The Educational Forum

ISSN: 0013-1725 (Print) 1938-8098 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/utef20

The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society

Daniel Bell

To cite this article: Daniel Bell (1976) The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society, The
Educational Forum, 40:4, 574-579, DOI: 10.1080/00131727609336501

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131727609336501

Published online: 30 Jan 2008.

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 We, therefore , the Representatives of the united States of America, in
General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
worldfor the rectitude ofour intentions, do , in the Name, and by Authority
of the good People of these Colonies , solemnly publish and declare, That
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these United Colonies are, and ofRight ought to be Free and Independent
States; that they are Absolvedfrom all Allegiance to the British Crown, and
that all political connection between them and the State ofGreat Britain , is
and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Ind ependent States,
they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances ,
establish Commerce , and to do all other Acts and Things which Indepen-
dent States may ofright do . Andfor the support ofthis Declaration , with a
firm reliance on the Protection ofDivine Providence , we mutually pledge
to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor .
 The Coming of the
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Post-Industrial Society

DANIEL BELL

you think of inventions that change the character of daily life, it is not at all clear
F
I that our generation is experiencing " more" change than previous ones.
A man born in 1800 and dying in 1860 would have seen the coming of the railway, the
steamship, the telegraph, gas lighting, factory-made clothing and furniture. He was
able, for the first time in all of human experience, to travel faster than the fastest horse,
and to do so for long, continuous periods. The railroad enabled us to move large
amounts of goods at rapid speed, to link every section of a country with every other. The
steamship allowed individuals to cross large oceans safely, in two weeks or less, and
millions, literally, crossed the Atlantic to come here as immigrants, facing a large
culture shock of their own.
A man born in 1860 and dying in 1920 would have seen the telephone , the electric
light, the automobile and truck, the aeroplane, radio and motion pictures . Think only of
the way that electricity, and street lighting , have transformed our lives. Our forebears
lived within the arc of the sun, rising early and going to sleep shortly after sunset. The
main meal was at mid-day or mid-afternoon, and supper was a light repast. The whole
character of "night-life" is due to the invention of the electric light and the signs that
light up the dark hours .
Are television and the computer, the major inventions of the middle of the 20th
century, any more "shocking" in their impact on our lives than those which changed the
lives of our immediate forebears?

Daniel Bell is a professor of sociology at Harvard University. This article is reprinted with permission of
TWA Ambassador Magazine, copyright Trans World Airlines 1976.

