Post-Industrial Society

The concept of Post-Industrial society was first formulated in 1962 by D. Bell, and subsequently elaborated in his seminal work 'Coming of Post Industrial Society' (1974) It describes the economic and social changes in the late twentieth century. According to Bell in modern societies theoretical knowledge forms the 'axial principle of society and is the source of innovation and policy formulation. In economy this is reflected in the decline of goods production and manufacturing as the main form of economic activity, to be replaced by services. With regard to the class structure, the new axial principle fosters the supremacy of professional and technical occupations which constitute a new class, in all spheres economic, political and social decision making is influenced by new intellectual technologies and the new intellectual class. Other writers have also commented on the growing power of technocrats in economic and political life. G.K. Galbraith ( 1967) believes that power in the United states economy and therefore in American society as a whole lies in the hands of a technical bureaucracy of the techno-structure of large corporations, A Jouraine (1969) suggests similar technocratic control of French economic and political life.