Philosophy of science and technology: lecture notes Tonkonogov A V
12.3. "Post-industrial" and "information" society
The concept of post-industrial society was put forward by an American sociologist and political scientist Daniel Bell(b. 1919), professor at Harvard and Columbia Universities. In his book The Coming Post-Industrial Society, the size of the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was put as a criterion for classifying the state as such a society. Based on this criterion, a historical periodization of societies was also proposed: pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial. Bell considers "axiological determinism" (the theory of the nature of values) to be the ideological basis of such a classification. A pre-industrial society is characterized by a low level of development of production and a small amount of GDP. This category includes most of the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. European countries, USA, Japan, Canada and some others are at the stage of industrial development. The post-industrial stage begins in the 21st century.
According to Bell, this stage is mainly connected with computer technologies and telecommunications. It is based on four innovative technological processes. First, the transition from mechanical, electrical, electromechanical systems to electronic has led to an incredible an increase in the speed of information transfer. For example, the operational speed of a modern computer is measured in nanoseconds and even picoseconds. Secondly, this step is related to miniaturization, i.e. a significant change in magnitude, "compression" of structural elements that conduct electrical impulses. Thirdly, it is characterized digitalization, i.e. discrete transmission of information by means of digital codes. Finally, modern software allows you to quickly and simultaneously solve various problems without knowing any special language. Thus, post-industrial society is a new principle of the socio-technical organization of life. Bell singles out the main transformations that were carried out in American society, which entered the era of post-industrial development: a) new industries and specialties (analysis, planning, programming, etc.) were included in the service sector; b) the role of women in society has changed radically - thanks to the development of the service sector, women's equality has been institutionalized; c) there was a turn in the field of cognition - the purpose of knowledge was the acquisition of new knowledge, knowledge of the second type; d) computerization has expanded the concept of "workplace". Bell considers the main issue of transition to a post-industrial society to be the successful implementation of the following four equal factors: 1) economic activity; 2) equality of social and civil society; 3) ensuring reliable political control; 4) ensuring administrative control.
According to Bell, post-industrial society is characterized by level of development of services, their predominance over all other types of economic activity in the total volume of GDP and, accordingly, the number of people employed in this area (up to 90% of the working population). In this kind of society, the organization and processing of information and knowledge is especially important. These processes are based on the computer - the technical basis telecommunications revolution. According to Bell, this revolution is characterized by the following features:
1) the primacy of theoretical knowledge;
2) availability of intellectual technology;
3) growth in the number of knowledge carriers;
4) transition from the production of goods to the production of services;
5) changes in the nature of work;
6) changing the role of women in the labor system.
The concept of a post-industrial society was also discussed in the works of E. Toffler, J. K. Gilbraith, W. Rostow, R. Aron, Z. Brzezinski and others. In particular, for Alvin Toffler(b. 1928) post-industrial society means the entry of countries into third wave of its development. The first wave is an agrarian stage that lasted for about 10 thousand years. The second wave is associated with the industrial-factory form of organization of society, which led to a society of mass consumption, the massization of culture. The third wave is characterized by the overcoming of dehumanized forms of labor, the formation of a new type of labor and, accordingly, a new type of worker. Bonded labor, its monotony, and sweatshop character are a thing of the past. Labor becomes desirable, creatively active. The Third Wave worker is not an object of exploitation, an appendage of machinery; he is independent and inventive. The birthplace of the Third Wave is the USA, the time of birth is the 1950s.
In the era of post-industrial society, the concept of capitalism. The characterization of capital as an economic category that measures various forms of social reproduction is historically conditioned by the formation of an industrial-type society. In a post-industrial society, the economic forms of capital as a self-increasing value are revealed in a new way in information theory of cost: the cost of human activity and its results is determined not only and not so much by labor costs, but by embodied information, which becomes a source of added value. There is a rethinking of information and its role as a quantitative characteristic necessary for the analysis of socio-economic development. The information theory of value characterizes not only the amount of information embodied in the result of production activity, but also the level of development of information production as the basis for the development of society. Socio-economic structures of the information society are developed on the basis of science as a direct productive force. In this society, the “knowledgeable, understanding person” – “Homo intelligeens” becomes an actual agent. In this way, economic forms capital, as well as the closely related political capital, which played an important role before, are increasingly dependent on non-economic forms primarily from intellectual and cultural capital.