·575·
 576 THE EDUCATIONAL FORUM
We say, knowingly, that technology has
transformed our world. We feel, appre -
hensively, that we are on a steeply rising
curve of change, so that the historical tran-
sition to new levels of technological power
is creating a crisis of transformation. But
what has been transformed is not always
clear. To say, vaguely, "our lives," or,
flashily, that we are experiencing "future
shock," is of little help in understanding
the character of that transformation.
Yet extraordinary changes are taking
place. And the understanding of those
transformations comes less from looking
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at mere inventions or gadgets, but at a
simpler, yet more subtle and profound
change, which is one in the axes of work
and economics.
The first major change in modern times ,
which began about 100 years ago and
reached its apogee only after World War
II, was a change from an agrarian to an
industrial way of life, from a rural to an
urban existence.
The second change, which is now under-
way, is the transformation from an indus-
trial to a post-industrial society, from life
in dense urban concentrations to life in
" ribbon cities"-either long threads or
concentric circles-within vast metropoli-
tan regions. In short, the best way to
understand what is happening to us as
America enters its third century is to think
of three ways of life-the preindustrial, the
industrial, and the post-industrial societies.
In pre-industrial societies-which is still
the condition of most of Asia, Africa and
Latin America-the labor force is engaged
overwhelmingly(usually, more than 60 per-
cent of the population) in the extractive in-
dustries: mining, fishing, forestry, agricul-
ture. Life is a game against nature. One
works with raw muscle power, in inherited
ways, and one's sense of the world is con-
ditioned by dependence on the natural ele-
[May
ments: the seasons, the fertility of the soil,
the amount of rainfall and the like. The
rhythm of one's life, through the year and
through each day, is shaped by the cycles
of nature. The unit of social life is the ex-
tended family. Large numbers of children
are a necessary economic asset.
Industrial societies-principally those
around the North Atlantic littoral, plus
Japan and the Soviet Union-are goods-
producing societies. Life is a game against
fabricated nature. The world has become
technical, the machine predominates. The
rhythms of life are mechanical and chrono-
logical, and the world is ruled by the clock.
Energy has replaced raw muscle and pro-
vides the power that is the basis of pro-
ductivity-the art of making more with
less-and of mass production.
A post-industrial society is based on
services. Life becomes a game between
persons. What counts is not raw muscle
power, or energy; what counts is informa-
tion.
The central person in this society is the
professional, for he is equipped by educa-
tion and training to provide the kinds of
skills which the post-industrial society de-
mands. Central to the post-industrial so-
ciety is the fact that the sources of innova-
tion are the codifications of theoretical
knowledge.
Even today, most of our major indus-
tries-steel, auto , electricity, telephone ,
aviation-are essentially 19th-century in-
dustries because they were created by
" t alented tinkerers," not system atic
theoreticians. Bessemer, who created the
open-hearth process (to win a prize offered
by Louis Napoleon for a better cannon),
knew nothing of the work of Sorby on
metallurgical properties. Alexander
Graham Bell was an elocution teacher
who invented the telephone to amplify
sound and help the deafto hear . He knew
 1976] DANIEL BELL
nothing of the work of Clerk Maxwell on
electromagnetism. Thomas Alva Edison, a
genius of an inventor, to whom we owe the
electric light, the phonograph and the
motion picture, was mathematically il-
literate.
The first modern industry is chemistry,
because you have to have a theoretical
knowledge of the properties of the macro-
molecules you are manipulating in order to
know what to produce. And the science-
based industries that will dominate the last
third of the 20th century-electronics, op-
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tics, polymers, computers-derive from
theoretical work in physics or chemistry.
1. 1. Rabi at Columbia sent a molecular
beam through an optical field and created
the maser, and his colleague Charles
Townes develped this way of concentrating
light into the laser, and Dennis Gabor out
of these discoveries created the hologram
-and all three won Nobel prizes. The
work of Felix Bloch at Stanford in solid
state ph ysics made the computer possible,
and the discovery of transistors by Shock-
ley is the basis of miniaturization-the
most remarkable achievement of the inter-
twined science and technology of these
decades of the century.
With a post-industrial societ y, the
United States has, in effect, created the
world's first service economy. In 1950, half
of all workers were engaged in the produc-
tion of goods, and almost 34 per cent di-
rectly in manufacturing. Today, almost 65
out of every 100 workers is engaged in
services , and by 1980, 70 out of every hun-
dred persons will be in services . By the
year 2000, it is likely that only 10 percent
of the labor force will be in manufacturing
-producing goods for the other 90 per
cent.
Yet the word services disguises many
different kinds of functions . In a pre -
industrial economy, a substantial portion
577
of persons are engaged in services, but
these are primarily household and domes-
tic services. In an industrial economy, we
also ha ve a large portion of services , but
these are auxiliary to the production of
goods. These are largely transportation
and distribution .
In the post-industrial society , the ser-
vices are primarily "human services ," and
" professional and technical services. " This
is why, in one respect, the major expan-
sions in employment in recent years have
been primarily in such human services as
