Theory, myth, and ideology

POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

81

the political realm of post-industrial society. He simultaneously tells

us knowledge not property is the basis of power yet denies he is

predicting the coming of technocracy." However, most commen-

tators, whether supporters or opponents of his ideas in general, have

reached the conclusion that if he is saying anything at all—or at least

anything new—it is that an era of industrial capitalism, in which men

of property dominated political life, has been succeeded by a post-

industrial era, in which men of knowledge will "dominate" politics."

are central to any society," though he goes on to say that these are "not dimensions of

class, but values sought or gained by classes." 

Coming, op. cit., 

P. 43. But later, in ex-

plicitly discussing "politics," he says that "If the dominant figures of the past hundred

years have been the entrepreneur, the businessman, and the industrial executive, the

`new men' are the scientists, the mathematiciams, the economists, and the engineers of

the new intellectual technology," 

Coming, op. cit., 

P. 344. The simple-minded can

perhaps be forgiven if they conclude that when he says dominant he means not simply

dominant in a general cultural sense but in terms of setting social policy, since certainly

the dominant figures of the past with whom he contrasts his "new man" were largely so

dominant. Elsewhere he tells us that there will be "emphasis on education as the mode

of access to skill and power...." 

Cultural Contradictions, op. cit., 

p. 199. What kind of

power if not political? Earlier he has said that "the leadership of the newsociety will

rest, not with businessmen or corporations as we know them...but with the research cor-

poration...and the universities." "Notes on Post-Industrial Society," 

op. cit., 

27. In

this formulation he defines the "domination" of institutions as consisting in providing

challenges and enlisting the richest talents 

(ibid.), 

but this definition of dominance is

lost in later explications. Yet while implying technocracy is coming, he explicitly denies

it. Thus, "the crucial turning points in a society are political events. It is not the

technocrat who ultimately holds power, but the politician. "Notes...," 

op. cit., 

34.

Elsewhere he devotes a whole section of 

Coming 

to this problem (Pp. 341-367) con-

cluding politics will remain dominant, having already told us that "it is more likely,

however, that the post-industrial society will involve more politics than ever before...."

Coming, op. cit., 

P. 263 and again in 

Cultural Contradictions, 

he tells us that in the new

society while "administrative aspects of the polity may be technocratic...political deci-

sions are made by bargaining or by law, not by technocratic rationality." (P. 12) How

the implied separation between administration and politics 

is 

to be maintained is not ex-

plained, however.

54. Thus a sympathetic expositor, futurist Edward Cornish, easily makes the jump

from "dominance" to "power," writing "the post-industrial society is dominated by

scientists and researchers. In the move from an industrial to a post-industrial society,

the locus of power shifts from the business firm to the university and research

institutes." 

The Study of the Future 

(Washington: World Future Society, 1977) P. 163.

(Non-political power?) Gershuny writes of Bell that "He sees the post-industrial state as

increasingly technocratic, with skills and education replacing birth, property and posi-

tion as the basis of political power." 

After Industrial Society, op. cit., 

P. 26. In his

discussion of "post-industrial" society the Israeli sociologist I. Robert Sinai treats

Bell's position as essentially technocratic, if "less lurid" than that of Brzezinski, and

therefore false. 

The Decadence of the Modern World 

(Cambridge, Mass.: Schenckman,

1978)Pp. 152-167. Robert Putnam assimilates the ideas of Bell to those expressed in

Jean Meynaud's 

Technocracy 

(New York: The Free Press, 1969) as a point for depar-

---

82

THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER

There is, of course, an alternative to both the domination of politics

by property owners and the domination of politics by a knowledge

elite, i.e., there is such a thing as political power per se and a political

order that is a completely—or at least primarily—independent realm

controlled by force, guile, charisma, organizational ability, or

whatever. Bell comes close to saying this at times, but he never

presents us with a clear-cut statement about the nature of political

power or the provenance of its welders, and he uses the word "power"

so loosely we can only conclude that what he is trying to say is that a

political order resting on the propertied classes is being succeeded by

one based on a knowledge elite. Such at least is the lowest common

denominator of the political theory of post-industrial society as it has

grown up in the wake of Bell's theorizing.

The evidence drawn from both history and contemporary data

would seem to indicate that such a conclusion is false. Technical

knowledge of various kinds has been important to the establishment

and maintenance of political power throughout human history." Just

as no human society has ever existed without some kind of

technology, none has ever existed without a knowledge elite. Ancient

ture for an empirical study of the evidence for and against the existence'of technocracy.

"Elite Transformation in Advanced Industrial Societies: An Empirical Assessment of

the Theory of Technocracy," 

Comparative Political Studies 

10 (1977): Pp. 388-412.

Bell himself invites such confusion—if confusion it really is—by statements such as the

following: "it is clear that in the society of the future, however one defines it, he scien-

tist, the professional, the 

technicien, 

and the technocrat will play a predominant role in

the political life of the society." "The Post-Industrial Society: The Evolution of an

Idea," 

op. cit., P. 

128. The problem of understanding what Bell is explicitly trying to

say is accentuated by the fact that he never explicitly repudiates the general Marxist con-

tention that in bourgeois society the men of wealth and property were the ultimate

political ruling class. Thus, when he says that their "dominant" social role is being

taken over by a knowledge elite it is only logical to assume that their political role is as

well. No wonder one reviewer, Morris Janowitz, after concluding that Bell seems to be

explicitly projecting a change in the elite structure as a result of technology goes on to

characterize his idea of politics as confusing: "At each point in the argument the reader

is confronted with questions not only of logical clarity but of empirical

support...."Review Symposium: The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, 

American

Journal of Sociology 

80 (1974) P. 233. On technocracy in modern society generally, see

Margali Sarfath Larson, "Notes on Technocracy," 

Berkeley Journal of Sociology

. 

XVLL (1972-73): P. 1-34, and Carlos Estavem Martins, "Technocratic Rule or

Technocratic Counsel," 

Ibid., 

P. 35-58.

55. This is the burden of Meynaud, 

op. cit.. 

Unfortunately his central term

"technocracy" is defined so all inclusively, much in the manner of the use of "techni-

que" by his fellow Frenchman Jacques Ellul 

( The Technological Society: 

New York:

Knopf, 1964), that it becomes ubiquitous and hence of little explanatory value.

---