Insociology, anindustrial society is a society driven by the use oftechnology andmachinery to enablemass production, supporting alarge population with a high capacity fordivision of labour. Such a structure developed in theWestern world in the period of time following theIndustrial Revolution, and replaced theagrarian societies of thepre-modern,pre-industrial age. Industrial societies are generallymass societies, and may be succeeded by aninformation society. They are often contrasted withtraditional societies.[1]
Industrial societies use external energy sources, such asfossil fuels, to increase the rate and scale of production.[2] The production of food is shifted to large commercial farms where the products of industry, such ascombine harvesters and fossil fuel–basedfertilizers, are used to decrease required human labor while increasing production. No longer needed for the production of food, excess labor is moved into thesefactories wheremechanization is utilized to further increase efficiency. As populations grow, andmechanization is further refined, often to the level ofautomation, many workers shift to expandingservice industries.
Industrial society makesurbanization desirable, in part so that workers can be closer to centers of production, and theservice industry can provide labor to workers and those that benefit financially from them, in exchange for a piece of production profits with which they can buy goods. This leads to the rise of very large cities and surroundingsuburb areas with a high rate ofeconomic activity.
Theseurban centers require the input of external energy sources in order to overcome thediminishing returns[3] of agricultural consolidation, due partially to the lack of nearbyarable land, associated transportation and storage costs, and are otherwise unsustainable.[4] This makes the reliable availability of the needed energy resources high priority in industrial government policies.
Prior to theIndustrial Revolution in Europe and North America, followed by furtherindustrialization throughout the world in the 20th century, most economies were largely agrarian. Basics were often made within the household and most other manufacturing was carried out in smallerworkshops byartisans with limited specialization or machinery.[5]
In Europe during the late Middle Ages, artisans in many towns formedguilds to self-regulate their trades and collectively pursue their business interests. Economic historianSheilagh Ogilvie has suggested the guilds further restrained the quality and productivity of manufacturing.[6] There is some evidence, however, that even in ancient times, large economies such as theRoman Empire or ChineseHan dynasty had developedfactories for more centralized production in certain industries.[7]
With the Industrial Revolution, the manufacturing sector became a major part of European and North American economies, both in terms of labor and production, contributing possibly a third of all economic activity. Along with rapid advances in technology, such assteam power and masssteel production, the new manufacturing drastically reconfigured previouslymercantile andfeudal economies. Even today, industrial manufacturing is significant to many developed and semi-developed economies.
Historically certain manufacturing industries have gone into a decline due to various economic factors, including the development of replacement technology or the loss of competitive advantage. An example of the former is the decline incarriage manufacturing when theautomobile was mass-produced.
A recent trend has been the migration of prosperous, industrialized nations towards apost-industrial society. This has come with a major shift in labor and production away from manufacturing and towards theservice sector, a process dubbedtertiarization.[8][9] Additionally, since the late 20th century, rapid changes in communication and information technology (sometimes called aninformation revolution) have allowed sections of some economies to specialize in aquaternary sector of knowledge and information-based services. For these and other reasons, in a post-industrial society, manufacturers can and often do relocate their industrial operations to lower-cost regions in a process known asoff-shoring.
Measurements of manufacturing industries outputs and economic effect are not historically stable. Traditionally, success has been[by whom?] measured in the number of jobs created[dubious –discuss]. The reduced number of employees in the manufacturing sector has been assumed to result from a decline in the competitiveness of the sector, or the introduction of thelean manufacturing process.
Related to this change is the upgrading of thequality of the product being manufactured. While it is possible to produce a low-technology product with low-skill labour, the ability to manufacture high-technology products well is dependent on a highly skilled staff.
Today, as industry is an important part of most societies and nations, many governments will have at least some role in planning and regulating industry. This can include issues such asindustrial pollution,financing,vocational education, andlabour law.
 | This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(February 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
In an industrial society, industry employs a major part of the population. This occurs typically in the manufacturing sector. A labour union is an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas such as wages, hours, and other working conditions.[10] The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of other union members and negotiates labour contracts with employers.[11] Thismovement first rose among industrial workers.