education and health, while the other
major areas have been in research and de-
velopment, in data-processing and the
like.
The symbol of the industrial society is
the semi-skilled worker, usually the man on
the assembly-line who does repetitive tasks
and who can learn his job in a few weeks.
This symbol was graphically imprinted
into our consciousness by Charlie Chaplin
in Modern Times.
But that reality is vanishing. Today,
fewer than 30 percent of all auto workers
work on the assembly line, and among the
blue-collar class as a whole the emphasis
has been shifting from direct production
work to watching dials, becoming a me-
chanic or engaging in repairs. Most im-
portantly, the fastest-and largest-grow-
ing segment has been the professional,
technical and managerial employees. To-
day, those occupations make up 23.1 per-
cent of the labor force . Clerical workers
comprise 17.9 percent, semi-skilled work-
ers 17.6 percent and skilled workers 13.9
percent. Not only are we a white-collar so-
ciety, we're quite definitely a middle-class
society.
All of which is reflected in the increasing
centrality of education. In 1900, only 2.6
percent of the persons in the United States
(25 years and older) had completed col-
 578 THE EDUCATIONAL FORUM
lege, and about 5.7 percent had had some
college.work. Only 13 percent had com-
pleted high school and an additional 14
percent had had some high school work.
In 1970, about 12 percent of that popu-
lation group had completed college, and
about 11 percent had had some college
work. Almost 60 percent had completed
high school. In the post-industrial society,
it is education-rather than direct inheri-
tance of property-that provides the lad-
der of access to place, income and privi-
lege.
And where that ladder will be climbed
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has changed, too. Today, we're more de-
pendent on organizations than ever before.
In 1940, for example, about 26 percent of
the male labor force was self-employed-
as farmers, small businessmen or inde-
pendent professionals such as doctors or
lawyers. By 1970, this had fallen to 10 per-
cent. All the others work in an organiza-
tion-in all, about 70 million Americans
are wage and salaried employees.
In dealing with social changes, it is im-
portant to emphasize that a post-industrial
society does not displace an industrial
society, as the industrial society did not
displace an agrarian society. Clearly, the
production of goods will be a feature of our
society so long as we seek a rising standard
ofliving. Yet these goods will be produced
by fewer and fewer persons.
So, what will life be like in this post-
industrial society America is entering? We
don't know enough to give any definitive
answers. Yet some things are obvious.
The focal point of opportunity in
America is being defined, increasingly, by
education. This emphasis on education,
and on relatively slow advance (as against
the old dream of "starting one's own busi-
ness") , means, on the one hand, a longer
life for persons within organizations, per-
sons standing on the organization escala-
[May
tor. But it also means , for a sizable num-
ber of others who have been excluded-be-
cause of lack of education-an existence
as members of a permanent underclass,
beached by the exigencies of the economic
process.
As the population becomes more edu-
cated, we are likely to see a rise in political
independence, with more individuals vot-
ing on issues and persons, rather than on
party lines. With the rise in education and
a freer lifestyle, we are likely to see mar-
riages at a later age, more divorces and re-
marriages, as well as a continuing drop in
the number of children per family. Al-
ready, the net reproduction rate in society
is about 2.2. percent, or a figure that
signifies zero population growth.
We shall probably see a greater inde-
pendence of women, not only for ideologi-
cal reasons but for the simple fact that a
post-industrial society provides, for the
first time, an economic base for female
independence. Most of the jobs in an in-
dustrial economy have been male jobs-
especially in the blue-collar fields. But
white-collar employment , especially in the
new service economy, is heavily female.
And the participation of women in the
labor force will continue to rise.
In our families-with marriage taking
place at a later age, with fewer children,
and with both members of the family em-
ployed (about 60 percent of American
families today have two wage-earners)-
the notion of a "head" of household will
tend to diminish, and the stereotyped divi-
sion of sex roles in relation to the house-
hold will change.
Yet the post-industrial society is only
now emerging, and any picture of its im-
pacts necessarily has to be conjectural. Es-
pecially since many elements of that pic-
ture are increasingly outside our control.
In other words, our economy is becoming
 1976] DANIEL BELL 579

ever intermeshed in a world economy-
and subject to all the pressures of the
world society.
One of the features of an industrial so-
ciety was the existence of deep conflicts
between capitalists and workers, managers
and unions. In the United States, these di-
visions, brutal and bitter at times, were
finally eased by mechanisms of collective
bargaining.
A post-industrial society is, preemi-
nently, a high technology economy. But
the character of a high technology econ-
omy is to widen the gap, relatively speak-
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ing, between rich and poor nations. The
effect, in the phrase of Arnold Toynbee, is
the creation of an "external proletariat."
The grim fact, as we move into the end
of the 20th century and the beginning of
the 21st, is that the divisions within the
world-ofthe "south" versus the "north,"
or the Third World (and Fourth and Fifth)
against the Industrial First World (and
even the Communist Second)-will be-
come the central fact of world politics.
And that is an aspect of the post-indus-
trial society whose consequences are the
most difficult to foretell.

~ucational
FORUM