Chapters II and III, The Architecture of Civilization and The Invisible Wedge

By the mid-twentieth century, the first wave forces were defeated and civilization of the second wave has seized hold of the earth. Industrial civilization had almost a billion people, a quarter of the global population.


Companies from the first wave were supplied with energy from "living batteries" - human and animal muscle - power and the sun, wind and water, so renewable energy sources. Instead, all companies in the second wave began to source energy from coal, natural gas and oil - Non-renewable fossil fuel.


During the second wave the postal services was also created and aroused passionate enthusiasm. The American orator Edwart Everett said: "I am compelled to regard the Post-office, next to Christianity, as the right arm of our modern civilization."


During the first wave, most work was done on the field or in the household, while the second wave displaced workers in the factory and introduced a much higher degree of interdependence.


The two halves of human life that has separated the second wave are production and consumption. Until the Industrial Revolution, most of the food, goods and services produced by the human race was consumed by the producers themselves, their families or a small elite who manage to snatch the surplus for its own use.


Housewives continued to meet a number of crucial economic functions, but were producing only for family use, not for the market. You might say that men had turned to the future, while women remained in the past.