Ancient Mediterranean cultures relied onslavery throughout their economy. Whileserfdom largely supplanted the practice in Europe during the Middle Ages, several European powers reintroduced slavery extensively in theearly modern period, particularly for the harshest labor in theircolonies. The Industrial revolution played a central role in the laterabolition of slavery, partly because domestic manufacturing's new economic dominance undercut interests in theslave trade.[12]Additionally, the new industrial methods required a complexdivision of labor with less worker supervision, which may have been incompatible with forced labor.[13]
The Industrial Revolution changed warfare, withmass-produced weaponry and supplies, machine-powered transportation,mobilization, thetotal war concept andweapons of mass destruction. Early instances ofindustrial warfare were theCrimean War and theAmerican Civil War, but its full potential showed during theworld wars. See alsomilitary-industrial complex,arms industries,military industry andmodern warfare.
“Industrial society” took on a more specific meaning after World War II in the context of theCold War, the internationalization of sociology through organizations likeUNESCO, and the spread of Americanindustrial relations to Europe. The cementation of theSoviet Union’s position as a world power inspired reflection on whether the sociological association of highly-developed industrial economies withcapitalism required updating. The transformation of capitalist societies in Europe and the United States to state-managed, regulated welfare capitalism, often with significant sectors ofnationalized industry, also contributed to the impression that they might be evolving beyond capitalism, or toward some sort of “convergence” common to all “types” of industrial societies, whether capitalist or communist.[14] State management,automation,bureaucracy, institutionalizedcollective bargaining, and the rise of thetertiary sector were taken as common markers of industrial society.
The “industrial society” paradigm of the 1950s and 1960s was strongly marked by the unprecedented economic growth in Europe and the United States after World War II, and drew heavily on the work of economists likeColin Clark,John Kenneth Galbraith,W.W. Rostow, andJean Fourastié.[15] The fusion of sociology withdevelopment economics gave the industrial society paradigm strong resemblances tomodernization theory, which achieved major influence in social science in the context of postwardecolonization and thedevelopment ofpost-colonial states.[16]
The French sociologistRaymond Aron, who gave the most developed definition to the concept of “industrial society” in the 1950s, used the term as a comparative method to identify common features of the Western capitalist and Soviet-style communist societies.[17] Other sociologists, includingDaniel Bell,Reinhard Bendix,Ralf Dahrendorf,Georges Friedmann,Seymour Martin Lipset, andAlain Touraine, used similar ideas in their own work, though with sometimes very different definitions and emphases. The principal notions of industrial-society theory were also commonly expressed in the ideas ofreformists in Europeansocial-democratic parties who advocated a turn away fromMarxism and an end torevolutionary politics.[18]
Because of its association with non-Marxist modernization theory and Americananticommunist organizations like theCongress for Cultural Freedom,[19] “industrial society” theory was often criticized by left-wing sociologists and Communists as aliberal ideology that aimed to justify the postwar status quo and undermine opposition to capitalism.[20] However, some left-wing thinkers likeAndré Gorz, Serge Mallet,Herbert Marcuse, and theFrankfurt School used aspects of industrial society theory in their critiques of capitalism.
Before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, [...] [m]ost manufacturing was done in homes or small, rural shops, using hand tools or simple machines.
The empirical findings cast doubt on views that guilds existed because they were efficient institutional solutions to market failures relating to product quality, training, and innovation.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)'Tertiarization', the quantitative shift of economic relevance from agricultural and especially industrial production [...].
Tertiarization refers to the dominance of so-called third- or tertiary-sector production in the economy.
As the Industrial Revolution proceeded, the main focus of economic attention shifted to the new industries created by Britain's technological prominence. These industries looked not for protection but for an opening of export markets. As the political economy shifted, the West Indian interest became vulnerable to their opponents. The slave trade was abolished in 1807 and slavery eventually abolished in 1833.
Some argue that slavery died out due to the rise of industrial production modes, involving a larger number of work tasks, thus making slavery more costly in terms of supervision.
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)