money Medicare collected beginning in 1966, and aided and abetted by the Nixon administration, invented the managed care industry that skims wealth by depriving sick people of the healthcare they need. What hope is there for a society where one class of people gets rich by their indifference to the illness of another class?
The overhead of private health insurance companies is around 12 percent. Compare that to Medicare, where overhead is about 2 percent. We could save as much as 10 percent of our spending on healthcare just by getting rid of private health insurance.
As wealth congealed at the top, the underground economy flourished. The illegitimate economy—fueled by illicit pleasures and expediencies like drug use, prostitution, human trafficking, robbery, burglary, counterfeiting, weapons, and the unsanctioned violence of the underclass—is available to those who cannot enter the legitimate economy due to factors like race, social class, language, geography, learning disorders, and lack of education. Counterfeiting alone—including the counterfeiting of medicines and other patented products—is worth nearly $2 trillion a year worldwide. In Africa, counterfeit medicines kill people by the thousands.
The legitimate economy protects itself with a criminal justice system and the sanctioned violence of police departments. America has more jails than colleges, and keeps 2 million people behind bars. A 2006 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics showed that 45 to 64 percent of those incarcerated have serious symptoms of mental illness, varying with whether it was a state, federal, or county lockup. The Prison Law Office, in states like California and Pennsylvania, demonstrated to the federal courts that the punishment in state prisons is cruel and unusual. The legal term for it is “deliberate indifference.” Criminal justice and prison institutions, like the military they emulate and like the gangs they oppose, are epitomes of rigid hierarchies and the least likely to lateralize power.
The wealth that is generated by warfare, prisons, and the health insurance industry makes each of these a powerful lobby and a lasting institution in its own right. These institutions will persist, despite the waste of human potential and the other problems that they cause.
Indifference to the environment garners immense wealth for a few while destroying our planet with pollution. The current generation of Americans is the first that is not expected to live as long or do as well as their parents.
Fifty years ago the Tofflers’ predictions were based on assumptions about affluence, leisure, human relationships, and the benevolence of leaders. Their vision has been realized only by those who already had the resources to take advantage of it. For billions of others, there has been no success. Why would we expect change when the elites who run the world need widespread poverty so they can fill their militaries and hire cheap labor? Young men and women are persuaded that it is in their own best interest to serve the wealthy, and they are brainwashed into believing that any other course of action is cowardly or immoral. And when they sign up, we cannot guarantee them a living wage or adequate healthcare.
The failure of the Tofflers’ vision is the failure of all dreams, whether they be the alleged virtues of “the free world,” Marxist-Leninism, or Future Shock. None of these visions predicted the reality of human nature: That people rise to power and use their power to steal from the powerless. They cannot be ruled or controlled because they take control and they make the rules. To expect anything else in our future is to ignore the reality of human nature.
Jonathan Venn, PhD, has 48 years of experience in providing psychological services. He has devoted his life to the care of persons with mental illness. He has a doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Northwestern University. He is licensed in psychology in four states, namely, California, Maryland, South Carolina, and Alabama. He has served on the staffs or faculties of six universities, namely, Northwestern University, the University of Maryland, the University of South Carolina, San Diego State University, South University, and Alliant International University. He has published original articles in psychology. He has earned the Diplomates in Clinical Psychology and Forensic Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology, which are the highest levels of recognition in those two professions. He has been a military officer. He spent four years on the staff of a Fortune 500 corporation. He has retired from the correctional systems of two states: California and South Carolina. In 2000 he helped write the script that won the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes, and he consulted with Renee Zellweger on the performance that earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 2007 he introduced zydeco music to the monks of Mt. Saint-Michel. Learn more about Dr. Venn at www.sacramentocounseling.org.