D. Bell names five main problems that are being solved in a post-industrial society:
1) the merger of telephone and computer communication systems;
2) replacement of paper by electronic means of communication, including in such areas as banking, postal, information services and remote copying of documents;
3) expansion of television service through cable systems; replacement of transport by telecommunications using video films and indoor television systems;
4) reorganization of information storage and systems of its request based on computers and interactive information network (Internet);
5) expansion of the education system based on computer learning; the use of satellite communications for the education of rural residents; use of videodiscs for home education.
In the process of informatization of society, Bell also sees a political aspect, considering information as a means of achieving power and freedom, which implies the need for state regulation of the information market, i.e. the growing role of state power and the possibility national planning. In the structure of national planning, he highlights the following options: a) coordination in the field of information (needs for labor, investment, premises, computer service, etc.); b) modeling (for example, following the model of V. Leontiev, L. Kantorovich); c) indicative planning (stimulate or slow down by the method of credit policy), etc.
Bell is optimistic about the prospect of world development on the path of transition from a “national society” to the formation of an “international society” in the form of an “organized international order”, “spatio-temporal integrity due to the globality of communications”. However, he notes that "... US hegemony in this area cannot but become the most acute political problem in the coming decades." As an example, Bell cites the problems of gaining access to computerized systems developed in advanced industrial societies with the prospect of creating a global network of databanks and services.
Daniel Bell called himself a socialist in economics, a liberal in politics and a conservative in culture, and was one of the prominent representatives of American neo-conservatism in politics and ideology.
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2. Globalization at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st centuries
3. International relations at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries
POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY
A post-industrial society is a society in whose economy, as a result of the scientific and technological revolution and a significant increase in the income of the population, the priority has shifted from the predominant production of goods to the production of services. Information and knowledge become a production resource. Scientific developments are becoming the main driving force of the economy. The most valuable qualities are the level of education, professionalism, learning ability and creativity of the employee.
As a rule, post-industrial countries are those in which the service sector accounts for significantly more than half of GDP. This criterion includes, in particular, the United States (services account for 80% of US GDP, 2002), EU countries (services - 69.4% of GDP, 2004), Australia (69% of GDP, 2003), Japan (67.7% of GDP, 2001), Canada (70% of GDP, 2004), Russia (58% of GDP, 2007). However, some economists point out that the share of services in Russia is overstated.
The relative predominance of the share of services over material production does not necessarily mean a decrease in output. It's just that these volumes in the post-industrial society increase more slowly than the volume of services rendered increases.
Services should be understood not only as trade, public utilities and consumer services: any infrastructure is created and maintained by society to provide services: the state, the army, law, finance, transport, communications, healthcare, education, science, culture, the Internet - these are all services. The service industry includes the production and sale of software. The buyer does not own all rights to the program. He uses its copy on certain conditions, that is, he receives a service.
Close to the post-industrial theory are the concepts of the information society, post-economic society, postmodern, "third wave", "society of the fourth formation", "scientific and informational stage of the production principle". Some futurologists believe that post-industrialism is only a prologue to the transition to the "post-human" phase of the development of earthly civilization.
The term "post-industrialism" was introduced into scientific circulation at the beginning of the 20th century by the scientist A. Kumaraswamy, who specialized in the pre-industrial development of Asian countries. In the modern sense, this term was first used in the late 1950s, and the concept of a post-industrial society received wide recognition as a result of the work of Harvard University professor Daniel Bell, in particular, after the publication of his book The Coming Post-Industrial Society in 1973.
The concept of post-industrial society is based on the division of all social development into three stages:
Agrarian (pre-industrial) - the agricultural sector was decisive, the main structures were the church, the army
Industrial - industry was the determining factor, the main structures were corporations, firms
Post-industrial - theoretical knowledge is decisive, the main structure is the university, as a place of their production and accumulation
Similarly, E. Toffler identifies three "waves" in the development of society:
agrarian in the transition to agriculture,
industrial during the industrial revolution
informational in the transition to a society based on knowledge (post-industrial).
D. Bell identifies three technological revolutions:
1.invention of the steam engine in the 18th century
2.scientific and technological advances in electricity and chemistry in the 19th century
3.creation of computers in the XX century
Bell argued that, just as the industrial revolution brought about the assembly line, which increased productivity and prepared the mass consumer society, so now there must be a mass production of information that ensures appropriate social development in all directions.
Post-industrial theory, in many ways, has been confirmed by practice. As predicted by its creators, the mass consumer society gave rise to a service economy, and within its framework, the information sector of the economy began to develop at the fastest pace.
