postindustrial

Clark's Sector model for US economy 1850 -2009.^[1]

Post-industrial society is a concept in economics describing when the service sector produces more wealth than the industrial or manufacturing sector in some countries.

The concept was popularized by Daniel Bell, and is closely related to similar concepts such as post-fordism, information society, knowledge economy, post-industrial economy, liquid modernity, and network society (Manuel Castells).

Characteristics

As the term has been used, a few common themes (not limited to those below) have begun to emerge.

1. The economy undergoes a transition from the production of goods to the provision of services.
2. Knowledge becomes a valued form of capital, see human capital.
3. Producing ideas is the main way to grow the economy.
4. Through processes of globalization and automation, the value and importance to the economy of blue-collar, unionized work, including manual labor (e.g., assembly-line work) decline, and those of professional workers (e.g. scientists, creative-industry professionals, and IT professionals) grow in value and prevalence.
5. Behavioral and information sciences and technologies are developed and implemented. (e.g. behavioral economics, information architecture, cybernetics, Game theory and Information theory.)

Origins

Daniel Bell popularized the term through his 1973 work The Coming of Post-Industrial Society.^[2] Although some note that Bell has coined the term,^[3] according to other sources, before Bell, the term was also used routinely by the Latin American social philosopher Ivan Illich in his book Tools for Conviviality.^{[citation needed]} It also appears occasionally in Leftist texts throughout the mid-to-late 1960s.^[4]

Recently, the term has grown and changed as it became mainstream. The term is now used by admen such as Seth Godin,^[5] public policy PhD's such as Keith Boeckelman,^[6] and sociologists such as Neil Fligstein and Ofer Sharone.^[7] President Bill Clinton even used the term to describe Chinese growth in a round-table discussion in Shanghai in 1998.^[8]

Creativity culture

A virtual cult of 'creatives' have sprung up embodying and often describing and defending the post-industrial ethos. They argue that businesses that create intangibles have taken a more prominent role in the wake of manufacturing's decline and that in some countries.

Actor and artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre, Kevin Spacey, has argued the economic case for the arts in terms of providing jobs and being of greater importance in exports than manufacturing (as well as an educational role) in a guest column he wrote for The Times.^[9]

Valuation of knowledge

Paul Romer, a professor of economics at Stanford, revolutionized the appreciation of knowledge as a valuable asset. As he says it is not just the "ingredients" (supply) that makes good food, it is the "recipe" (knowledge) that counts too. Better recipe, better food means better knowledge, more economic growth.^[10]

More recently, economists at Berkeley studied the value of knowledge as a form of capital, adding value to material capital, such as factory or a truck. Speaking along the same lines of their argument, the addition or 'production' of knowledge, could become the basis of what would undoubtably be considered 'post-industrial' policies meant to deliver economic growth.^[11]

Critiques

Neologism

When historians and sociologists considered the revolution which followed the agricultural society they did not call it a "post-agricultural society". "Post-industrial society" signifies only a departure, not a positive description.^[12][13]

One of the word's early users Ivan Illich prefigured this criticism and invented the word conviviality or the phrase convivial society, to stand as a positive description of his version of a post-industrial society.

Social critique

A group of geographers (such as Allen Scott and Edward Soja) argue that industry remains at the center of the whole process of capitalist accumulation, with services not only becoming increasingly industrialized and automated but also remaining highly dependent on industrial growth.

Some observers, including Soja (building on the theories of the French philosopher of urbanism Henri Lefebvre), suggest that although industry may be based outside of a 'post-industrial' nation, that nation cannot ignore its necessary sociological importance.

See also

References

External links

• Post Industrial Society Essay Bell’s ‘post-industrial society’, criticisms of his analysis of the role of information and knowledge in relation to contemporary social change and the extent of these changes. (2005)