Theory, myth, and ideology
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POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 77 Cowgirls are in service industries. What useful light can any calcula- tion of how many "workers" may be placed in such a loose category shed on social structure? Nor are the categories of classification in- herently stable. A semi-literate youth packing coke bottles in a Coca- Cola plant is a production worker, but a week later the same youth refilling a coke machine in an office will probably be classified as a service worker. What does his movement from one such job to another tell us about the nature of society? Several facts seem to be clearly established. More workers can be classified as being in the service industries than ever before, probably a majority in the United States are so classifiable. Most of them are in jobs which require low skill levels, probably becoming lower." Because of lower productivity in the service industries, however, their contribution to the Gross National Product and the share of the con- sumer dollar they receive does not match their numbers. Virtually all of the expansion of the service industries has been at the expense—in a statistical rather than a historical sense—of agriculture; there are vir- tually as many "industrial" workers as ever in such representative modern nations as Britain, France, Japan and the United States." In a political context, it can be argued that we are not becoming a white- collar nation, much less one dominated demographically by a technically expert middle class, but still have a "working class" ma- jority." The issue is complicated by the fact that there exists in America (and probably to a lesser extent elsewhere) a growing "pink collar" proletariat of underpaid female workers, largly but by no means exclusively in the "service" industries." Is booming education a harbinger of rising skill levels and the in- creasing importance of theoretical knowledge?" College enrollments 42. This is the whole thrust of Braverman, op. cit., passim, who holds, following a position first staked out by Charles Babbage, inventor of the principle of the computer, that this is necessarily so. Garshuny argues that skill levels may be decreasing, but not as a matter of necessity,
tends to agree with Braver- man, see especially Pp. 205-219. 43. Robert Heilbroner makes this point in Business Civilization in Decline (New
York: W.W. Norton, 1976) P. 66. See also his "Economic Problems of a 'Post- Industrial Society,' " Dissent XX (1973) P. 164. 44. See Andrew Levinson,
(New York: Penguin Books, 1974). 45. Louise K. Howe, The Pink Collar Worker (New York: Putnam, 1977). 46. Heilbroner argues that while specialized knowledge may be increasing, in- dividuals as such may be less and less knowledgable about the world in general. Business 78 THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER are leveling off, subject to sharp marginal fluctuations, and among white males probably decreasing. The universities—indeed, schools generally—exist as much to keep young people out of the job market as to prepare them for it.' Unemployment and underemployment of college graduates and professionals are increasing problems in the United States and in many other industrial and even underdeveloped nations. Is the importance of theoretical knowledge increasing in society? This is almost impossible to measure, but some suggestive indicators exist. If this were the case it would be hard to account for increasing worries voiced by American leaders about the inability of the United States to compete with other nations technologically or in terms of productivity." Alarm over the low level of government and industry support for basic science and R and D is constantly heard, and even if one discounts for the self-serving nature of many of these complaints, they would seem to indicate the existence of a real problem. If we are becoming a post-industrial society we may also be becoming the first stagnant one. What is true of the United States seems to be true of other can- didates for post-industrial status as well. The phenomenon of the ap- parent growth of the service industries is virtually universal, but so is the possibility of objecting to giving these statistics the meaning at- tached to them in terms of their alleged social and political implica- tions. A careful study of the British economy shows that while a grow- ing number of workers are employed in providing services the share of the consumer dollar going to products rather than services has in- creased in the past ten years." While some nations are growing in technological and scientific strength, problems of employment for highly skilled graduates appear to be almost universal. In all nations
P. 70. Also "Economic Problems of a Post-Industrial Society," in Morley,
P. 27. See also Burke D. Grandjean, "The Division of Labor, Technology, and Education: Cross-National Evidence,"
(1975): Pp. 297-309, which argues that advanced education bears little relationship to either technology or the division of labor in society. See also Kumar,
Pp.
219-230. 47. Kumar, op. cit., Pp. 255-257. 48. On the American position in the world see Basiuk,
Pp. 41-59 and Victor Ferkiss, "The Future of American Technology," in William B. Pickett, (ed.)
(San Francisco: San Francisco Press, 1977) Pp. 63-75. 49. Gershuny,
also Gershuny, "Post-Industrial Society: The Myth of the Service Economy,"
9 (1977): Pp. 103-144 and "The Self-Service Economy,"
32 (1977-78): Pp. 50-66. Yüklə 292,97 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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