Information revolution
Evidence of this is the rapidly developing process of informatization of society in recent decades, which today covers many countries of the world and is increasingly taking on the character of a global information revolution[i]. And as a result, there is a process of transition from the "material" to the information society - a society based on the production, distribution and consumption of information. This is a new qualitative step in the development of mankind. The information revolution is equal in its significance to the transition from the era of gathering the fruits of the earth and hunting to the era of the production of material goods of life. Before our eyes, the material component in the structure of life's blessings gives way to the primacy of the information. Moreover, we are talking not only and not so much about technological information necessary for modern material production, but along with technological and economic information, spiritual and creative information is highlighted.
It is known that information revolutions in the history of mankind have occurred before. The first was the invention of writing five or six thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, then - independently, but several thousand years later - in China, and another 1,500 years later - the Maya in Central America. The second information revolution occurred as a result of the invention of the manuscript book, first in China, probably around 1300 BC, and then, independently and 800 years later, in Greece, when the Athenian tyrant Pesistratus ordered that Homer's poems be written into a book, until that were passed down orally. The third information revolution occurred after Gutenberg's invention of the printing press and typesetting between 1450 and 1455, and the invention of engraving around the same time.
However, the one we are seeing today is fundamentally new both in its content and in the consequences that it causes in almost all spheres of society. The post-industrial stage of the development of society is identified with the concept of "information society". Thus, rethinking the role of information in the development of nature and society, as well as the development of information as a strategic resource and a driving factor in the further development of civilization, are today extremely important and urgent problems that acquire not only general scientific but also of general civilizational significance.
GLOBALIZATION AT THE END OF THE XX - BEGINNING OF THE XXI CENTURIES.
The term “post-industrial society” is widely used in modern scientific literature, sounds in the mouths of politicians and representatives of the press, economic analysts and cultural figures, but its constant, generally accepted definition has not been finalized. This situation is not least due to the fact that the concept of “post-industrial” itself indicates only the position of this type of society in the time sequence of stages of development – “after industrial”, and not its own distinctive characteristics. The contours of the modern society of information and communication technologies, globalization and networking unfold before researchers "in real time". At the same time, modern society, more than ever before, presents a problem for itself. Hence a whole range of diverse concepts that take the liberty of defining the essence and direction of the changes that modern society is experiencing.
The theory of post-industrialism has developed through the efforts of a galaxy of Western scientists. In the last third of the twentieth century, the ideas of the post-industrial society - D. Bell, the technotronic society - Z. Brzezinski are introduced into scientific circulation); societies of the "third wave" of E. Toffler, "super-industrial civilization" of A. Touraine; "modernity" - J. Habermas; "new industrial society" D. Galbraith, the society of mass media ("global village") - M. McLuhan, the society of "network structures" M. Castells, "risk society" - W. Beck. A fairly extensive list of works on the problems of post-industrial society, including its adaptation in the post-Soviet space, was published by the Russian researcher V. L. Inozemtsev.
Therefore, the post-industrial scenario of interpretation, which we will talk about in the future, is quite diverse, and sometimes directly contradictory.
In 1973, the famous American scientist D. Bell in his work “The Coming Post-Industrial Society. The experience of social forecasting” put forward the concept of the transition of contemporary Western society to a new post-industrial stage. Although Bell accurately predicted many features of the future society, the term "post-industrialism" itself was not deciphered in detail. The complexity of its disclosure was that it was still not about the actually observed social order, but only about the extrapolation of existing trends, tendencies.
The theory of post-industrialism "starts" from its own scheme of historical periodization and within its framework describes the emerging post-industrial social order against the background of the previous ones and in contrast to them. The periodization proposed by post-industrial theorists is based on the division of all social development into three stages:
agrarian (pre-industrial) - the agricultural sector was decisive, the main structures were the church, the army;
· industrial - industry was the determining factor, the main structures - a corporation, a firm;
post-industrial - theoretical knowledge is decisive, the main structure is the university, as a place of their production and accumulation.
Similarly, E. Toffler identifies three civilizational "waves" in the development of society:
agrarian in the transition to agriculture,
industrial during the industrial revolution
informational in the transition to a society based on knowledge (post-industrial).
The driving forces and main resources of each stage of the development of society are also explained from the general logic of the above periodization. A pre-industrial society “sets in motion” the muscular strength of a person, the main resource to which it is directed is raw materials (land and subsoil); industrial society develops thanks to machine technologies and new types of energy, its resources are labor and capital. The main resource for the development of a post-industrial-information society is information, the driving force of this society is intellectual technologies, it is they who produce a useful product, knowledge, from the initial “raw material” (information).
