Our Future Industrial Society: A Global Vision

Our Future Industrial Society: A Global VisionAuthor(s): Solomon B. LevineSource: Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Jul., 1961), pp. 548-555Published by: Cornell University, School of Industrial & Labor RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2520130 .

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OUR FUTURE INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY: A GLOBAL VISION

SOLOMON B. LEVINE

FOR years, students of industrial relations have sought a conceptual

framework to unify growing knowledge in this field. Available theoretical formula- tions fail to account for much believed relevant, while particularistic aspects of the field enjoy great elaboration but are difficult to fit together. Few students, moreover, venture to generalize the findings of their own or others' research. This unsatisfactory state induced four leading industrial relations scholars to collaborate in attaining such a larger formulation. For this, they deserve great admiration, but how well they succeed is open to question. Without doubt, they have set the stage for giving the industrial relations "discipline" a long-needed intellectual up- lift and a challenging impetus.

Industrialism and Industrial Man' is an "interim" report of the Inter-University Study of Labor Problems in Economic Development, an imaginative project

In terms of resources as well as scope of interest and effort, the Inter-University Study of Labor Problems in Economic Development may well be the largest intellectual enterprise ever undertaken in the industrial relations field. The effort to draw off and unify the essence of the already incredibly large flow of research stimulated by this project is itself a sizable undertaking. In this review-article, the author provides a critique of this effort by the project directors to systematize the results thus far obtained and to establish a theoretical framework for research in industrial relations.

Solomon B. Levine is professor of labor and industrial relations, Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, University of Illinois.

-EDITOR

launched in 1954 with Ford Foundation support under the guidance of the four authors. Ranging widely over countries and topics, the project has underwritten more than forty investigations (conven- iently listed in an appendix). Already a dozen books have appeared; over a dozen more are in preparation; scores of journal articles have been or will be published; discussions and conferences have been held in various parts of the world. This volume distills the findings, drawing together ideas previously set forth, further elaborating some of them, and arranging all in a refreshing and systematic whole.2

The central thesis of the book may be quickly summarized: The world is in the grip of industrialization - a relatively new historical force that is drawing vir- tually every nation toward the same end (industrialism). Cultural, e c o n o m i c, and historical divergencies, however, offer a wide choice of roads for getting there. The diversity can be seen in the strategies of "industrializing elites" that cope with the "invincibility of industrialism"; but under the brunt of the industrial imperatives the elites transform and their strat-

1 Clark Kerr, John T. Dunlop, Frederick Harbison, and Charles A. Myers, Industrialism and Industrial Man: The Problems of Labor and Management in Industrial Growth (Cam- bridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 331 pp.

2 Summary articles have appeared under the same title as the book in the September 1960 issue of the International Labour Review, and under the title "Industrialism and World So- ciety" in the Harvard Business Review for January-February 1961.



OUR FUTURE INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 549

egies converge. The processes of transformation may differ, but the final re- sult is much the same. Thus, the authors believe that to view the globe as divided merely into two antagonistic ideological camps is incorrect; that, in fact, there are a number of camps with growing commonality of purpose. Existing differences, they allege, are the product of past circumstances not future aspirations. There- fore, we should be fixing our attention on how alike nations will become. To help in this, their three-part theory (industrialism, cultural and economic constraints, elite strategy), they hold, can account for "the universal, the related, and the unique" among industrializing societies.

Intensive study of industrial relations brought the authors to this conclusion. Initially, they focused on the problem of worker protest; but, upon "discovering" that protest apparently failed to follow the courses prescribed by traditional theorists (Marx, Perlman, etc.), they turned to the context within which labor response takes place; for "industrialization creates industrial relations systems" (p. 234). Here, their most insightful contri- bution is that the traditionalists were con- cerned with too narrow a segment of economic history -capitalism. Since this is not the only form for initiating industrial development, workers may be responding to still other approaches to industrialization, and protest may be only a minor facet of the process.

