Postindustrial Society

The most recent sweeping social change to elicit comment from social theorists is a shift from industrial society (or mass-production systems) to something called "postindustrial society." Even before you read the chapter in your textbook, you probably heard the term. Postindustrial society refers to the contemporary Western societies in which manufacturing operations have decreased while the service and financial sectors have expanded. Robert Reich (who was the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration) expands on this idea by describing three broad categories of work: routine production services, in-person services, and symbolic-analytic services. In the United States, the proportion of jobs that are routine production is decreasing while the other two categories are increasing in importance. Of course, the jobs in this last category appear to be more interesting, better remunerated, and require more educational credentials to obtain. . In the book The Work of Nations, Robert Reich describes the global division of labor as one in which developing nations increasingly take on the routine production work of the world and workers in the most developed nations (i.e., industrialized capitalist nations like the United States) will specialize in symbolic-analytic jobs. In-person service jobs cannot be shipped overseas, but they do not represent "good jobs" according to Reich. Of the "three jobs of the future," the good jobs are symbolic-analyst jobs.

It is true that many of the routine manufacturing jobs are being shipped to developing nations, especially if they are "labor-intensive" industries, that is, industries in which a significant portion of the cost of the final product is due to labor costs. Companies in capital-intensive industries (those that require extensive investment in high cost equipment, i.e., capital), have a more difficult time relocating across the globe. They do move; however, it is with less frequency and less ease than companies that manufacture garments or semiconductors.

There has been much debate about recent shifts in the global division of labor given some of the ills observed in developing nations. Here I will provide a brief overview of the polar ends of the debate regarding the significance and character of changes in work around the world. I will label the first camp "modernization theory." Modernization theory holds that developing nations (also called Third World or South nations) are merely going through growing pains just as the United States did during its period of industrialization. The problems experienced by these nations, such as poverty, occupational health issues, or a lack of labor rights, are seen as temporary social problems. These countries are on an evolutionary path that imitates the history of industrialized nations. Just as U.S. industry maintained horrible working conditions for significant portions of the workforce in the past, today's developing nations will eventually evolve past this stage into a more "modern" stage of development. Social problems are but temporary problems that will resolve themselves over time.

In contrast is exploitation theory which holds that the conditions observed in developing nations are not, in fact, temporary. Instead, these conditions are a permanent result of unequal relations among nations. More powerful "first world" or industrialized nations are said to be exploiting "Third world" or developing nations to their own benefit. Developing nations are predicted not to emerge from their current troubles because they do not have the power to do so. As long as industrialized nations can benefit from maintaining the status quo, developing nations will not "evolve" as predicted by modernization theory.

Both of these descriptions are necessarily oversimplifications of these perspectives. However, this overview gives you an idea of the main contrasts of the two perspectives. Empirical reality seems more complicated still. Some nations' histories seem to lend support to modernization theory while other nations' situations clearly lend credence to exploitation theory. If you think about the term "postindustrial society," you can see that it was coined from a Western, industrialized perspective. POST-industrial implies that the society has moved beyond industrialization. In a global context, only the wealthiest nations will have transcended an industrialized society to reach the heralded postindustrial society. In contrast, Third World nations are in the midst of industrialization and are not expected to transcend that state any time soon. We will expand on these ideas and return to the theme of globalization throughout the course.