Major Themes in Industrialised Societies: Post-Industrial Societies

 

We shall examine some of the claims about post-industrial societies and post-Fordism.

 

Deindustrialisation

- Harry Braverman and Jonathan Gershuny

Advanced industrialised societies are seemingly different from earlier capitalist societies:

a) pattern of work has changed

i) an increase in services – health, research and education, leisure, retailing and public administration;

ii) an absolute decline in manufacturing employment;

iii) the share of service goods to national output is higher; and

iv) an increase in retailing output and employment reflects higher consumption (especially from abroad), and funded by personal debt (note the increase employment of debt recovery agencies)

b) changes in gender work

i) a higher female participation in the labour market, especially full and part-time employment in the service sector; and

ii) a decline in male employment in the manufacturing sector.

c) new technology

i) the new information and computer technology threatens to ‘de-skill’ workers; e.g., software programmes minimise the creativity and skills of machine users; and

ii) the new technology enables senior managers and planning offices to centralise authority and supervision, giving them greater control on how to coordinate and manage work – to monitor and supervise ‘at a distance’ (e.g., supervisors in call centres).

 

Post-industrial societies

- Daniel Bell and Michael Castells

Writers on post-industrialism argue that industrial societies are qualitatively different from post-industrial societies.

a) in industrial societies:

i) individuals are more concerned with basic needs, such as food, shelter and clothing;

ii) production is organised around manufacturing and Fordist division of labour (factories and assembly lines);

iii) class-based politics – class struggle, strikes and lockouts; and

iv) the state monopolises power, and has the ability to satisfy (or not) the demands of citizens (e.g., the welfare state).

b) in post-industrial societies:

i) individuals consume service goods beyond the basic needs, such as holidays, plastic surgery and entertainment games;

ii) the knowledge society emerges as professional, technical and scientific occupations expand, demonstrating the importance of knowledge, expertise and new technology for organisation and control of work;

iii) power lies not with the capitalists (owners of means of production) but with the knowledge workers (professionals, experts and programmers), who control knowledge, information and technology, so that politics is no longer class-based but much broader taking into account environmental, social and cultural concerns;

iv) the state is less powerful as it is unable to satisfy the demands of its citizens; hence the ‘new welfare/workfare state’, where individuals have more self-responsibility, focus on work for benefits and less universal protection; and

v) power is diffused throughout society: the private sector, voluntary sector, EU and global players.

 

Post-Fordism

- Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift

Similar to above, writers on post-Fordism suggest that the nature of production and consumption has changed from previous industrial forms of economic coordination.

a) under the Fordist economic regime:

i) the production system is characterised as rigid and inflexible with strict division of labour, inflexible technology and de-skilled work.

b) under the post-Fordist regime, flexibility is the key feature:

i) technology is more flexible and adaptable to the changing needs of markets, producing new products and designs;

ii) production runs are quicker and in smaller batches for specialised niche markets (e.g., Benetton sweaters) – such goods are designed for particular lifestyles rather than for the mass, undifferentiated market;

iii) jobs are functionally and numerically flexible, meaning multi-skilled, multi-tasking and downsizing; no longer are workers governed by rigid job demarcation, so that workers are constantly being re-skilled or laid off;

iv) job contracts are becoming more casualised, temporary, sub-contracted and part-time – the era of full employment with full-time and permanent work can no longer exist (nevertheless there appears to be a division between core and periphery staff).