Societies

Christine Monnier

In this section, we answer Millss second question regarding the place of societies in history. We review the
different types of human societies in history and how their structures shape human behavior through the social
typology of societies established by Gerhard Lenski and Patrick Nolan (2004).

Hunting and Gathering Societies

For most of human history, our ancestors have lived in hunting and gathering societies. For about 5 million
years, this type of society was the dominant form of social organization. Only 10,000 to 12,000 years ago did
other types of societies start to appear. In other words, for 99.75% of hominid history, humans have been hunters
and gatherers.

There are still hunting and gathering societies today, but they are rapidly disappearing, displaced by more
complex societies. There are today only about 250,000 people living in such societies, that is, 0.001% of the
worlds population.

Hunting and gathering societies are still found among the Aborigines of Australia, the Bushmen of Southwestern
Africa, and the Pygmies of Central Africa.

One can find such societies also in the Amazonian rainforest region. But there too, there subsistence is
threatened by commercial interests involved in clearing the rainforest for a variety of business, be it tim ber trade
or land clearing for cattle raising.

Subsistence Technology
Obviously, the main mode of subsistence of these societies is through the hunting of games (or fishing, for
societies living near coastal or Arctic areas) and the gathering of naturally growing plants, fruits, and vegetables.
The subsistence technology is very rudimentary, consisting mostly of spears, bows and arrows, digging sticks
and small traps, all of those made of bone, wood and stones. Because hunting and gathering are the main
activities for members of these societies, they are almost completely dependent upon whatever game and plants
are already available in the environment for their survival.

Replacing Members and Caring for the Young

Hunting and gathering societies tend to be small, averaging between 25 and 60 members. A lifestyle based on
food extraction from the environment rather than food production cannot sustain a very large population.
These societies tend to be nomadic, that is, without permanent settlements. After a while, food extraction
depletes the resources available in the societys surrounding. Once an area has been relatively exploited, the
group then has to move to find new sources of subsistence.

Population size is also relatively small because the number of births usually matches the number of deaths and
fertility the number of children a woman has tends to be low for several reasons. Low levels of body fat,
prolonged nursing and nomadism through the increased risk of miscarriage decrease womens fertility. Social
and cultural considerations also play a part in low fertility. Abortion and infanticide tend to be widespread in
such societies: it would be difficult for a woman nursing a young child for several years to have another baby to

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care for, especially when a group is constantly on the move, carrying all their possessions. And for all the
members of the group, accidents and disease are common causes of death. As a result of all these factors,
population growth tends to be very low.

Another defining characteristic of hunting and gathering societies is the prevalence of the family and kinship
structure as the basic institution. Most institutional functions we identified earlier as basic individual and societal
needs are fulfilled by the family or kinship. In a hunting and gathering society, every individual has ties to the
other members of the group. The family structure of hunting and gathering societies can include both nuclear
parents and their unmarried children and extended families where other relatives, beyond just parents and
children, are included. Among the family structure relatively common in such societies are (a) limited polygyny,
where one husband has 2 or 3 wives, (b) exogamy, where one marries outside of ones group in order to foster
alliances with neighboring communities, (c) wife lending, as a means of settling conflicts between groups.

Teaching New Members

In hunting and gathering societies, there is no formal educational system. Children are raised into the way of life
of the group through informal training and observation of adults activities. Because resources are often scarce,
children are soon expected to contribute to the group within the limits of their abilities. Although children do not
go through formal education, their growing up is marked by rites of passage or initiations that usually mark their
transition to adulthood. This lack of formal education also correlates with valuing childrens independence and
self-reliance as more useful qualities for a nomadic and uncertain lifestyle.

Producing and Distributing Goods

Hunters and gatherers do not produce food. They collect what is already available in their surroundings and this
constitutes the major economic activity. There is therefore a limited division of labor and limited distribution of
statuses and roles. Division of labor is usually based on gender and age. In most hunting and gathering societies,
men hunt and women gather. This division of labor relates to prolonged nursing and differential levels of speed
and skills. Similarly, children and elders are expected to contribute to the group according to their abilities, for
instance, by gathering firewood.

