Technology And The “New Samurai”

The Next Generation: The Prospects Ahead for the Youth of Today and Tomorrow
by Donald M. Michael
Vintage Press, 218 pp., $1.65

This is a curious book. Written originally as a report to an agency of the federal government, it presents educated guesses as to probable trends into the future that awaits us. But the author is also a critical thinker who probably traces his intellectual ancestry to Veblen or Galbraith. The book therefore suffers from a kind of built-in ambivalence. Michael foretells a future which he views with evident distaste, yet seems to counsel adjustment to it.

Michael expects technology to be the major shaping force of the fut...