Theory, myth, and ideology

POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

89

direction in his recognition that the technologically based,

economically rationalized society he foresees has within it new poten-

tialities for alienation." Where he differs from other commentators is

in deploring tendencies which many others welcome.

Perhaps the most extreme, or at least the most clear-cut, exposition

of the idea that post-industrial society will bring a new revolutionary

politics of alienation comes from some "New Left" theorists, of

whom French sociologist Alain Touraine may be taken as an

example." There is a new class emerging as a result of technological

and economic change, Touraine agrees with Bell, but while it is

necessary to society and wields much power on a low-level, day-to-day

basis it is necessarily alienated by being reduced in status and freedom

by the mechanisms of capitalist industrialism. This "new working

class" of technicians and intellectuals is undergoing the same process

of status degradation that skilled workers experienced in Marx's time,

and it is reacting in the same way by turning to revolutionary politics,

as illustrated by the actions of (some) university students in France,

the United States and elsewhere in the 1960s. Post-industrial society

will eventuate in a final revolution against capitalism by this new class

and the final conquest of freedom.

To what extent to these speculations adequately describe contem-

porary reality? This question can only be answered in a provisional

manner. Obviously "life style" issues have been coming to the fore as

participation...." Jeffrey A. Ross sees the possibility of, if not revolution, rebellion

against the technostructure on the part of those excluded from decision-making. "En-

trophy and Violence: An Analysis of the Prospects for Revolution in Post-Industrial

Society," 

American Behavioral Scientist 

20 (1977): Pp. 457-471. After asserting that

Bell, "gives little attention to the role of political institutions and processes," Timothy

Hennessey and B. Guy Peters come to essentially the same conclusions. "Political

Paradoxes in Post-Industrialism: A Political Economy Perspective," 

Policy Studies

Journal 

3 (1975) P. 233.

71. Especially of youth. 

Cultural Contradictions, op. cit., 

Pp. 189-191. Hancock

finds a high degree of alienation in post-industrial Sweden, but is not clear on the extent

to which it is a function of post-industrialism or arises from other sources in Swedish

literature and philosophy where it is especially notable. 

Sweden, op. cit., 

Pp. 73-74.

Kahn and Weiner expect alienation but only in part, and believe that despite it post-

industrial society can be highly stable. 

The Year 2000, op. cit., 

Pp. 199-200, 212, 217.

72. The Post-Industrial Society: Tomorrow's Social History: Classes, Conflicts, and

Cultures in the Programmed Society 

(New York: Random House, 1971). This is essen-

tially the position taken by Lasch, who argues that "the post-industrial order is an in-

herently unstable form of society. There are good reasons to think that it may not even

survive the twentieth century." 

op. cit., 

P. 48. On the "New Working Class," in J.

David Colfax and Jack L. Roach (eds.), 

Radical Sociology 

(New York: Basic Books,

1971), Pp. 341-352.

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90

THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER

manner. Obviously "life style" issues have been coming to the fore as

affluence has increased. But old issues have not disappeared for two

reasons. One is that affluence is not as widespread as postulated by

post-industrial theorists. The second is that ability to attain desired

life styles and possession of economic power are not wholly unrelated.

Those political factions in the United States, often but not always

Republican, which hoped to gain power by reaching masses who were

"conservative" on "social" (life style) issues even if they tended

toward "liberalism" on economic issues have been largely disap-

pointed. Also, despite concern about environmental issues and the

"quality of life" generally and such matters as crime and sexual

morality both here and in other Western capitalist democracies (in-

cluding, of course, Japan, at least insofar as the former issues are con-

cerned), economic conflict remains a staple of politics, more so than

even in an era of perceived energy shortages and exhortations to

"austerity." The reason is simple: post-industrialism is not completely

a myth, but whatever elements of it do exist have simply been added to

(or grafted onto) industrialism rather than having superceded it, just

as industrialism has not completely eliminated agrarian life and its

problems.

73

 Insofar as there are any differences between post-

industrial society and industrial society (and, as we have argued, the

differences are marginal and illusive rather than basic and real, post-

industrial society being simply a more developed stage of industrial

society), any changes in political issues and forces to which these dif-

ferences give rise will not eliminate the basic issues and forces of the

politics of industrial society but will only add to their complexity.

73. Bell in a footnote in Cultural Contradictions says "I should emphasize the fact

that a post-industrial society does not 'displace' an industrial society, or even an

agrarian society.... A post-industrial society adds a new dimension, particularly in the

management of date and information in a complex society...." P. 198. "Well grubbed,

old Mole!" But what does this casual admission leave of the whole grandiose theory of

post-industrial society, indeed of the concept of society itself as Bell seems to be using

it?

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