Post-industrial society

In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy. The term was originated by Alain Touraine and is closely related to similar sociological theoretical concepts such as post-Fordism, information society, knowledge economy, post-industrial economy, liquid modernity, and network society. They all can be used in economics or social science disciplines as a general theoretical backdrop in research design. As the term has been used, a few common themes, including the ones below have begun to emerge.

The economy undergoes a transition from the production of goods to the provision of services. Knowledge becomes a valued form of capital; see Human capital. Producing ideas is the main way to grow the economy. Through processes of globalization and automation, the value and importance to the economy of blue-collar, unionized work, including manual labor (e.g., assembly-line work) decline, and those of professional workers (e.g., scientists, creative-industry professionals, and IT professionals) grow in value and prevalence. Behavioral and information sciences and technologies are developed and implemented (e.g., behavioral economics, information architecture, cybernetics, game theory and information theory).

Origins Daniel Bell popularized the term through his 1974 work The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. Although some have credited Bell with coining the term, French sociologist Alain Touraine published in 1969 the first major work on the post-industrial society. The term was also used extensively by social philosopher Ivan Illich in his 1973 paper Tools for Conviviality and appears occasionally in Leftist texts throughout the mid-to-late 1960s. The term has grown and changed as it became mainstream. The term is now used by marketers such as Seth Godin, public policy PhDs such as Keith Boeckelman, and sociologists such as Neil Fligstein and Ofer Sharone. U.S. President Bill Clinton used the term to describe Chinese growth in a round-table discussion in Shanghai in 1998.

Valuation of knowledge The post-industrialized society is marked by an increased valuation of knowledge. This has been foreshadowed in Daniel Bell's presumption as to how economic employment patterns will evolve in such societies. He asserts employment will grow faster in the tertiary (and quaternary) sector relative to employment in the primary and secondary sector and that the tertiary (and quaternary) sectors will take precedence in the economy. This will continue to occur such that the "impact of the expert" will expand and power will be monopolized by knowledge. As tertiary and quaternary sector positions are essentially knowledge-oriented, this will result in a restructuring of education, at least in its nuances. The "new power… of the expert" consequently gives rise to the growing role of universities and research institutes in post-industrial societies. Post-industrial societies themselves become oriented around these places of knowledge production and production of experts as their new foci. Consequently, the greatest beneficiaries in the post-industrial society are young urban professionals. As a new, educated, and politicized generation, more impassioned by liberalism, social justice, and environmentalism, comes into being; the shift of power into their hands, as a result of their knowledge endowments, is often cited as a good thing. The increasing importance of knowledge in post-industrial societies results in a general increase in expertise through the economy and throughout society. In this manner, it eliminates what Alan Banks and Jim Foster identify as "undesirable work as well as the grosser forms of poverty and inequality". This effect is supplemented by the aforementioned movement of power into the hands of young educated people concerned with social justice. Economists at Berkeley have studied the value of knowledge as a form of capital, adding value to material capital, such as a factory or a truck. Speaking along the same lines of their argument, the addition or 'production' of knowledge, could become the basis of what would undoubtedly be considered 'post-industrial' policies meant to deliver economic growth. The valuation of specifically scientific knowledge and technology can paradoxically be devalued by individuals in a post-industrial society as they still expect its benefits but are more sensitized to moral trade-offs and risks.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.