Usually, most of the food that a group gets is based on gathering rather than hunting. However, the product of
the hunt is considered more prestigious than the product of gathering. As a result, although mostly egalitarian,
such societies do value mens work more than womens. It may be that meat is more valued because it is scarce,
harder and more dangerous to obtain and requiring more skills than plant gathering. Good hunting skills are
therefore a source of prestige. Apart from these simple aspects of division of labor, there is limited structured
inequality in hunting and gathering societies.

The major mode of food distribution is sharing. Different members of the groups and different families
commonly share what they are able to gather and especially what they hunt. Because meat is rare, it is expected
that lucky hunters of the day share their kill. This emphasis of sharing as widespread norm benefits the group
as a whole: if a man kills game one day and shares it, then, he can expect to receive meat from other men on the
days when he is not successful. This cooperation ensures the survival of the group as a whole. Such a value
placed on cooperation goes against the common sense idea that human beings are naturally competitive and
selfish. The most basic human economic system was based on cooperation and sharing.

This characteristic is also related to the fact that there is no opportunity to accumulate wealth: whatever is killed
or gathered is disposable, so, food surplus cannot be created. And because the group is nomadic and members
have to carry their possessions from place to place, there is also little opportunity to accumulate private property.

Preserving Order and Cooperation within Society

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 Since hunting and gathering societies tend not to develop complex political systems. After all, there is little
wealth or power to distribute among the members. There are no formal rulers but sometimes, a skilled hunter
may accumulate prestige and become big man or great man. Such a title confers a few privileges but no
extensive power over other members. In such societies, collective decision making is made over group meeting
and by consensus. Similarly, social control is exercised informally, either through blood revenge, where the
victim punishes the offender, or banishment.

Maintaining a Sense of Purpose and Cooperation

Like all human societies, hunting and gathering communities have struggled with the need to explain the world
around them and events for which there are no easy answers: people do get sick and die, but what causes illness?
Why are there good hunting days and bad hunting days? Because these societies had limited amounts of
knowledge to rely on, they developed their own system of explanation. This resulted in the rise of a religious
form known as animism: the belief that spirits inhabit all natural elements, that they interfere with human affairs,
and that they can be manipulated to a certain extent by individuals with specific skills, called Shamans or
medicine men. This spiritual aspect of hunting and gathering life has been made famous by cave paintings
excavated in different parts of the world, as well as sculpture and other artistic forms.

Horticultural and Pastoral Societies

The period between 12,000 and 7,000 years ago marks the end of the hunting and gathering era and the
emergence of the era of horticultural and pastoral societies. Although this shift is referred to as the first social
revolution, it was actually gradual and unfolded over thousands of years. However, the changes were so deep in
the major areas of social life that this shift truly was revolutionary.

According to Lenski and Nolan, research now shows that hunters and gatherers did not simply decide one day to
abandon their traditional lifestyle to become horticulturalists and pastoralists. Hunting and gathering societies
had belief systems and structures that made them resistant to change. A more likely explanation is that they were
compelled to do so for several reasons: (a) population growth, (b) environmental change, and (c) change in
technology. As population grows, more food is needed to sustain the group. Consequently, hunting and gathering
societies became more efficient in weapon technology which resulted in the accelerating extermination of game.
At the same period, the global warming that marked the end of the last ice age provoked a rise in ocean levels
and a corresponding shrinking in available land.

Those societies that lived in dry and mountainous areas with low rainfall turned to pastoralism, the
domestication of herd of animals for food. Those that lived in areas with more rainfall turned to horticulturalism,
that is, the cultivation of gardens for food using hand tools, such as hoes. Pastoral societies remained nomadic
whereas horticultural societies established permanent settlements.

A good example of a contemporary horticultural and pastoral society are the Masai people, who live mostly in
Kenya. Below is a video the author shot. The Masai live without electricity. In order to cook and heat, they need
fire and this is how they get it, the old-fashioned way.

