In totalitarian systems, elites are almost completely unaccountable; they lock

themselves into power and are very difficult to oust, short of regime collapse,
which we saw in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in the Soviet Union in 1991. There
is now little totalitarianism left. Its emphasis on total control, brainwashing,
and
worship of the state and its leaders has proven mistaken and inefficient. Few
people are now attracted to such political models. Only North Korea remains as
a pristine example of totalitarianism, while China and Vietnam have opened up
economically if not politically�a path Cuba may follow. Earlier in the twentieth
century, though, with the regimes of Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler, totalitarianism
was riding high. Some thought it was the wave of the future, but it was a
disease of the twentieth century. Most of our examples are historical, not current.

key driving force that distinguishes these different societies from each other is
the development of technology. All societies use technology to help fill human
needs, and the form of technology differs for the different types of society.

Preindustrial Societies
A preindustrial society is one that directly uses, modifies, and/or tills the land
as a major means of survival. Th ere are four kinds of preindustrial societies,
listed here by degree of technological development: foraging (or hunting�gathering)
societies, pastoral societies, horticultural societies, and agricultural societies

In the simplest of all societies, people live by hunting and gathering, making use
of simple tools to hunt animals and gather vegetation for food. From the time that
our species appeared 3 million years ago until about 12,000 years ago, all humans
were hunters and gatherers. Even in 1800, many hunting and gathering societies
could be found around the world. But today just a few remain, including the Aka and
Pygmies of Central Africa, the Bushmen of southwestern Africa, the Aborigines of
Australia, the Kaska Indians of northwestern Canada, the Batek and Semai of
Malaysia, and isolated native people living in
the Amazon rain forest.

In foraging (hunting�gathering) societies, the technology enables the hunting of

animals and gathering of vegetation. The technology does not permit the
refrigeration or processing of food, hence these individuals must search
continuously for plants and game. Because hunting and gathering are activities that
require large amounts of land, most foraging societies are nomadic; that is, they
constantly travel as they deplete the plant supply or follow the migrations of
animals. The central institution is the family, which serves as the means of
distributing food, training children, and protecting its members. Th ere is usually
role differentiation on the basis of gender, although the specific form of the
gender division of labor varies in different societies. They occasionally wage war
with other clans or similar societies, and spears and bows and arrows are the
weapons used. An example of a foraging society are the Pygmies of Central Africa.

In pastoral societies, technology is based on the domestication of animals. Such

societies tend to develop in desert areas that are too arid to provide rich
vegetation. The pastoral society is nomadic, necessitated by the endless search for
fresh grazing grounds for the herds of their domesticated animals. Th e animals are
used as sources of hard work that enable the creation of a material surplus. Unlike
a foraging society, this surplus frees some individuals from the tasks of hunting
and gathering and allows them to create crafts, make pottery, cut hair, build
tents, and apply tattoos. The surplus generates a more complex and differentiated
social system with an elite or upper class and more role differentiation on the
basis of gender. The nomadic Bedouins of Africa and the Middle East are pastoral
societies.
In horticultural societies, hand tools are used to cultivate the land, such as the
hoe and the digging stick. The individuals in horticultural societies practice
ancestor worship and conceive of a deity or deities (God or gods) as a creator.
This distinguishes them from foraging societies that generally employ the notion of
numerous spirits to explain the unknowable. Horticultural societies re cultivate
the land each year and tend to establish relatively permanent settlements and
villages. Role differentiation is extensive, resulting in different and
interdependent occupational roles such as farmer, trader, and craftsperson. The
Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru represent examples of horticultural
societies.

About 5,000 years ago, another revolution in technology was taking place in the
Middle East, one that would end up changing life on Earth. This was the emergence
of agriculture, large-scale cultivation using plows harnessed to animals or more
powerful energy sources. So important was the invention of the animal-drawn plow,
along with other breakthroughs of the period�including irrigation, the wheel,
writing, numbers, and the use of various metals�that this moment in history is
often called the �dawn of civilization.�
Using animal-drawn plows, farmers could cultivate fields far bigger than the
garden-sized plots planted by horticulturalists. Plows have the added advantage of
turning and aerating the soil, making it more fertile. As a result, farmers could
work the same land for generations, encouraging the development of permanent
settlements. With the ability to grow a surplus of food and to transport goods
using animal-powered wagons, agrarian societies greatly expanded in size and
population. About 100 C.E., for example, the agrarian Roman Empire contained some
70 million people spread over 2 million square miles (Nolan & Lenski, 2010).
Greater production meant even more specialization. Now there were dozens of
distinct occupations, from farmers to builders to metalworkers. With so many people
producing so many different things,people invented money as a common standard of
exchange, and the old barter system�in which people traded one thing for
another�was abandoned.

Of the societies described so far, agrarian societies have the most social
inequality. Agrarian technology also gives people a greater range of life choices,
which is the reason that agrarian societies differ more
from one another than horticultural and pastoral societies do.

