Theory, myth, and ideology

POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

85

its ethos and methods, even if virtually all universities and most

hospitals are technically non-profit enterprises and small operators

still abound. The only significant exception is found in the many new

"think-tanks" related to national defense, so that the relationship be-

tween private profit and the provision of an alleged abstract social

good has been muddied in the evolution of "Pentagon capitalism."60

It is hard to think of the leaders of the military-industrial complex as

the exemplars of anew knowledge elite, regardless of their technical

qualifications. Bell, however, leans heavily on the importance of

military considerations in leading to post-industrial society

61

 although

he refuses to accept the validity of non-American criticism that it is the

importance of the military sector that makes the United States a

special case. But this is perhaps less of a difference than either Bell or

his critics seem to realize since defense, politics, and capitalism are so

closely intermeshed.

Thus, while it is true that the power of the business class in politics

is diluted, as it always has been, by the desire and ability of political

technicians and adventurers to acquire and wield formal decision-

making power, it is absurd to suggest that scientific and technical

knowledge per se are the forces behind decisions and that their

possessors constitute a new class of ruler. Knowledge is used—and its

possessors as well—when it can bring profit or power. Defense con-

tracts have an economic rationale of their own beyond the rationality

of purely or perhaps even primarily strategic considerations. The new

biological technologies are pushed by the drug manufacturers and

their medical partners.

Such technological marvels as communications satellites and

nuclear power are part of the empire of corporate America rather than

being the nucleus of any new republic of the intellect. The corpora-

tions are anxious to extend their domains to the depths of the high seas

and the far reaches of outer space as technology permits and profit or-

dains.62

In sum, then, Bell's position on political power has two facets.

60. See Seymour Melman, 

Pentagon Capitalism 

(New York: McGraw Hill, 1970)

and 

The Permanent War Economy 

(New York: Simon and Shuster, 1974).

61. "In one sense, as Herman Kahn has pointed out, military technology has sup-

planted the 'mode of production' in Marx's use of the term, as a major determinant of

social structure." 

Coming, op. cit., 

P. 356.

62. See Adam Hochschild, "Shuttling Manhattans to the Sky," 

Mother Jones 

III

(May 1978): Pp. 37-51, and David Weir, "Waste Deep in the BIG Muddy," 

ibid.

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86

THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER

Despite all his talk of the dominance of science and technology, Bell

does allow for the autonomy of political institutions; thus his position

cannot be refuted by evidence that the new men of power he touts do

not in fact have the final say in decision making. The more overtly

technocratic position of prophets such as Brzezinski is more directly

undermined by such data. One the other hand, Bell seems to be saying

that the old property-derived basis of political "clout" has been

replaced by influence over the political process based on theoretical

knowledge, and here he is clearly in error."

Post-Industrial Society and the Planned Society

But belief in the appearance of a new post-industrial politics does

not rest simply on the vague idea that somehow, for the first time in

human history, knowledge will replace property and wealth as the

basis of power. It has other components as well. For Bell one aspect is

the belief—indeed hope—in the coming into existence of a ration-

alized, planned society run by technicians, a society in which ideology

will come to an end and be replaced by the solution of technical pro-

blems, one in which systems analysis will essentially replace politics.

The elitist connotations of this idea are so obvious as hardly to re-

quire explication." In any event, such a society does not appear to be

on the horizon, for good or ill. PPBS has been pretty well discredited

even among its proponents. The current American political scene

presents a picture not of technical experts presenting rational alter-

natives among which potential leaders choose with perhaps some

kibitzing from special interest groups but one of a confused nation

struggling with a mixture of unemployment and inflation before

which conventional economic science seems powerless. It is a politics

marked by a myriad of interest groups battling bitterly over "energy

policy," tax and fiscal questions, and environment and productivity

63. For example, "Under pressure from Southern politicians and rejecting warnings

by its staff scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency has reapproved the

`emergency' use of a potent new pesticide against fire ants in Mississippi." Ward

Sinclair, 

Washington Post, 

February 15, 1979.

64. Bell notes that "in the post-industrial society, ways of easing the strain between

the technocrats and ordinary persons will be an important element in the cultural struc-

ture of each nation," and "Even in America, this type of reaction can be seen in the

problems of the universities. While the universities are coming closer and closer to a

technocratic attitude, social science students tend to reject this more and more. From

now on, how to cancel out this reaction will be a major issue among the problems of

education." In Duchene, 

op. cit., 

P. 50. On technocracy and elitism see Kleinberg, 

op.

cit., 

Pp. 215-220.

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