Characteristics of agriculture, industrial and information age

Human society has passed through three main stages of economic development (Alvin Toffler's "three waves"): the agricultural age, the industrial age and the information age. Each is defined by its main resource, technology and way of life.

Agricultural age (about 10,000 years ago to mid-18th century)

• Main resource: land and human/animal labour.
• Technology: simple tools (plough, sickle, hoe), irrigation canals, animal power, water mills.
• Economy: subsistence farming; barter and local trade.
• Settlement: small villages; most people lived in rural areas.
• Society: joint families, strong community ties, caste/feudal hierarchy; landlords held power.
• Work: seasonal, family-based; children worked on farms.
• Knowledge: traditional, passed orally from generation to generation; low literacy.
• Environment: low pollution; local deforestation for farmland.

Industrial age (about 1760 to 1970s)

• Main resource: capital, machines, raw materials and fossil energy (coal, oil).
• Technology: steam engine, electricity, railways, internal combustion engine, assembly lines.
• Economy: mass production of standard goods; factories; national markets; capitalism.
• Settlement: rapid urbanisation around factories.
• Society: nuclear families, working class and capitalist class, trade unions.
• Work: fixed hours, wage labour, division of labour, blue-collar jobs.
• Knowledge: formal schooling spread; engineering and science grew.
• Environment: heavy air and water pollution, resource depletion, start of greenhouse gas build-up.

Information age (about 1970s to present)

• Main resource: information and knowledge.
• Technology: computers, microprocessors, internet, mobile phones, satellites, AI.
• Economy: service and knowledge economy; e-commerce; global markets.
• Settlement: urban but less tied to location; remote work possible.
• Society: networked society, individualism, social media communities.
• Work: knowledge workers, flexible hours, freelancing, lifelong learning.
• Knowledge: instant access to global information; high literacy needed.
• Environment: cleaner production possible, but e-waste and energy demand of data centres.

Summary

Nepal is still largely agricultural, with some industry and a fast-growing information sector (IT outsourcing, digital payments), so it shows features of all three ages at once.