Subsistence Technology
Horticulturalism involves slash and burn cultivation. When groups settled in an area, they would clear the land
by burning the existing vegetation using the resulting ash as fertilizer. Once the nutrients in the ash are consumed
and the land loses its fertility, it would be abandoned to wild vegetation and people would establish a new

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garden. The major tools for this are the hoe and the digging stick. The first region to adopt this mode of
subsistence was a Middle Eastern area called the Fertile Crescent, an area spreading from Jordan to Iraq.

Pastoral societies are also called herding societies. They rely on the domestication of animals present in the
environment for food. These societies tend to remain nomadic to find grazing land for their herds. The major
pastoral societies are still found in the Sahara desert, among the Tuareg people.

Replacing Member and Caring for the Young

The switch from a hunting and gathering lifestyle to a horticultural or pastoral economy had far-reaching
consequences. Human societies were no longer dependent upon whatever food sources were available in the
environment. Human beings, from now on, were producing it with greater efficiency. The result was the
production of a food surplus. The first consequence of the availability of a food surplus is the increase in
population size. Horticultural societies support hundreds of people. As people enjoy greater food security,
fertility increases and mortality in general and infant mortality in particular decrease. Consequently, population
grows. Additionally, living in permanent settlements means that women do not have to wait for a child to be
autonomous before having another one. And as life expectancy increases, so does a womans average number of
reproductive years.

Teaching New Members

In horticultural and pastoral societies, the family and kinship group remain central but they tend to be more
complex than in hunting and gathering societies. Because of the population growth, extended family networks
grow larger and constitute clans. Kinship still fulfills most of the basic social and human needs. The concept of
kin is also extended to include dead ancestors who come to take the place of spirits as supernatural forces
intervening in the affairs of the living.

Producing and Distributing Goods

As the food supply becomes more secure, the economic structure is radically transformed since not everyone
needs to be involved in this activity. This allows individuals to get involved in economic activities not related to
food production, such as crafts, jewelry, pottery, weaving, and religious functions. As food production increases,
so does specialization.

In horticultural societies, women are largely responsible for food production. Men are usually in charge of
clearing the land but women do the planting and harvesting. As a result, men have more time to be involved in
non-food related activities.

There are also economic consequences to living in permanent settlements: it becomes possible for people to
accumulate material possessions, small, such as decorative items, or large, such as pottery. This flourishing of
material objects also results in the development of trade and private property to be defended against potential
theft.

Finally, this increase in material goods and food production generates greater inequalities. Some families will
get better crops than others, and therefore greater wealth which leads to greater power and prestige. This
accumulated wealth can be passed onto the next generations, contributing to a reproduction of inequalities. With
this comes the practice of marriage for economic interest: because women contribute so greatly to food
production, they are a valuable asset that can be exchanged into marriage for a bride price goods that the
grooms family has to provide to the brides family in exchange for their daughter thereby creating ties
between the families.

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Preserving Order and Cooperation within Society
Political governance remains simple. Power is usually exercised by clan leaders whose influence is based greater
wealth. A significant difference between hunting and gathering societies and horticultural and pastoral societies
is the more extensive presence of warfare in the latter. It seems that warfare, waged by men released from food
production activities, becomes a substitute for hunting but it also serves other functions.

Warfare serves as population control through direct loss of life as well as female infanticide. Clans may practice
infanticide on their own girls in order to be able to devote more resources to raising boys to become warriors.
Warfare also serves to acquire more land for a clan thereby increasing that clans power and prestige. This is
accompanied by the added benefit of using captives as slaves to work the land. Slavery tends to be widespread in
horticultural and pastoral societies.

Maintaining a Sense of Purpose and Cooperation

As was the case for hunting and gathering societies, purpose and cooperation are promoted through religion and
spirituality. However, horticultural and pastoral societies give rise to specific types of religion. Horticultural
societies believe in ancestor worship dead relatives that still exercise influence over their descendents affairs.
This may be due to the fact that, in permanent settlements, the dead are buried nearby and therefore remembered
more strongly by their relatives.

