The Triple Revolution: Difference between revisions

"'''The Triple Revolution'''" was an [[Open letter|open memorandum]] sent to [[President of the United States|U.S. President]] [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] and other government figures on March 22, 1964. It concerned three [[megatrends]] of the time: increasing use of automation, the nuclear arms race, and advancements in human rights. Drafted under the auspices of the [[Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions]], it was signed by an array of noted [[social activist]]s, professors, and technologists who identified themselves as the Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution. The chief initiator of the proposal was [[Wilbur H. Ferry|W. H. "Ping" Ferry]], at that time a vice-president of CSDI, basing it in large part on the ideas of the futurist [[Robert Theobald]].<ref>Bell, Daniel. ''The Coming of Post-Industrial Society'' (Basic Books, 2008), p.462n.</ref>

[[Martin Luther King, Jr.]]'s final Sunday sermon, "Remainingdelivered Awake Through a Great Revolution," deliveredsix days before [[Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.|his April 1968 assassination]], explicitly references the thesis of "The Triple Revolution":<ref name="ford">{{cite book |title=Rise of the Robots |last=Ford |first=Martin |authorlink=Martin Ford (author) |isbn=0465059996978-0465059997 |pages=29–30 |date=May 5, 2015 |publisher=[[Basic Books]] }}</ref><ref name="sermon">{{cite web |url=http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/remaining_awake_through_a_great_revolution/ |title=Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution |last=King, Jr. |first=Martin Luther |date=March 31, 1968 |publisher=The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute |accessdate=June 3, 2015}}</ref>

{{quoteblockquote|There can be no gainsaying of the fact that a great revolution is taking place in the world today. In a sense it is a triple revolution: that is, a technological revolution, with the impact of automation and cybernation; then there is a revolution in weaponry, with the emergence of atomic and nuclear weapons of warfare; then there is a human rights revolution, with the freedom explosion that is taking place all over the world. Yes, we do live in a period where changes are taking place. And there is still the voice crying through the vista of time saying, "Behold, I make all things new; former things are passed away."|author=Martin Luther King, Jr.|title=Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution<ref name="sermon">{{cite archive |item-url=http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/remaining_awake_through_a_great_revolution/ |item=Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution (sermon at Washington National Cathedral) |last=King |first=Martin Luther Jr. |author-link=Martin Luther King Jr. |collection=Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project |repository=Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute |institution=[[Stanford University]] |date=March 31, 1968 |access-date=June 3, 2015}}</ref>}}

Looking back on the proposal in his 2008 book,<ref name="Bell_2008"/> [[Daniel Bell]] wrote: {{quoteblockquote|"the cybernetic revolution quickly proved to be illusory. There were no spectacular jumps in productivity. <...> Cybernation had proved to be one more instance of the penchant for overdramatizing a momentary innovation and blowing it up far out of proportion to its actuality. <...> The image of a completely automated production economy—with an endless capacity to turn out goods—was simply a social-science fiction of the early 1960s. Paradoxically, the vision of Utopia was suddenly replaced by the spectre of Doomsday. In place of the early-sixties theme of endless plenty, the picture by the end of the decade was one of a fragile planet of limited resources whose finite stocks were being rapidly depleted, and whose wastes from soaring industrial production were polluting the air and waters."<ref name="Bell_2008">Bell, Daniel. ''The Coming of Post-Industrial Society'' (Basic Books, 2008), p. 463.</ref>}}

In his 2015 book ''Rise of the Robots'',<ref name="ford"/> [[Martin Ford (author)|Martin Ford]] claims The Triple Revolution's predictions of steady decline in future employment were not wrong, but rather premature. He cites "Seven Deadly Trends" that began in the 1970s-1980s and by the mid -2010s appeared set to continue:

# Stagnation in [[real wages]] [[File:US productivity and real wagesearnings.jpg|thumb|U.S. productivityProductivity and averagecompensation realgrowth earningsin the United States, 1947–20081948–2016]]

# [[Polarization_Polarization (economics)|Polarization]] and part-time jobs (middle-class jobs are disappearing, to be replaced by a small number of high-paying jobs and large number of low-paying jobs)

*[[Frances W. Herring]] (professor of governmental studies)

*[[Alice Mary Hilton]] (1919-2011, technologist)

*[[Irving F. Laucks]] (industrialist)

*Perrucci, Robert, and [[Pilisuk, Marc]] [editors], "The Triple Revolution: social problems in depth", Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1968.

[[Category:1964 in economicseconomic history]]