D. Bell also singles out the transition from the production of things to the production of services as the main signs of the onset of the “coming post-industrial society”. This feature of the post-industrial society is closely related to changes in the structure of employment: there is an increase in those employed in the field of intellectual labor, as well as in the service sector, designed to satisfy the needs of the population that have increased along with the standard of living.
D. Bell argued that, just as the industrial revolution resulted in assembly line production, which increased labor productivity and prepared a mass consumer society, so now the mass production of innovative knowledge will be at the forefront of progress, ensuring appropriate social development in all areas. That is why Bell calls the creation of computers in the second half of the twentieth century the third industrial revolution.
Close to post-industrialism, but not completely coinciding with it, is the theory of the information society. The concept of the information society for the first time in a fairly clear form was formulated in the early 70s of the XX century. The invention of the term "information society" is attributed to Yu. Hayashi, a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The information society was defined as one in which the process of computerization, as well as the development of telecommunications and means of communication, will give people access to reliable sources of information, save them from routine work, and provide a high level of production automation. At the same time, production itself will also change - its product will become more information-capacious, which means an increase in the share of innovation, design work and marketing in its value. In the future information society, the production of an information product, and not a material product, will be the locomotive of development and the key to prosperity. In the 1980s, the idea of an informational, post-industrial society became popular in the United States and Western Europe. The American analyst M. Castells believes that the information age opens up a new historical period in the development of society's productivity. "In the new, informational mode of development, the source of productivity lies in the technology of generating knowledge, processing information and symbolic communication. Of course, knowledge and information are critical elements in all modes of development, since the production process is always based on some level of knowledge and information processing. However, specific to the informational mode of development is the impact of knowledge on knowledge itself as the main source of productivity" [Castells M. Information Age: Economics, Society and Culture / Per. from English. under scientific ed. O. I. Shkaratana. - M.: GU HSE, 2000. - 608 p. - P. 39).
In his book “The Social Framework of the Information Society” published in 1980, D. Bell proposed the following variant of the synthesis of the ideas of post-industrialism and the information society. The information society in Bell's interpretation has all the main characteristics of a post-industrial society (service economy, the central role of theoretical knowledge that feeds innovative technologies, the development of the information environment and investment in professionalism (human capital)).
So, in a post-industrial (information) society, knowledge becomes the main source of productivity. Why not simply define it as a knowledge society? The appearance of the third option for naming the society in the last decades of the twentieth century was not long in coming. A distinctive feature of this society is the defining role of science and knowledge as the main institutional value of society. However, behind the terminological difference between the information society and the knowledge society, there are still quite significant substantive aspects. Thus, UNESCO experts in their analytical report believe that “the concept of the information society is based on the achievements of technology, while the concept of knowledge societies implies broader social, ethical and political parameters” [Knowledge Societies: UNESCO World Report. - Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2005]. In general, the modern version of the phenomenon of the knowledge society is based on the assertion that at the moment knowledge has become a subject of colossal economic, political and cultural interests so much that it can (or should) serve to determine the qualitative state of society.
The development strategy assumes a certain positive image of the future. Familiarization with the models of the future, to which all rapidly developing societies aspire, shows that these models are in many ways similar. They have a number of common fundamentally important parameters. All rapidly developing societies guarantee their members at least the following: the possibility of achieving high prosperity; a guarantee for everyone of freedom and human rights; social protection, accessibility of education (vocational training); the development of intellectual and technological potential that ensures further economic movement; ecologically healthy living environment.All such societies are called open, and in the technocratic sense - post-industrial or informational. The wealth of the West is now provided not only by private property, capital, the market, but also by their combination with colossal resources of the most diverse and publicly available knowledge, with information technologies. Such a connection gives a post-industrial (information) society. Its main characteristics are the following:
Openness of information and access to it for anyone in need at any time and in any place;
Availability of technological systems that guarantee this openness;
Availability of national intellectual potential;
Automation, robotization and technologization of any systems in any field of activity;
Connection to world information channels.
The modern information revolution is associated with the invention of intelligent technologies based on gigantic information processing speeds. It provides a colossal (millions, billions of times) increase in the information circulating in society, which makes it possible to effectively solve economic, social, cultural, political and other problems.