Pastoral societies developed beliefs systems based on gods or God conceived as a shepherd guiding his flock; in
either cases, the divinity also takes an active part in the life of believers. The major monotheistic religions,
Judaism, Christianity and Islam were all religions of pastoral societies.

Agricultural Societies
5000 years ago started a very fertile period of innovation in human history. The large number of innovation
again radically changed most aspects of human life and societies throughout the world.

Subsistence Technology
The innovation in subsistence technology with the greatest impact on the organization of societies was the plow.
Unlike the hoe or the digging stick, the plow is able to control the growth of weeds and to maintain and renew
the fertility of the soil. Settlements become permanent since soil nutrients do not get depleted, as they would in a
horticultural system. The use of the plow also made cultivation possible on different types of soil. And with the
harnessing of animal power, cultivation became possible on much larger areas, thereby producing agriculture,
that is, the cultivation of fields (as opposed to gardens). Using oxen or cattle to pull the plow allowed for greater
food surplus. The discovery of irrigation techniques also contributed to greater productivity by making it possible
to extract several crops during the year.

The production of a food surplus had far-reaching consequences for the rest of society and triggered further
innovation beyond food production. For instance, the invention of the wheel that could be attached to wagons
improved transportation technology so that it became easier to get the food surplus to urban areas. The invention
of writing and number allowed careful record keeping of harvest quantities. The discovery and mastery of
various metals gave birth to money which replaced the bartering system in favor of monetary trade.

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 And as the food surplus increased greatly, societies became larger, even more complex and differentiated.
Agrarian societies were the societies of the great Empires (such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Greece, and
Rome) whose architectural and cultural accomplishments we still admire today.

For instance, the map on the left (source) shows the Roman Empire at the peak of its expansion. Romans
controlled significant parts of Europe, almost all of North Africa and the Western part of Asia.

Maintaining this Empire required not only military forces but a state bureaucracy to ensure compliance with
Roman rule. It also required a legal code that defined the rights of citizens and non-citizens living under Roman
rule.

Replacing Member and Caring for the Young

The most direct result of great food productivity is the dramatic increase in population size, increase in numbers
of communities as well as the development of urban centers which became the first identifiable large cities
unified under a single political authority or ruler. Such empires had populations numbering in millions.

Because of the dominance of agriculture and the greater availability of food, both urban and rural families had
an interest in large family size, especially families with sons. Children became valued because they were a source
of cheap labor, as well as old age insurance (especially for peasants living in poverty). Religious values came to
regard large numbers of children as a sign of Gods favor. All these reasons for favoring large families are still
present today in traditional societies in Africa.

However, if agrarian societies numbered in millions, it is also an effect of territorial expansion, and not simply
because of high fertility because mortality was also extremely high, and infant mortality especially so. In years of
bad crops, for instance, infanticide and abandonment were common. Also, those very large cities had no
sanitation systems proper. As a result, epidemics the Black Plague being an extreme case were commonplace
and life expectancy short.

Teaching New Members

In agrarian societies, the vast majority of the population is still composed of peasants, children work alongside
adults in gender-differentiated tasks. Men and boys are generally in charge of plowing and care of the animals
whereas women and girls are in charge of weeding and seeds, as well as domestic chores. In urban areas, because
of the greater specialization, some formal training in different crafts, in the form of apprenticeships, becomes
widespread.

Producing and Distributing Goods

With a greater food surplus, agrarian reached levels of economic complexity, social differentiation and
specialization, and inequality never achieved before. One of the most important innovations is the emerging use
of standardized means of exchange that paved the way for metal currencies. The rising use of money stimulates
trade and comes to replace the traditional bartering system. In a bartering system, if your neighbor has something
you need, you try to find something he needs and you make a fair exchange or roughly equivalent value. If your
neighbor has nothing you need, you simply dont engage in bartering with him. The use of money greatly
expands trade because now, you and your neighbor do not need to have something that other wants in order to do
business. Money can be exchanged. In addition, the notion of fair exchange is replaced with the notion of profit.

