A few words about the concepts of industrial and post-industrial societies

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A few words about the concepts of industrial and post-industrial societies

Danylova T.V., PhD in Philosophy,

Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy

National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine

Abstract

The second half of the 20th century is characterized by dramatic social transformations that have radically changed the face of human civilization. Trying to comprehend these large-scale changes, philosophers, historians, sociologists, economists have elaborated a number of original concepts that recreate the internal logic of social progress and determine its immediate prospects. In contrast to the formation concept, which became the background of economic basis, some researchers consider science and technology to be the basis of civilization. As a result of the development of this approach, a number of theories emerged. W. Rostow elaborated a linear-stages-of-growth model, which defines the development of human society as a sequence of stages through which all societies must pass. The concept of the industrial society was formulated by R. Aron. D. Bell was the first to describe the new society, the society of mutual services. In the absence of an adequate term, he called this society the post-industrial society, emphasizing its difference from the previous one. D. Bell demonstrates the dynamics of the transition from industrial to postindustrial society. A. Toffler elaborated the doctrine of the future civilization, which he named “the third wave”. This paper aims at investigating the concepts of industrial and postindustrial societies.

Key words: industrial society, post-industrial society, W. Rostow, R. Aron, D. Bell, A. Toffler.

Анотація

ДЕКІЛЬКА СЛІВ ПРО КОНЦЕПЦІЇ ІНДУСТРІАЛЬНОГО ТА ПОСТІНДУСТРІАЛЬНОГО СУСПІЛЬСТВ

Данилова Т.В.

Друга половина ХХ століття характеризується кардинальними соціальними перетвореннями, які докорінно змінили обличчя людської цивілізації. Намагаючись зрозуміти ці масштабні зміни, філософи, історики, соціологи, економісти розробили низку оригінальних концепцій, що відтворюють внутрішню логіку суспільного прогресу та визначають його найближчі перспективи. На відміну від формаційної теорії, яка стала підґрунтям економічних вчень, деякі дослідники вважають науку і техніку основою цивілізації. В результаті розвитку цього підходу виник ряд теорій. В. Ростоу розробив модель лінійних етапів зростання, яка визначає розвиток людського суспільства як певну послідовність етапів, через які повинні пройти всі суспільства. Поняття індустріального суспільства було сформульовано Р. Ароном. Д. Белл першим описав нове суспільство - суспільство взаємних послуг. За відсутності адекватного терміну він назвав це суспільство постіндустріальним, підкресливши його відмінність від попереднього і продемонструвавши динаміку переходу від індустріального до постіндустріального суспільства. Е. Тоффлер розробив доктрину майбутньої цивілізації, яку назвав «третьою хвилею». Ця стаття має на меті дослідження концепцій індустріального та постіндустріального суспільств.

Ключові слова: індустріальне суспільство, постіндустріальне суспільство, В. Ростоу, Р. Арон, Д. Белл, Е. Тоффлер.

Contemporary approaches to the philosophy of history are focused on the concepts of industrial and post-industrial society. Indeed, society is changing, and we often try to comprehend its changes on the basis of ideas that reflect the state of its previous stages. The concepts of industrial and post-industrial societies may adequately explain the foundations of the modern society. The second half of the 20th century is characterized by dramatic social transformations that have radically changed the face of human civilization.

Trying to comprehend these large-scale changes, philosophers, historians, sociologists, economists have elaborated a number of original concepts that recreate the internal logic of social progress and determine its immediate prospects [7]. Some of them have received the most recognition in recent decades and demonstrate serious predictive potential.

Analysis of the studies and publications

concept industrial society

The concepts of industrial and postindustrial societies embody and develop a scientific tradition that traces back to the social ideas of the Enlightenment, which links social progress with the consistent improvement of the conditions of human material life. Its most important methodological principles are drawn from the positivist philosophy and economic studies of the 19th century, which identified the features of industrial civilization and laid the basis for the periodization of social development according to the technological organization of production, exchange, and distribution of the social product.

The abstract idea of isolating the stages of technological progress was subsequently supplemented in the works of the representatives of the institutionalism in economic theory, who developed the concept of structuring the sectors of social production, which made it possible to discover the internal laws of economic development that do not depend on the social and political system of a particular country. Thus, the works of the thinkers of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries became a background for postindustrial doctrine. Famous researchers, such as T. Adorno [1], R. Aron [2], D. Bell [5], R. Dahrendorf [6], C. Kerr [10], S. Lipset [11], H. Marcuse [12], A. Touraine [16] contributed greatly to the elaboration of industrial and post-in-dustrial doctrines.