However, it is precisely in these technologies that Russia today catastrophically lags behind the leading countries of the West, and primarily the United States. For all our hardships, the most terrible deficit is the lack of information. Our society is a society of monstrous lack of information, which predetermines its backwardness. Therefore, our pragmatic goal should be to build a post-industrial (information) society - a society of high technologies or a society based on knowledge ("knowledge economy"). This, of course, is not an end in itself, but a means: modern information technologies in the conditions of an effective open society open access to almost all material and spiritual benefits to the vast majority of the population, multiply the intellectual resource, and, consequently, all other resources, contributing to development. Post-industrial (information) society is a means of achieving national well-being, understood as prosperity, comfort, spiritual and intellectual wealth, mental and physical health, freedom, justice, security.
Of course, the breakthrough to the information society, in which the majority of the able-bodied population is employed in the sphere of services and information, the most developed countries of the West, Japan, began in incomparably more favorable conditions than Russia. And the industry was more developed, and the population was more qualified, and there was no landslide financial and industrial crisis by the beginning of the breakthrough. And yet structural restructuring in our economy and social sphere is taking place. It is paradoxical, but true: it is during the collapse of the former political totalitarian mechanisms and economic structures and the formation of an open society, new forms of ownership that deep processes are born that lead us to a fundamentally new stage in our civilizational development - to a post-industrial (information) society. This reorganization, taking place on the basis of a backward but still powerful urban and industrial society, is leading us (spontaneously so far) in an objectively correct direction. The sooner Russia develops its own model of a modern society capable of synthesizing our national traditions, culture with the achievements of high technology, science and a market economy, the easier it will be for it to get out of the protracted crisis.
Without information technology, it is impossible to boost the economy, improve the level of education and skills of the population, create a modern credit and financial system, establish rational management of social processes, as well as improve the life of citizens. Ultimately, national, social, political and other conflicts and crises that inevitably accompany any major historical reform, any civilizational shift, proceed more easily and end sooner if the level of well-being, education, culture and awareness in society is higher. That is why the model of a post-industrial society as some kind of general historical and social image of Russia's future, and not a distant one at that, is not a fantasy at all. Rather, it is an urgent need, unfortunately not yet understood and felt by our intellectual and administrative elites.
The United States and Japan are quite consistent with the criteria of the information society. For example, in the United States, about 80 percent of workers are employed in the service and information production sectors. 17 percent in industrial production and about three percent in agriculture. With the highest technological equipment and rational organization of production and management, these 20 percent of workers are able to provide the entire population with one of the highest levels of consumption on the planet. The model of social organization that Russia should strive for should combine such elements as the protection of human rights, equal opportunities for self-realization, initiative and enterprise, combined with social protection for those who cannot take care of themselves. It should be a high-tech society, but at the same time a society where a robot will serve a person, and not enslave him. It should be an information society, built on knowledge, a society of high culture, which considers human dignity to be the greatest value. In such a society, the principles of morality should be supplemented by a high professional level of specialists, and economic and material well-being should create optimal conditions for spiritual and cultural diversity, ensure the self-realization of each person. Such a society corresponds to at least four ideals: the ideal of ecological well-being; ideal of stabilization; the ideal of "participatory democracy"; the ideal of a technological republic as a means of development.
With the end of the Cold War in Russia and other countries, there is an outflow of financial resources and personnel from the sphere of "pure science" to various areas of applied knowledge, and above all to computerization and informatics, as well as banking and financial activities. The “science of corporations” is developing, the field of research of which is rather opportunistic and closed.
Under these conditions, the huge scientific and scientific-technical potential of a number of countries, which was accumulated during the 20th century, is of particular importance. And, above all, those countries that have managed to create an independent, dynamic scientific community, to implement high-tech production on an industrial scale. Russia is also among the members of this elite club, for which there are real prospects for integration into the global innovative economic space and, accordingly, chances for full-fledged participation in the creation and redistribution of the basic product, a product that is in increasing demand on the world market - knowledge and technology. The basis of this area of activity is not so much financial as creative, human capital, which Russia (despite the intensive external and “internal” emigration of tens of thousands of scientists and specialists) still has at its disposal.
As for financial investments, they have already been made and in this case are present, albeit in an implicit form, in the form of a certain inheritance. And besides, it is very large-scale, acquiring increased value in the light of current trends in the development of the world economy. This is the general and special education system created in the country. These are numerous qualified scientific, engineering and working personnel (still providing an advantage in a number of defense projects). These are islands of high-tech production and its infrastructure. This is an established production of advanced technologies and developments. This is a significant intellectual and innovative potential of society. In general, everything that radically distinguishes the Russian economy from the raw-material states of the South and is its specific colossal resource.