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 Now that more people can be involved in non-food producing activities, the amount of goods and services
available for purchase increases dramatically, along with a new class of people whose task it is to acquire good
not for their own use but to sell to others: the merchant class.

Such merchants, in turn, rely on another class to actually manufacture the goods they intend to sell: artisans.
Artisans are specialized craftsmen who sell their products to merchants who then put them on the market.
Artisans themselves then need skilled and unskilled laborers for the different tasks involved in manufacturing
goods.

In the rural areas, a feudal system develops. Feudalism is an agrarian system where a small minority of the
population own most of the land and landless peasants have to work the land in exchange for a small share of the
harvest. This landowning agrarian elite also employs a sizable number of domestic servants and a new class of
professional entertainers (gladiators, for instance).

Dramatic inequalities exist between the rulers and the elite on the one hand, and the large masses of peasants at
the bottom of the social ladder. However, agrarian societies are also more complex and a wide range of new
classes are created to fulfill different economic functions between these extremes of wealth and poverty.

Agrarian societies also mark the degradation of the status of women. Since men are now in charge of plowing
and animals, that is, the tasks that are central to food production, womens tasks take secondary status. In all the
different classes, women become means of forging alliances between families and kinship networks as wealth is
passed from fathers to sons.

Preserving Order and Cooperation within Society

Politically, the agrarian era marks the beginning of a structured organization managing collective affairs: the
state. When territories and population become so large and diverse as a result of conquests, the need emerges for
some degree of political integration under a single political authority. The emergence of a governing class marks
the relative decline of kinship ties. Indeed, most agrarian societies are ruled by hereditary kings or emperors
whose titles are passed to their heirs.

Large-scale conquest and warfare cannot rely on private militia. Agrarian rulers create professional armies,
thereby creating a military class in society. These armies are used both against foreign and internal threats.

Once a territory has been expanded or conquered, its administration is turned over to bureaucrats to manage civil
affairs, such as payment of taxation and tribute to the ruler, as well as administration of justice. Indeed, agrarian
societies give rise to the first formal codes of law and the corresponding legal occupations.

The major political characteristic of agrarian societies is what Lenski and Nolan (2004) call the proprietary
theory of the state: rulers of agrarian societies do not manage their empire for the common good or in the name
of the public interest, but as a piece of property they own and can do with as they please.

Maintaining a Sense of Purpose and Cooperation

If agrarian societies are so unequal and exploitative for the vast majority of the population, why do people put up
with this state of affairs? Why do peasants turn most of the food surplus they produce over to indifferent and
contemptuous elite? They do so because these societies also provide a moral system of justification of the gross
inequalities anchored in religious ideology. Most rulers are religiously defined as ruling by divine right such
as the European monarchies or as gods themselves such as the Egyptian Pharaohs. Their wealth, power and
privileges are therefore part of a divine design and ordering of the world. Any challenge to the organization of
societies, especially its unequal class structure, is a challenge to God or the gods.
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 Such an ideology is actively promoted by a rising clergy and priestly class that rely on the generosity of rulers.
In agrarian societies, religion becomes a powerful and universal force. Gods are no longer local deities or
ancestors but omnipotent entities that control what goes on in the whole world and regulate human moral
conduct, as in Christianity and Islam. The priestly class also contributes to the exploitation of the peasant class
by requiring tributes, constructions of temples, and labor in order to properly serve God.

Industrial Societies
The three different types of societies we have examined so far are referred to as preindustrial societies. In all of
them, the main source of energy was human or animal muscle which inherently placed limits on productivity. It
is the discovery and use of alternate sources of energy that would spark the next social revolution: the Industrial
Revolution. With industrial societies, we see the emergence of societies we, in the West, are familiar with.
Indeed, most of our contemporary lifestyle has its roots in technological and societal innovations brought about
by industrialization.

