Theory, myth, and ideology

POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

71

At the root of the problem is the term post-industrial itself. Post-

industrialism defines one alleged reality in terms of another

chronologically preceding reality. In his earlier incarnation as an

academic, Zbigniew Brzezinski was caustic about this definition,

arguing that it was about as useful as describing industrial society as

"post-agricultural" to someone who knew only agricultural society.

Post-industrialism, Brzezinski contended, is essentially a term without

substantive content.

22

 He proposed instead the term "technetronic,"

since, in his view, it was the dominance of electronic communications

technology that would differentiate the society to come from the

previously existing industrial society.

23

 The term has not caught on

although, to add to the theoretical confusion engendered by the whole

discussion, the idea behind it has. Thus many commentators have

seized upon the notion that we are now entering upon an "informa-

tion society" in which the exchange of communications has replaced

the production of goods

24

 and they—the Japanese are especially fond

of this concept—use the terms "information society" and "post-

industrial society" as practically synonomous.

25

 Even Bell himself has

shown some disposition to jump on this new bandwagon.26

What is crucial, of course, is not whether television, computers, and

similar means of communication and control exist and are absorbing

more and more of the material and personnel resources of all societies,

22.Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era 

(New York: Viking

Press, 1971), P. 9.

23. Ibid., 

Pp. xiv, 11-12. For earlier formulations see "America in the

Technetronic Era," 

Encounter 

30 (January 1968): Pp. 16-26, and "Toward a

Technetronic Society," 

Current 

92 (February 1968): Pp. 33-38.

24. William Kuhns, 

The Post-Industrial Prophets: Interpretations of Technology

(New York: Weybright and Talley, 1971). For severe criticism of this perspective, see

James W. Carey and John J. Quick, "The Mythos of the Electronic Revolution,"

American Scholar 

39 (1970): Pp. 359-424. But see also "Electronics" special issue of

Science 

195 (1977): Pp. 1085-1240.

The movement from work to communication is a basic presupposition of Robert

Theobold and J.M. Scott's quasi-utopia 

Teg's 1994: An Anticipation of the Near

Future 

(Chicago: Swallow Press, 1972).

25. See James William Morley (ed.), 

Prologue to the Future: The United States and

Japan in the Post-Industrial Age 

(Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath for the Japan Society,

1974) 

passim 

and also Yujiro Hayashi (ed.) 

Perspectives on Post-Industrial Society

(Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1970) 

passim, 

especially the editor's "The

Information-Centered Society," Pp. 33-45.

26. "The post-industrial society is an information society, as industrial society is a

goods-producing society," appears as early as 

Coming, 

P. 467, but see especially his

"Teletext and Technology," 

op. cit.

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72

THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER

but, rather, what if anything this has to do with social structure and

economic and political power. Does being an employee of IBM rather

than U.S. Steel make any difference in one's economic or political

status vis a vis others? This is the question which theorists of post-

industrial society dance around by rarely and only chastely touch.

Why becomes clear when we look at the concept of post-industrial

society not in terms of what is new about it but what is not new. For

not only does the usage "post-industrial" fail to define the new socie-

ty (save that it is presumably different and "later" than—industrial

society); it begs the question of what it is that post-industrial society is

different from, that is, what an industrial society is in the first place. It

is as if we were to define an adult as a person who had given up the

things of childhood 

(cf , 

St. Paul) without having defined

childishness.

The plain truth of the matter is that we have only a vague definition

and an unclear understanding of the nature and characteristics of in-

dustrial society. The major, if not the only, merit of the theory of

post-industrial society is that it forces us to take a closer look at in-

dustrial society. Thus, it is analogous to the concept of political

development as applied to the "Third World," which has forced us to

reexamine the history and nature of the politics of "developed," na-

tions." Similarly, most "futurism" is primarily valuable not because

of what it can (or cannot) tell us about where we are going, but

because of the questions it forces us to ask about where we are now."

Our working definition of industrialism is not really a definition at

all. The beginnings of the "industrial revolution" have now been

traced back to the early Middle Ages." What we have in the concept

of "industrialism" is primarily a literary image—which sociologists

have done much to contribute to and popularize—rather than a

precise delineation of central and subsidiary factors.

3

° We think of in-

dustrialism primarily in terms of images—urbanization, smoking fac-

27. See, for example S.M. Lipset 

The First New Nation 

(New York: Basic Books,

1963) and Reinhard Bendix, 

Kings or People: Power and the Mandate to Rule

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).

28. On Futurology see Victor Ferkiss, 

Futurology: Promise, Performance, Pro-

spects. 

(Beverly Hills and London: Sage Publications, 1977).

29. Jean Gimpel, 

The Medieval Machine. The Industrial Revolution of the Middle

Ages 

(New York: Penguin Books, 1977).

30. This point is extensively developed in Krishnan Kumar, 

Prophecy and Progress:

The Sociology of Industrial and Post-Industrial Society 

(Hammondsworth, Eng.:

Pelican Books, 1978).

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