Industrial Societies
An industrial society is one that uses machines and other advanced technologies to
produce and distribute goods and services. Th e Industrial Revolution began
over ??? years ago when the steam engine was invented in England, delivering
previously unattainable amounts of mechanical power for the performance of work.
Steam engines powered locomotives, factories, and dynamos and transformed societies
as the Industrial Revolution spread. Th e growth of science led to advances in
farming techniques such as crop rotation, harvesting, and ginning cotton, as well
as industrial-scale projects such as dams for generating hydroelectric power.
Joining these advances were developments in medicine, new techniques to prolong and
improve life, and the emergence of birth control to limit population growth.
Unlike agricultural societies, industrial societies rely on a highly differentiated
labor force and the intensive use of capital and technology. Large formal
organizations are common. The task of holding society together, falling on
institutions such as religion in preindustrial societies, now falls more on the
institutions that have a high division of labor, such as the economy and work,
government, politics, and large bureaucracies.
Within industrial societies, the forms of gender inequality that we see in
contemporary U.S. society tend to develop. With the advent of industrialization,
societies move to a cash-based economy, with labor performed in factories and mills
paid on a wage basis and household labor remaining unpaid. Th is introduced what is
known as the family-wage economy, in which families become dependent on wages to
support themselves, but work within the family (housework, child care, and other
forms of household work) is unpaid and therefore increasingly devalued (Tilly and
Scott ????).
In addition, even though women (and young children) worked in factories and mills
from the fi rst inception of industrialization, the family-wage economy is based on
the idea that men are the primary breadwinners. A system of inequality in men�s and
women�s wages was introduced�an economic system that even today continues to
produce a wage gap between men and women.
Industrial societies tend to be highly productive economically, with a large
working class of industrial laborers. People become increasingly urbanized as they
move from farmlands to urban centers or other areas where factories are located.
Immigration is common in industrial societies, particularly because industries are
forming where there is a high demand for more, cheap labor.

Postindustrial Societies
In the contemporary era, a new type of society is emerging. Whereas most twentieth-
century societies can be characterized in terms of their generation of material
goods, postindustrial society depends economically on the production and
distribution of services, information, and knowledge. Postindustrial societies are
information-based societies in which technology plays a vital role in the social
organization. Th e United States is fast becoming a postindustrial society, and
Japan may be even further along. Many of the workers provide services such as
administration, education, legal services, scientific research, and banking, or
they engage in the development

Totalitarianism began with Lenin�s 1917 seizure of power in Russia.

Mussolini in Italy in 1922 and Hitler in Germany in 1933 did the same. Note
that all three countries had been deranged by World War I. Totalitarianism�a
word coined by Mussolini�s supporters in the 1920s�is a system in which one
party holds total power and attempts to restructure society in accordance with
party values. Freedom disappears. The old autocratic rulers kept their subjects
quiet, but the totalitarian state insists on mass enthusiasm. Carl J. Friedrich

(1901�1984) and Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928� ) identified six features of

totalitarian
states. Four of them would have been impossible in preindustrial countries.
An ALL-EnCompAssing iDEoLogy
Totalitarians push an official theory
of history, economics, and future political and social development. The ideology
portrays the world in black-and-white terms and claims to be building a
perfect, happy society, so anyone against it is an �enemy of the people.� All are
supposed to believe and study the official ideology. Courses on Marxist-Leninist
thought were required in all Communist states (and still are in China).
A singLE pARty One party totally dominates politics, led by one man who
establishes a cult of personality. Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao had
themselves
worshipped. Party membership is controlled�usually less than 10 percent
of the population�and is supposed to be an honor. Membership brings
privileges, and in return members strongly support the party. Hierarchically
organized, the party is either superior to or tied in with the formal institutions
of government. Party functionaries hold all-important posts and impose at least
outward conformity on all citizens.
oRgAnizED tERRoR
Security police use both physical and psychological
methods to keep citizens obedient. The Nazi Gestapo, the Soviet NKVD under
Stalin, and Mussolini�s OVRA had no judicial restraints. Constitutional guarantees
either did not exist or were ignored, thus making possible secret arrests, jailing,
and
torture. The security forces�sometimes called �secret police��were often directed
against whole classes of people such as Jews, landlords, capitalists, socialists,
or
clergy. The threat of the �knock at the door� cows most of the population. Mass
arrest and execution show the state�s power and the individual�s helplessness. Not
counting deaths in war, perhaps 40 million died under Mao (mostly by starvation),
some 11 million under Hitler, and 6 million to 9 million under Stalin. Such terror
doesn�t work over the long run, however, and the Soviet Union abandoned the
more ruthless tactics of Stalin, replacing them with more subtle forms of control
and intimidation, such as loss of job or exile to a remote city.
MONOPOLY OF CommuniCAtions
The media in totalitarian states are
strictly censored to sell the official ideology and show the system is working
well under wise leaders. Only good news appears. Sinister outside forces are
portrayed as trying to harm the system and must be stopped.
monopoLy of WEApons
Governments of totalitarian nations have a complete
monopoly on weapons, thus eliminating armed resistance.
ContRoLLED EConomy
Totalitarian regimes control the economy. Stalin
did so directly by means of state ownership and Hitler indirectly by means of
party �coordination� of private industry. Either way, it makes the state powerful,
for resources can be allocated to heavy industry, weapons production, or whatever
the party wishes. Workers can be kept in line, and consumer needs or wants
are unimportant. The Soviet Union was the first to send humans into outer space,
for example, but fell far behind non-Communist countries in consumer products.
Economic backwardness�they could not put food on the table�proved to be the
great weakness of the Soviet Union and more recently of Cuba.