The essence of industrial society was powerfully captured by Charlie Chaplin, in his movie, Modern Times:

Subsistence Technology
It is indeed the harnessing of new energy sources that marked the next leap in subsistence technology that is at
the heart of the Industrial Revolution. This Revolution started in Great Britain around the 1750s with the use of
the steam engine and fuel to power industrial machinery. When applied to subsistence production, fuel-powered
machinery transformed agrarian production into agribusiness: farming becomes less the business of slam to
medium family farms and more the business of very large agricultural companies that need a very small
workforce.

At the same time, emerging industries such as steel, automobile, and textile, have increased needs for an
abundant workforce driven by a more complex division of labor in the productive economy. The illustration
below (source) represents scientific management or Taylorism. Rather than one skilled individual completing all
the steps of the production process, the engineer Frederick Taylor conducted time-motion studies in which he
timed how long each step took, then assigned each simple step to an individual worker. Since the steps are
simple, they do not require specific skills (see the Modern Times clip above) and can be reproduced many times
over per hour, leading to higher production:

As a result, industrialization involves a massive transfer of population from the rural areas to the cities. And
because agriculture becomes a form of industrial production, it is possible for a very small agricultural workforce
to support and predominantly urban and industrial societies.

Replacing Members and Caring for the Young

If urban living conditions for the working class were initially appalling with high death rates due to infectious
disease, the increase in scientific, biological and medical knowledge progressively extended longevity. As death
rates gradually declined and birth rates remained high, a population explosion resulted. However, throughout the
20th century, thanks to more reliable methods of contraception, birthrates started to drop. Additionally, for urban
families, there were fewer incentives to have large families as women started to work outside the home and as
child labor became illegal.

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Although still a main function of the family, caring for the young became the business of other social institutions
as well: the government would progressively oversee the wellbeing of children; the educational system would
take care of formal schooling. This contributed to an undermining of the traditional authority of the family.

Teaching New Members

An industrial economy needs an educated workforce. Progressively, all industrial nations institute formal
systems of schooling, elementary, secondary, and universities. By the beginning of the 20th century, most
industrial countries have some form of compulsory education. The educational system therefore becomes a major
social institution at the expense of the family.

Producing and Distributing Goods

Industrial economies are distinct from previous economic systems in several other characteristics:

Economic production shifts from labor-intensive production that uses a lot of labor power, workers or
animals to capital-intensive production that needs a lot of initial investment in machinery and
technology.
The family shifts from a unit of economic production to a unit of economic consumption.
In order to improve their standard of living, workers start organizing labor unions to defend their
collective rights.

The most dramatic change in the economic structure is the rise of an economic system never seen before:
capitalism. Hunting and gathering societies system of production was a subsistence economy, where self-
sufficiency was the goal. Agrarian societies system of production was a command economy where the ruling
elite made the economic choices and enjoyed the wealth generated by the economic surplus. Industrial societies
system of production is private, and based on a market economy where producers are free to exchange their
goods and services and prices are set by supply and demand.

However, it is important to note that industrialized countries never had a truly market economy. By the end of
the 19th century, most industrialized nations had put in place welfare systems and ways of redistributing wealth
in a less unequal fashion and to alleviate some of the harshest effects of capitalism on the working class. Social
inequality does remain a problem along gender and racial lines with the persistence of wage gaps.

Preserving Order and Cooperation within Society

On the political front, industrialization brought about two major changes: democracy and the nation-state. As
industrialization makes farming a less profitable activity and land a less valuable asset, traditional elite lose both
economic and political power. Industrialists and merchants become the major beneficiaries of the new system.
This new elite reject hereditary and monarchical power. As a result, in most European countries, the 19th century
is the century of revolutions where monarchies get overthrown and replaced with democratic regimes and
political rulers are ideally supposed to exercise power on behalf of and for the benefit of society as a whole.