The purpose of the study

This paper aims at investigating the concepts of industrial and postindustrial societies.

Research results and their discussion

The synthesis of various approaches to the analysis of modern society, which gave rise to the theory of post-industrial society, dates back to the 1960s. By this period, the most important methodological foundations were formed, which made it possible to consider the formation of a new social state from the standpoint of the progress of science and education, to study the qualitative change of knowledge and information in social production, to take into account the growing influence of professional managers and technocrats.

In contrast to the formation concept, which became the background of economic basis, some researchers consider science and technology to be the basis of civilization. As a result of the development of this approach, a number of theories emerged. One of them was introduces by the American sociologist, economist and historian W. Rostow in the book "The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto” [13]. He elaborated a linear-stages-of-growth model, which defines the development of human society as a sequence of stages through which all societies must pass. "This conception of the nature and process of development became the basic blueprint for modernization theory” [9].

Based on the idea of the crucial role of technical and economic indicators in the development of society, W. Rostow di-vides the history of humankind into five stages of economic growth:

1. Traditional society. It is an agrarian society with a primitive level of agricultural development, science and technology, which limits the production capacity per capita. Society with such characteristics covers in the history of man-kind, using the classification of K. Marx, three socio-economic formations (primitive communal system, slave, and feudal for-mations), as well as extends to colonial and semi-colonial, underdeveloped countries (the first half of the 20th century).

2. Transitional society. W. Rostow considers it as a period for creating preconditions for the next industrial shift. During this period, there are prerequisites for the transition of society to a higher stage of development: this is the era of scientific discoveries and inventions that can influence the growth of production, as well as people willing to use these innovations to make more profit. A resolute and proactive minority acts as a real driving force, "transferring” traditional society "to the rails of industrial development”. Thus, W. Rostow considers economic change as "a consequence of non-economic human impulses and aspirations”.

3. Stage of shift, or industrial revolution. This stage is marked by an increase in the share of capital accumulation and the rapid development of leading industries. According to W. Rostow, at this stage England was in the late 18th century, France and the United States - in the middle of the 19th century, Germany - in the second half of the 19th century, Russia - in 1890 -1914, India and China - from the middle of the 20th century.

4. Stage of maturity. At this stage, the level of investment increases significantly, national income increases, industry develops rapidly, there are new, previously unknown industries. The share of urban residents in the population structure reaches 60-90 %. The share of skilled labor is increasing, the structure of employment is qualitatively changing. According to W. Rostow, England reached this stage in the middle of the 19th century, the United States - in 1900, Germany and France - in 1910, Japan - in the early 1940's, and the USSR - the early 1950's.

5. The era of high mass consumption. At this stage, society's attention is focused on consumption and welfare. On the basis of technical maturity. there is a society characterized by mass consumption of durable goods. The production of these goods, as well as the development of services become the core of the economy of society. According to W. Rostow, the United States was the first to achieve this followed by the Western Europe and Japan. The Soviet Union was on the threshold of a new era (the book was written in 1960). The researcher emphasizes that when the USSR crosses this threshold, the existing socio-economic system there will degenerate, because communism "inherently tends to fade in an era of high mass consumption” [13, p. 133].

With the emergence of man-made civilization, the pace of social, scientific, technical and technological changes has begun to grow rapidly, as clearly shown by the last four centuries. Scientific and technological progress has become one of the most important values in human society. Its acceleration, which is a significant feature of the human civilization, leads to drastic (and often unfavorable) changes in the natural environment, rapid changes in the world around us, active transformations of social relations, the whole way of human life.

Within the technogenic civilization, it is accepted to allocate industrial and postindustrial, or information, stages of the development of society. The term "industrial society” was introduced into scientific usage by the French thinker, one of the founders of utopian socialism, A. de Saint- Simon. The very concept of the industrial society was formulated by the famous French philosopher, political scientist, sociologist and publicist R. Aron. His work "Eighteen Lectures on Industrial Society” [2] has gained widespread popularity.

R. Aron shows that social progress is characterized by the transition from a backward traditional society (i.e., agrarian society, which was dominated by subsistence farming and the hierarchy) to an advanced, technically and technologically developed "industrial” society. According to R. Aron, the defining characteristics of industrial society are:

* creation of nations-states with a common language and culture;

* commercialization of production and the disappearance of the subsistence economy;

* domination of machine production and reorganization of production at the factory;

* falling share of the working class employed in the agricultural sector;

* urbanization of society;

* growth of mass literacy;

* granting suffrage to the population and institutionalization of politics around mass parties;

* science in all spheres of life, especially in industrial production, as well as the consistent rationalization of the social life.

