Bell’s theory regarding The Coming of Post-Industrial Society makes similar assertions regarding the depoliticized nature of technology and the corollary emergence of a meritocratic, classless society, one that is flat and networked. Bell’s analysis essentially takes out the element of power from the conflictual framework traditionally applied to the analysis of the labor process by arguing that the emergence of information and technology as the prominent forces of production brings about a new social order that invalidates the classical Marxist analysis of society. According to Bell, Marx’s concept of the “mode of production” is problematic and, in fact, conceals two independent variables: social relations and technological development (Marx’s relations of production and forces of production, respectively). Contrary to Marx’s fundamental assumption regarding dialectical and conflicting relationship between relations of production and forces of production, Bell argues that they do not necessarily correlate. The shift from slavery to feudalism to capitalism has a history independent of the shift from preindustrial to industrial and then to postindustrial society; after all, communist states were no less industrial than capitalist states (Bell 1999, xxix–xxx; see Figure 4.2. Also compare with Figure 4.1).
Bell, therefore, is able to depict a society where the most acute social tensions—between capital and labor—are alleviated in a way that is not only nonrevolutionary but where the triumph of capitalism does not drift toward a ruthless market society and the dictatorship of the capitalist class.
Network Work
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