What is an industrial society? Often we come across a similar concept. And not only in scientific rhetoric, but also in everyday communication. To fully understand what an industrial society is, we need to turn to sociology and political science. Indeed, it was in the midst of these sciences that this concept first appeared and later found its completed forms and shades.
So what is an industrial society?
According to classical and modern sociologists, it arose with the industrial revolution of the New Age and replaced the feudal society with its subsistence economy and vassal relations. The term itself was introduced into scientific circulation at the beginning of the XIX century by the Frenchman K. A. Saint-Simon. For him, it was embodied to a large extent in the development of industry and technocracy. A significant contribution to the development of the question of what an industrial society is, the evolution of this concept was also made by the classic Western sociologists Auguste Comte, Emil Durkheim and others. It was usually described by a number of characteristic features in all spheres of human life.
Economy
Thus, the economies of such societies are characterized by an industrialized mechanized mode of production; the dominance of large monopolies (both private and state); intensive development of financial capital; increased efficiency of all social production. Thanks to the development of production forces and means of communication, a truly global global market is finally being formed, social production is divided into three sectors (agricultural, industrial, services), and crises of overproduction periodically arise.
Social traits
A distinctive transitional feature from the economy to social life is the stratification of society and the emergence of the classes of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Actually, it is precisely the struggle of these classes that determines in many respects the values of industrial society and the ways of its development.
Politic system
In this regard, industrial societies are characterized by the non-viability of archaic forms like monarchies. With the growth of productive forces and industrial potential, as well as the emergence of the working and bourgeois classes, civic values were formed. In place of yesterday's empires, nation-states were formed. However, the industrial society of the 20th century demonstrated that it could well exist far beyond the conditions of capitalism and developed democratic institutions. Since industrial societies that existed in totalitarian socialist and fascist states can rightfully be called industrial.
Cultural sphere
In this regard, industrial society is characterized by large-scale rationalization of minds, a significant decrease in the authority of the church and other religious institutions, the development of natural sciences, the formation of mass education, the emergence and formation of science, the media, and so on.
