Alvin Toffler

Toffler, Alvin 

Born Oct. 4, 1928, in New York. American sociologist and writer.

Toffler, who helped formulate the concept of the postindustrial society, began his career as a correspondent and editor of Fortune magazine. Since 1965 he has done research in the area of social forecasting and also has taught what he calls the sociology of the future at Cornell University, the New School for Social Research, and other institutions. He is a consultant to the Rockefeller Foundation, International Business Machines (IBM), and the Institute for the Future.

In Future Shock (1970) and The Eco-Spasm Report (1975), among other works, Toffler asserts that mankind is experiencing a new technological revolution that is not only constantly causing changes in social relations but creating a superindustrial civilization in the process. He is not, however, optimistic about the ability of state-monopoly capitalism to cope with the economic contradictions engendered by the scientific and technological revolution or with the attendant social conflicts, which, he writes, are assuming global proportions. Toffler, who is close in his political views to American populists, believes that a just society can be created through radical democratic reforms of capitalism—an example of petit bourgeois utopianism.

WORKS

The Culture Consumers. New York, 1973.
The Futurists. New York, 1972. (Editor.)
Learning for Tomorrow: The Role of the Future in Education. New York, 1974. (Editor.)
In Russian translation:
“Stolknovenie s budushchim.” Inostrannaia literatura, 1972, no. 3.

REFERENCE

Arab-Ogly, E. A. V labirinteprorochestv. Moscow, 1973.

E. A. ARAB-OGLY