Theory, myth, and ideology

POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

69

dance will put an end to ideology and what technocrats regard as

political irrationalism." Nor do writers such as Samuel Huntington,

who use the term post-industrial in a way that combines the usages of

Bell and Kahn." In 

The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism 

Bell

ironically evidences fear bordering on panic that political and cultural

irrationality, often taking ideological form, will not only continue to

exist in post-industrial society but may threaten its very existence.

What Is "Post-Industrial Society" All About?

Having loosely described post-industrial society and indicated its

historical origins in post-Marxist theorizing and in the ideology of the

end of ideology, we must now ask what the term really means. Bell,

unfortunately for our present purposes, does not share Hobbes' ad-

miration for Euclid, and it is difficult to pin down central propositions.

from which others flow in his various expositions of the concept:

7

 On

Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years 

(New York: Macmillan,

1967) esp. pages 25 and 186. Yet Bell contributes a preface in which he reiterates his own

definition (p. xxvii) but does not take issue with theirs. See also Kahn and B. Bruce-

Briggs, 

Things to Come. Thinking About the 70's and 80's 

(New York: Macmillan,

1972), esp. P. 220 and Kahn and Leon Martel, 

The Next 200 Years 

(New York: William

Morrow, 1976) P. 1. This notion of post-industrial society as one combining affluence

plus technological development is similar to those of Hancock cited above and that used

by Christopher Lasch, despite the pseudo-Marxist spin he gives it, in "Toward a Theory

of Post-Industrial Society," in M. Donald Hancock and Gideon Sjoberg (eds.), 

Politics

in the Post-Welfare State. Responses to the New Individualism 

(New York: Comumbia

University Press, 1972), Pp. 36-50. This usage has crept into the secondary literature as

well. See Edward C. Pytlik, Donald P. Lauda, and David L. Johnson, 

Technology,

Change, and Society 

(Worcester: Davis, 1978), Pp. 91-106.

15. Discussions of various forms of possible future political, religious, and cultural

irrationality abound in the many possible "scenarios" profferred in Kahn's works, see

especially 

The Year 200 (op. cit.) 

and 

Things To Come (op. cit.).

16. "Post-Industrial Politics. How Benign...," 

op. cit., 

Pp. 187-188.

17. Thus in his rambling 

The Coming, 

Bell variously speaks of this new society as

having "five dimensions, or components" (P. 14), says that its significance consists in

four different features (P. 43), presents a table of its "structures and problems" using

eight "axial" principles (P. 119), discusses the role of science and technology as an

"underpinning" (P. 197), says it "is a knowledge society" (P. 212) yet tells us "the

business corporation remains, for the whole, the heart of the society" (P. 269), despite

the fact that "today ownership is simply a legal fiction" (P. 294), presents a table on

"stratification and power" with six elements (P. 359), later reduced to three variables

(base of power, mode of access, and social unit) (P. 361), and in the "Coda" of the

book presents still another elaborate scheme on "The societal Structure of Post-

Industrial Society," (P. 375). As one commentator has noted, "Professor Bell's com-

plex thought is sometimes difficult to master," Jonathan Gershuny, 

After Industrial

Society. The Emerging Self-Service Economy 

(Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities

Press, 1978), P. 158.

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70

THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER

some points he is quite clear, however: post-industrialism does not

constitute a factor (independent variable) from which other aspects of

society flow in a causal fashion from cause to effect. Indeed, Bell is

careful to argue, against Marx and much of the modern sociological

tradition, that societies (civilizations?) are not organic wholes and that

the political and cultural forms and characteristics of a society vary in-

dependently of its social form. Post-industrial society is a theory

"primarily" about the economic-social-technological aspect of socie-

ty." There can therefore be capitalist and socialist post-industrial

societies." (Capitalism and socialism in Bell's usage are apparently

thought of as political rather than social structures). Post-industrial

society is not logically equivalent to bourgeois society," despite a long

standing tendency of social historians to speak of bourgeois society

and industrial society almost interchangeably, despite later socialist

ventures into industrialization.

Bell's methodology turns on what he calls "axial" principles .

2

'

 

As

an analog, he offers Tocqueville's use of "equality" as a tool to ex-

plain early 19th century American society. Equality is not a causal fac-

tor like the introduction of the factory system, but it provides a basis

for explaining a variety of social phenomena. Leaving aside any ques-

tions about the validity of Tocqueville's observations, the concept of

axial principles presents certain problems. Equality—albeit a complex

and subtle concept, as even Aristotle knew and discussed at length—is

at least a single principle. It is relatively easy to visualize the metaphor

and to think of societies revolving around an axis of equality or

whatever, but how societies or other bodies can turn on more than one

axis at a time is difficult to conceive. Post-industrial society is

described by Bell in terms of many characteristics: how many, and

which, varies from work to work, and sometimes from page to page.

It is difficult to discover which, if any, are more important and how, if

at all, they are related to one another. For instance, is there really any

connection, necessary or otherwise, between an increasing number of

workers in "service" occupations, the importance of theoretical

knowledge, and universities replacing corporations as centers of

power?

18.Coming, op. cit., 

P. 13.

19.Ibid., 

P. 114. Also, "Both the United States and the Soviet Union could become

post-industrial societies," 

Cultural Contradictions, op. cit., 

P. 14.

20. Coming, op. cit., 

Pp. 12-13.

21.Ibid., 

P. 10.

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