An American sociologist and publicist D. Bell, the creator of the theory of post-industrial (information) society, assumes that industrial society is in deep crisis, but will soon be transformed into something else. In the last third of the 20th century, the whole western world has entered the stage of deindustrialization. The non-productive sector has begun to expand rapidly. Information processing has become the main area of activity, and control over knowledge has become the key to power. Nowadays, fewer and fewer people are employed in the production of things, and more and more - in the production of services, in the field of culture, science, in the entertainment industry, and, finally, in the field of public services. In the 1980's in the most developed countries, the number of people employed in services exceeded two thirds of the total number of employees. Even social groups today are formed by the criterion of professions. D. Bell was the first to describe the new society, the society of mutual services. In the absence of an adequate term, he called this society the post-industrial society, emphasizing its difference from the previous one. Accord-ing to D. Bell, the new society has four essential characteristics:

* transition from economy that produces goods to economy that provides services;

* dominance of technical competence and information processing;

* theoretical knowledge is the basis of social innovation;

* the right and possibility of decisions belong to those who control theoretical knowledge [3].

D. Bell demonstrates that the dynamics of the transition from industrial to post-industrial society depends on the relationship between the three "logics” of the functioning of the human society:

* economics follows the path of rationality, follows the logic of M. Weber;

* politics organizes the participation of all citizens in political life, it is based on equality and follows the principle of A. de Tocqueville: the greater the equality, the more intolerable inequality becomes;

* culture gives meaning to the lives of individuals who want to express themselves: it is a sphere of personal freedom that pushes for diversity [4].

Technical and economic progress is straightforward due to the improvement of technology and the accumulation of wealth and means of production. Cultural features are cyclical, as they are influ-enced by fashion. Political change is based on these two logics and the interests of social groups.

In the 1980's, American philosopher, sociologist and futurologist A. Toffler in his work "Third Wave” outlined his un-derstanding of industrial society [15]. According to him, agricultural civilization, which is called "the first wave”, gave way to "the second wave” - industrial civilization. At the end of the 20th century, it is replaced by "the third wave” - the future civilization, which A. Toffler did not name.

Machine production has become the core of industrial civilization. The specialization of machine production has re-produced itself in all other spheres and structures of social life. Production was separated from consumption, which signif-icantly expanded the scope of market mechanisms. Mass production has destroyed the borders of small feudal and semi-feudal states with their customs barriers - mass production requires more and more raw materials. Civilization is devastating natural resources more and more deeply. Along with the continuous search for new markets for products, it is no less persistent search and development of new sources and markets for raw materials. Regardless of whether it has brought more happiness or grief during its existence, today the industrial civilization has com-pletely exhausted itself. Its positive role has ended, and the negative sides and contradictions have intensified.

Trying to further conquer and destroy the nature, the humanity ran into a dead end. We experience the internal crises of all life support systems of "the second wave civilization”: social protection, education, healthcare, the international financial system, etc. The crisis covers the role-playing system of the industrial civilization, which is manifested in the blurring of gender, social and professional roles. The second wave led to personality crisis with symptoms such as loss of self-identi-fication, simultaneous desire and fear of change, and many others. Human beings will be able to overcome this crisis only if they understand that the rest of their life will be determined by a new emerging civilization of the third wave. Its signs can already be recognized today.

Using the metaphor of waves, A. Toffler wants to emphasize that the emergence of a new civilization is not a onetime event, but a prolonged process of birth, expansion and extinction. Moreover, several civilizational waves operate in the world at the same time, but with different strengths and in different directions.

Conclusions

Each of the civilizational stages is based on its own special production technologies and social relations. Each civilizational stage has its own main resource, which largely determines its character. However, civilizational stages are not only about technology or economics. In fact, each of them is a complex of interrelated technological, economical, organizational, social and political principles and institutions that are inter-connected into a single, precisely fitted mechanism or form a single ecosystem. Each civilizational stage has its own worldview, morality, way of life [8; 14]. Moreover, the worldview, principles and institutions of the new stage do not grow evolutionarily from the same elements of the earlier stage, but they are formed on the basis of their unique genome of the new civilization.

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