Of course, early democracies were democracies in name only since significant categories of people first, poor
men, then women and people of color were excluded from basic political rights. On most western European
countries, full democratic participation is only achieved after World War II, and in the United States, one would
have to wait for the Civil Rights in the 1960s for African Americans to enjoy full citizenship rights. The very
concept of citizen is born of industrialization and this democratic trend. In the agrarian era, common people
were subjects. The concept of citizen implies membership in a nation-state that guarantees certain rights
(political, civil and social) and imposes certain duties (such as respect for the law, taxation, and possible draft).

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 According to Lenski and Nolan, the rise of these two political changes were brought about by industrialization
but also by other causes as well:

Protestant rejection of the Churchs authority and hierarchy;

Increase in literacy and standard of living which renders people more politically active and demanding;
Urbanization also makes people more politically sophisticated, as opposed to rural areas where people
tend to lack such sophistication and tend to follow traditional authorities;
The rise of the mass media (initially, in the form of cheap daily newspapers) which increased the general
level of political awareness. Of course, the rise of the mass media also produced the first media mogul
who could control how much and what kind of information people were exposed to, as brilliantly
illustrated by Orson Welles movie Citizen Kane. (See video below)

Industrialization also means the growth of government alongside the growth of corporations. Industrial societies
are territorially large and comprise tens of millions of people. There are therefore the social and economic that
only a government can take care of such as sanitation, roadways, transportation infrastructure, and education.

Maintaining a Sense of Purpose and Cooperation

According to Lenski and Nolan, industrialization also gave rise to new ideologies that influenced society.
Although religion remains a strong institution, several new secular ideologies emerge that challenge religious and
supernatural worldviews:

Republicanism the rejection of the hereditary character of monarchies and of the proprietary view of
the state;

Capitalism the promotion of market economy as outlines by Adam Smiths An Inquiry into the Nature
and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776;

Socialism in its democratic form, it promotes the reform of the economic system toward more equality;
in its revolutionary form, promoted by Karl Marx, it promotes the overthrow of the capitalist system;

Nationalism a view that shifts sources of loyalty and identity from the clan or the tribe to the larger
nation; it is also referred to as patriotism;

Pragmatism a philosophical view that is non-political and just prescribes that we do what works and
reject what does not;

Hedonism a view that emphasizes the pursuit of pleasure.

What is distinctive about all these secular ideologies is that they all assume that human beings (not God, or gods,
or ancestors, or spirits) are in control of individual and collective destinies. As a result, modern and industrial
societies are more receptive and even encouraging of rejecting of traditions, change and innovation through the
application of scientific knowledge and use of technology.

Post-Industrial Societies
According to sociologist Daniel Bell (1973), postindustrial or information societies have emerged in the past
three decades in the United States, Western Europe and Japan and represent the latest social revolution. Since

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postindustrial societies are still developing, it is hard to describe them along the same lines we have reviewed the
previous societal type.

However, we can outline the basic structure of such societies. Economic production is no longer based on
industrialism and the mass production of manufactured goods. Rather postindustrial societies are based on the
production, storage, and use of information which is why the post-industrial economy is often also called the
Information Age, humorously and midly criticized in the comics below (source):

This decline in industrial economy is accompanied by the rise of a service economy, such as banking and
financial services, law, education, and health care. In a service economy, people sell their knowledge and
expertise to others. Because postindustrial societies and their occupational structure are based on knowledge,
education, especially higher education, maintains a key institutional role.

Computer technology becomes an essential component of practically every aspect of peoples lives and the
social structure as a whole.

Communication technologies, such as the World Wide Web, emails as well as satellite communications, have
expanded dramatically, connecting people throughout the world. Just as the Industrial Revolution gave rise to the
nation-state, such technologies gave birth to the Global Village.

Of course, other forms of production (agriculture and manufacturing) do not disappear but we now witness a
global division of labor where different regions of the world engage in different forms of production (fruits from
the Caribbean area, electronic manufacturing from Southeast Asia, high tech software from Silicon Valley).

Politically, we witness the decline of the nation-state and the rise of global institutions, such as the United
Nations, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, and of a global civil society through multiple Non-
governmental organizations such as Amnesty International or Greenpeace.

This brief overview of societies has been humorously summarized in the cartoon below (source):

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