Volume 20, Number 16 · October 18, 1973
Take Me to Your Leader
By Christopher Lasch
The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting
by Daniel Bell
Basic Books, 507 pp., $12.50
Many students of modern society have argued, usually in more or less open opposition to socialist theories, that changes in technology, the rise of new classes, the divorce between ownership and control of property, the shift from production of goods to production of services, and the growth of bureaucracy have created, in effect, a new form of society, to which the old debates about capitalism and socialism are increasingly irrelevant. The central features of this new society are usually seen to be the ascendancy of technique, the subordination of the market to bureaucratic controls, and the growing influence of scientific and technical elites. In addition, many theorists and publicists argue that these characteristics can be found in both the advanced capitalist and socialist countries; in other words that considerations of bureaucratic efficiency increasingly override ideological considerations, just as they override national and local variations, producing a homogeneous global civilization based on technological rationality.
Review, 4318 words
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