Page 176 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

developments are the role and capabilities of computers in managing the increase
in volume, speed and distance with which increasingly complex information is
generated and transferred. In this view, technological change is the driving force of
social change. 153
The post-industrial society is said to be the site of a new class structure that is
emerging as a consequence of the growing importance of knowledge and technical
skills in the economy. In particular, it is said that manual jobs are giving way to
white-collar, service and professional ones. The new service class is based on the
possession of knowledge rather than property and is increasingly organized on craft
rather than industrial lines. The professional end of the service class is not primarily
involved in the direct production of commodities, but rather they sell their skills
and depend on their market power. Such people usually have a high degree of
autonomy, working either as professional ‘experts’ or in directing the labour of
others. Though they do not own the means of production, they may be
shareholders and/or possess the ability, at least at the top of the spectrum, to
manage the strategic direction of powerful companies.
Writers describe a class structure constituted by (i) a professional class, (ii) a
technician and semi-professional class, (iii) a clerical/sales class and (iv) a class of
semi-skilled and craft workers. Noticeably absent from this list is the manual
working class. The claim is that the majority of the population has been removed
from working class manual jobs and their associated class identity. Instead of a
working class, we now have a new cash-oriented post-industrial ‘working’ class, a
secure and privileged labour ‘aristocracy’ and an unemployed underclass. As a
consequence we no longer live in a society marked by class conflict of the
traditional type involving a property owning ‘ruling class’ and a wage-earning
‘working class’. Rather, what we are now experiencing are the tensions between
technocrats and bureaucrats on one side and workers, students and consumers on
the other.
Theories of the post-industrial society have proved to be useful in pointing to key
changes in Western economies and societies since the early 1970s. However, they
are also problematic in a number of respects. For many commentators, the scale,
scope and range of the changes described are overstated geographically (different
regions and countries experience change differently) and in absolute terms. Critics
suggest that the changes described are confined to specific sectors of the economy
and are not as widespread as they have been purported to be. For example, while
there has been a shift towards information and service work, the standard capitalist
patterns of labour organization still hold sway.
There is little doubt that the Western world has seen a decline in the industrial
manufacturing sectors of its economies and a rise in the service sectors with a
comparable alteration in employment patterns. However, critics argue, this category
homogenizes a very diverse set of workers from office clerks and shop workers
through to lawyers and the chief executive officers of major multinational
corporations. This seems too heterogeneous a set of occupational and cultural
modes to be regarded as one class. Indeed, increased fragmentation and
stratification are markers of the new class formations.