It is not the ideological structure that breaks down, but the production. This will be followed by the individualization of information and the person himself. A person will study until the end of his life. The reaction of the old elites to demassification could be corporatism in the spirit of the fascist ideas of the 1920s. Soviet political scientist Fyodor Burlatsky and American futurist Alvin Toffler thought about this and many other things in their conversation in 1987.
Fyodor Burlatsky from the early 1960s was a member of the group of advisers (the so-called systemic liberals) under Yuri Andropov - when he was first the head of the International Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and then the head of the KGB. Burlatsky wrote about his work as follows: “Andropov instructed me to create and lead a group of consultants-advisers who would deal with the problems of transformation in socialist countries, primarily within the USSR, as well as the principles of relations between the two superpowers - the Soviet Union and the United States.”
Alvin Toffler is an American philosopher, sociologist and futurologist, one of the authors of the concept of a post-industrial society. The person who "invented" the principles of the information society.
The meeting between Burlatsky and Toffler took place in 1987, and it prompted the Soviet political scientist a year later to write the book "New thinking: Dialogues and judgments about the technological revolution and our reforms", Political Literature Publishing House, 1989).
Fyodor Burlatsky accurately predicts the main trends of the XXI century - alternative energy, biotechnology, robotization, information society, etc. But he, like most political scientists of that time, considers world political processes linearly. The socialist world, as Burlatsky writes, will remain, and Japan will become the third superpower (along with the USSR and the USA). He does not even consider China's growth opportunities in the mid-1980s.
“With Japan, Americans and Western Europeans have a keen sense where envy is deeply mixed with despair. "The center of the world is moving to Asia" "Japan is a country of the XXI century", "The dishonest game of the Asians strangles the American industry" - such headlines and maxims are full of articles and books in Western countries. What are the representatives of the white race so afraid of? The loss of centuries of dominance over the Asians? Not only that. They were terrified of the mystery behind Japan's technological success. As before, the Japanese are more productive than the Americans - for some unknown reason, and this is particularly annoying and particularly worrying. And there is something to worry about,”Burlatsky fears.
The Soviet political scientist-intelligence officer, although he correctly predicts the onset of the information society, sees in it not a blessing, but a danger:
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“The growing 'colonization' of developing countries by Western media is a dangerous phenomenon. One of the famous African leaders, Christopher Nascimento, described this phenomenon as follows: “It revives colonialism, and much more effectively. The first world exercises control, the third world lacks such control. The concept of the world is created by the Western media. This is how the information revolution is taking shape for developing countries. And next in line is global television, which the West is trying with all its might to use for cultural penetration into other countries.
From this one can see why the proposals coming from the developing countries about a new economic order, about the democratization of the information order, about overcoming neo-colonialism, which goes hand in hand with technological assistance, sound so sharp and relevant."
(It is symptomatic that 30 years later, his colleagues in the Russian special services continue to think about the same way as Burlatsky).
The head of the KGB Yuri Andropov and his adviser Fyodor Burlatsky.
The conversation between Fyodor Burlatsky and Alvin Toffeler (the Soviet interlocutor calls him Olvin) is devoted to the Third Technological Revolution and the consequences it brings to humanity. We presented some of Toffler's answers in the form of a monologue.
“The changes that are taking place today and those that await us ahead will steadily intensify. In the next 10-15 years, not minor, but revolutionary changes will take place. The structure of society is changing. The form of production is changing. The entire structure of culture and social institutions will undergo radical changes. These will be unprecedented transformations, and they will all take place in this century and at the beginning of the future.
It is enough for us to wait 30, not 300 or 10 thousand years. Now about the nature of the changes themselves. We can only understand how revolutionary the spirit of these changes is by comparing the new institutions that are emerging now with the institutions of an industrial society that are dying before our eyes. My wife and I travel around the world and everywhere we see that the system itself is breaking. What kind of system breaks down? Not a capitalist system. And not a communist system. The world industrial system is breaking down. Lifestyle. A civilization that was created by the industrial revolution.
I saw a certain parallelism in Magnitogorsk, Moscow, Manchester, Minnesota, Minneapolis: everywhere people get up at the same time, eat breakfast at the same time, go to work at the same time, work a certain number of hours at the same time and the same time, come home at the same time, watch TV at the same time, go to bed at the same time, with a difference of maybe an hour or so. And this synchronized mass system pulses rhythmically. This is a massive rhythm. What does this mean? This means that in every industrial society there is the strongest social, political and cultural pressure - to uniformity, to ensure that all people become the same. So that we dress like our neighbors, so that we believe what the neighbors believe, watch the same TV programs as the neighbors,voted for the same as our neighbors, etc.
