by Brian Meyer

Created on: July 17, 2008

Civil Service and Matrix Management

Alvin Toffler writes in his prophetic work, Third Wave, of the fundamental changes a person can expect in the dawn of the Information Age. The first wave was the agricultural age. The second wave was the industrial age. The third wave, while at the time of publishing in 1980 did not have a name, people acknowledge as the information age.

The third wave Alvin Toffler predicted in the 1980 publishing of his work. At the time, critics classified the work as that of a futurist. So well researched was the work, that many of its predictions became true.

Toffler writes that those civilizations who fully adapted to the next wave were the superpowers of the next wave. Superpower agricultural civilizations who did not adapt to the second wave became backwater republics. Backwater republics in the agricultural age, such as the early United States, became superpowers of the second wave in a short amount of time due to adaptation to the second wave.

Alvin chronicles in a logical manner, step-by-step, the changes to occur in a civilization as the civilization transforms for one wave to the next. He writes the last transformation to occur, but the most crucial, is a civilization's government institution known as civil service. Failure for the civil service institution to adapt has oft been the death blow to former superpowers.

Once the United States had fully transformed its economic base to the second wave, the new industrialized United States necessitated government institutions robust enough to administer its functions in the industrial age.

The "Barons of Industry" of the American Industrial Age challenged the ability of government to properly function in the new age. Massive economic power under the Baron's control rivaled the power of government.

A young President, Theodore Roosevelt, accepted the challenge.

The trust busting agenda of the young President Roosevelt is well known. Of what benefit, however, would the trust-busting accomplish without follow-through? What would prevent the same abusive trusts from reforming? The answer is the lesser known strategic reform of TR regarding civil service.

President Theodore Roosevelt modeled the body of government, civil service, to the office based, vertical structured, administrative body of the businesses belonging to the "Barons of Industry". This newly restructured government body to the industrial age enabled government officials to meet the administrative challenges of the 20th century.

Today,

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