Industrial society - features of the bygone modernity

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:45

Industrial society - the features of its contour line were outlined in the first half of the 19th century. It is a society in which industrial production plays a key role in the economy. Compared to the traditional ones, where agriculture played the main violin in the economic orchestra, the industrial society is distinguished by a special technological structure, a new philosophy of law and a social structure. From a sociological and political point of view, it would be more correct to speak of the formation of modern bourgeois states and European democracies of the classical type in it.

Three questions for the old industry

A characteristic feature of an industrial society is a new type of organization of the social system, in which the status of professional activity is given to politics, public administration andentrepreneurship. At the same time, all three components are intertwined into one rattling ball when solving three fundamental tasks: how to effectively manage natural and labor resources; where to find resources for extensive development; should social relations in society be modernized while modernizing technological resources? Thus, an industrial society from a feudal clan system turns into a bureaucratic system, where the issue of management becomes more significant than the problem of maintaining and further increasing property.

Features of an industrial society

1. The production system as a basic element of the economy. Elements of production are also manifested in the humanitarian spheres - culture, science, art, education. Agriculture acquires the status of a second industry, transforming into a technologically advanced and knowledge-intensive sector of the economy.
2. Social restructuring of society. The share of agriculture is reduced to 10-15% of GDP. The share of industry increases to 50-60%, wage labor becomes the main form of employment. A new industrial society is emerging. Features of the new sociality: professional specialization, urban population growth, territorial stratification (poor neighborhoods, middle-class space, rich and aristocratic areas), resettlement of villagers to the city.
3. Legal restructuring of society. Industrial society - features of the new: the creation of constitutional systems, universalsuffrage, the transition to parliamentarism (in most countries), the formation of modern party systems that reflect the ideology of the opposing social, the incorporation of personal and group interests into mass ideological movements.
4. Cultural and educational revolution. Culture becomes mass and urban, in this sense - bourgeois, and not popular, rural. The center of social development and mass communications is a city that dictates its rights to rural areas. Universal secondary education and the growth of capitalization of labor, including through scientific and technical specialization.

Conclusions

As a result, the industrial society, the features of which finally manifested themselves in the 30s of the last century, found itself at a crossroads. On the one hand, the capitalization of social relations made it possible to include additional resources for labor mobilization. For the dominant political groups, this meant strengthening their political status as a "provider" of industrial development. On the other hand, despite the obvious liberalization of political systems, the bulk of the citizens were artificially removed from the production of politics - a professional but elite occupation. The solution to this problem was hidden in the introduction of the principle of universal equality before the law. But this was done after World War II.