This was the dynamics of industrialization. What is happening now is a truly dialectical revolution. A true revolution is not a continuation of the massification process. This is the beginning of a new process - demassification.
Alvin Toffler.
But there is a demassification of the media. There are highly specialized small publications, journals, personal computers. We are moving towards individualization. Now I see something in the communication system that corresponds to what is happening in the industrial production system.
***
We now turn to the "third wave". The main property during the "third wave" is information. The characteristic of this property is that you can use it. And I can use it. More precisely, we can all share this property. This is a very special form of ownership.
In our society, if I wish, I can buy shares. What do I possess? I do not own machines. The ideas in the head of the creator of these machines are important to me. I own symbols. Capitalism and socialism have been engaged in a heated debate for a long time. Both must now reconsider their concepts.
***
At the end of Futuroshok, I tried to clarify the difference between industrial-style top-down bureaucratic planning and a more open, democratic, decentralized style that I have called “anticipatory democracy”. Today, the American press is filled with statements by financiers, economists, radical theorists and functionaries of multinational companies, proclaiming “beneficial” cooperation between business and government. Sometimes broader-minded, experienced managers say that unions should also be invited to the planning process. And while this may represent some progress over the nonsense that prevails today, it all scares me. In fact, this is the old "corporatism" with which the fascists were worn in the 1920s.
***
"Basic" industries, as we see them, will never again be basic. It is necessary to promote the growth of new basic industries - biotechnology, programming, computer science, electronics. And the second is continuous training. Training itself can be a large employer, just as well as a giant consumer of equipment, computers and other products that also provide work for the education of people.
We need to radically change the system of mass education. Modern schools are producing too many factory-style workers for jobs that will no longer exist. It is necessary to diversify, decentralize, individualize education. Fewer local schools. More education at home. Great involvement of parents. More creativity. Less cramming, it is routine work that will disappear the fastest.
***
Only if we combine more traditional actions in a successful way into one joint effort can we begin to overcome the unemployment crisis. People have always worked. But it was not a paid service.
Our ancestors were never unemployed. In any social order, we will have to create new definitions of the concept of "work". New ways of providing food and shelter without linking it to formal work or occupation. This is how it should be all over the world.
***
The main problems are not technological. The main problems are not warheads or missiles. The main problems are political. And in this regard, I believe that we are suffering from an outdated geopolitical system in Europe.
This system came about as a result of World War II. Europe is divided into two parts with different influences. Such a device could arise only immediately at the end of the war. But more than 40 years have passed, and this situation cannot continue to exist.
The reconstruction of Europe must begin. This is extremely difficult, because a chess situation has been created - stalemate. Second, I do not believe in the danger of a war that could come from the USSR or the United States. When I think about what will happen in five or six years, I come to the conclusion that only utopians can believe that by that time there will be no nuclear weapons. And 10 years, and 15 years later, nuclear weapons will exist. Maybe 50 years old. But the danger will come, I repeat, not from the USSR or the United States. The danger will come either from a united Germany, or from some other country, which we do not even think of.
***
Fyodor Burlatsky, after talking with Alvin Toffler, gives his own pessimistic scenario for the development of society:
“It seems that the 21st century will strengthen the elitism of bourgeois society from the very beginning. Technological progress, while maintaining the current structure of Western societies, will further strengthen and make even more insurmountable the barriers separating various social groups. Along with the elite of wealth and power, the technological elite, which will form a closed caste following the example of the Indian Brahmins, will increasingly strengthen its position and influence. At the same time, computer automation and biotechnology will expand in volume two social groups of performing people, subordinate to machines. These groups will suffer more from a lack of prestige than previously from poverty.
The first group consists of workers serving cars with a rather low education and social status. Apparently, it will number at least 20% of those working in society. The second group is servants of servants: watchmen, waiters, etc. This group, probably, also at the beginning of the XXI century will occupy at least 15%. And finally, a group of pariahs permanently out of work. This group will include at least 15%, unless vigorous social planning measures are taken.
In other words, elitism in bourgeois society will intensify and acquire even more dramatic features. And then a truly social question will arise especially acute - about the need for a radical change in the entire social structure."
