This is CBS, I am the World. I'm John Bachelor with my colleague and friend Gregory Coppley,

editor and publisher of Defense and Foreign Affairs, writing most recently about utopianism but within that

there is a term of art I realize I've been reading for my educated life and I never

stop to ask what does it mean?

Great, what is a post-industrial society?

Where? Why? How? Thank you.

Well, it's been fed to us for futurists, by futurists for many years. It's a society in which technology

will take care of us. We don't need to do any work anymore because machines will do it for us,

computers will do it for us, we will live in the lap of luxury, never have to get our hands dirty again.

And of course what it boiled down to was meaning that society,

wealthy industrial, previously industrial societies,

powerful Western societies and economies,

could outsource all of their dirty work

to foreign suppliers.

In other words, let other people get their hands dirty, we just give them money.

And that's all very well, and it seemed to be going well.

In 1982, I think it was, we had Hermann Khan, the great American strategist with a colleague Dr. Pepper,

wrote a book about Australia, will she be right, the future of Australia?

And will she be right refers to the Australian phrase she'll be right

mate in other words don't worry about anything it'll everything's going to sort itself

out and of course Khan said that Australia at that

point was leading the way to actually becoming a post-industrial society and taking all the steps to de-industrialized and this would not work out

...