In Russia of the 20th century, almost all of these advantages were concentrated in the system of the military-industrial complex. Hence, the urgent task is to rationally build a new configuration of the economy and, in particular, to transform the military-industrial complex into a scientific and technological complex, establish sustainable production of an innovative resource and rationally organize the export of scientific achievements and technologies, as well as certain, selected categories of high technology products. The newest paradigms of Russia's development should be built in the context of long-term global development based on the deep characteristics of the national consciousness. In this context, the most valuable achievements of the post-industrial model are its information and innovation components, which fully correspond to these characteristics.
“Whoever owns the information owns the world” - today we often hear this phrase. Nowadays, this phrase is more and more popular and more and more clearly shows the state of society from the point of view of sociology and economics. And if someone had said this phrase 100 years ago, then people, at best, would not have understood what was at stake. In general, 100 years ago, a person who would have said such a phrase would have been laughed at, considered abnormal.
Indeed, if you look at the history of mankind from the point of view of sociology and economy, society has never stood in one place. It has been constantly evolving. It has passed the stages from the primitive system to the present day. We have all learned from history how, in early times, people hunted animals in order to get their own food. Today, not only are there no tribes, but there is not even a bow and arrow that was once hunted. Archery has become only a sport, and hunting and fishing itself has become a way of entertainment or recreation instead of a way to survive.
The history of the development of society has several stages. Different scientists give different classifications of the development of society, but any person can clearly define the stages of the formation of humanity in society.
Everyone remembers from history what the most primitive types of labor began the history of mankind. Then there was the manual processing of various materials. Then there was the invention of the first machines and automatic equipment, the industrial revolution, the automation of all technologies. And so it all came down to our times. What is the time now?
Now is the time of information, the time of knowledge. The current society is called post-industrial or information. When they say the phrase "information society", then it is more or less clear what is at stake. The current way of life is a way that is based on the knowledge of a person, on the information that he owns. It must be said right away that in today's society, the information that a school and university gives a person is far from enough. Of course, one cannot say that school and university knowledge is a drop in the ocean, it is not. These two kinds of knowledge are more like several elements in a large constructor. It seems that there are small elements, but it is more difficult to assemble a constructor without them (of course, the knowledge that we receive in educational institutions is very important, but this knowledge is only a small piece of the big world of information).
To stay afloat in today's society, university knowledge alone cannot be limited. You need to constantly replenish your information baggage. And this is not only the baggage that educational institutions provide. You can't limit yourself to just one theory. Today, very often you need to be creative, show your practical knowledge. Information is the lever that rules the world today (even more than money). Why is information so important now? This can be understood only when we understand why the current information society is also called post-industrial.
Formal human logic suggests that if now there is a post-industrial society, then before it there was an industrial one. This was the period when the automation of production complemented human labor and made it more efficient and of high quality. At least remember the times of the Union: then the majority of citizens worked in various factories and plants. In general, almost 80% of the population worked in industry, and only 10% of the population remained in agriculture. The economy was entirely controlled by the state, and privatization was out of the question. The main priority was the processing of natural resources.
In a post-industrial society, cardinal changes are taking place compared to an industrial society. With the advent of computer technology, human physical labor fades into the background, as it is replaced by electronic machines. Statistics clearly show this: only 20% of people work in the manufacturing sector (instead of 80% during industrialization). Most people (approximately 70-75 percent) work in the service sector.
The human factor plays a very important role in today's society. This is the knowledge, the information that a person owns. It is man who controls all the mechanisms in society. It is a person who, with the help of the information that he owns, manages everything that is possible. It is information and knowledge that is now valued, because in order to participate in something or manage something, you need to know how to do it. If you look at the current state of the economy, we can confidently say that information has a huge impact on the economy. For only those who have information about the economy can say when there will be a collapse in stocks, when and under what conditions there will be a rise in prices and how to avoid this. There are many such examples, but the essence of them all boils down to one thing: it is our knowledge and information that affect our lives.
Information is a key link in our society. Therefore, you need to be aware of everything that is happening, as well as understand why this is happening, what needs to be done so as not to suffer from it. You cannot rely on only one kind of knowledge or on information from only one direction. You need to look around and understand that in order to live with dignity, you need to have all kinds of knowledge.