In the authors' view, the first task be- fore interpreting labor's role is to examine industrialization in its diverse shapes. Conventional questions about work-force recruitment, worker protest, control of protest, worker response to management practice and policy, and cultural effects on recruitment and protest should now be preceded by new questions about who sets the rules for industrial relationships,

where do the rule makers (elites) come from, what strategies do they adopt for setting the rules, and how does the "web of rule" (which inevitably emerges with industrialization) "structure" the work force. By focusing on the latter, they find that industrializing societies are driving toward the common goal of industrialism.

ELITES AND THE STRATEGY OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

Against this background, the authors divide the book into three parts: the first ("Uniformity and Diversity in Industri- alization") explains the "logic" of industrialism; the second ("Managers and the Managed: Structuring the Labor Force") draws the implications for industrial relations; the last ("The Road Ahead") predicts the future.

Throughout, industrialism is the key- note. Left to its own working, it would logically produce inevitable social, economic, and political arrangements everywhere. It demands a work force geared to an ever advancing industrial development -one that is increasingly mobile, flexible, versatile, skilled, and differenti- ated. Industrialism forces the economy to pivot around large-scale, complex organizations - urbanization, an omnipresent state, and highly integrated work hier- archies. Ineluctably, it shapes a consensus of society's basic values - to support sci- ence and technology, exhort and reward hard work, control population growth, provide equitable income distribution and rising consumption levels, and achieve an international outlook. That these imperatives, however, do not necessarily elicit the same behavioral response everywhere may be seen in the course of industrial history to date and is best revealed by the strategies of the industrializing elites that provide the leadership.

Analytically, the authors offer five



550 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW

"ideal" elite types: dynastic, middle-class, revolutionary intellectuals, colonial administrators, and nationalist leaders. Each is likely to include "political leaders, industrial organizational builders, top mili- tary officers, associated intellectuals, and sometimes leaders of labor organizations" and "will require technicians, administrators, and bureaucrats" (p. 8n). Al- though the elites differ in origins, atti- tudes, methods, and styles, the main dis- tinction among them lies in the decisions they make to solve the universal problems of industrialization: pace of industrial development, sources of capital, priorities by industrial sector, pressures on enterprises, educational system, degree of national self-sufficiency, control of population growth, and so forth. These decisions will be conditioned by the sticky but not in- surmountable "resistances" of pre-industrial culture, especially as found in traditional family systems, class and race structures, religious and ethical valuation, legal concepts, and degrees of national cohesiveness. All these factors shape the character of industrializing elites and the strategies they adopt.

Thus, the authors picture the dynastic elite as following a central strategy to preserve the traditional society and set- tling for a slow pace of industrial growth. The middle-class elite elects a strategy of individual self-advancement, resulting in a pervasive industrialization that moves at a relatively uncontrolled pace. For the revolutionary intellectuals, central strategy is a highly directed, forced-draft industrialization. Colonial administrators adopt a strategy of servicing the home country whereby industrialization is limited and partial. Nationalist leaders pur- sue a course that enhances national inde- pendence and demonstrates economic progress; but because this type has emerged relatively late and because "na-

tionalism is more a sentiment than a system of thought" (p. 66), the rate of advance into industrialization is as yet un- predictable. The authors are careful to point out that actual history will show not only variations within each type, but also admixtures among them. Although they do not claim that any elite will be found in pure form, readers may readily identify which countries at what stages of their development are associated with each of the five types.

Industrialism's overpowering force transforms all. The most transient are the colonial administrators, bound usually to fall either to revolutionary intellectuals or nationalists. Somewhat more tenacious are the dynastic elites; but they, too, eventually give way either to a middle- class system or to revolutionary forces. Sooner or later, also, nationalist leaders must choose between the revolutionary- intellectual and the middle-class approach. Only the latter two have staying power, since only they are geared to the growing imperatives of industrialization. Even then, the further industrialization progresses, the revolutionary-intellectuals and the middle-class elites also converge. Ideologi- cal conflict fades as day-to-day bureau- cratic bargaining replaces overt protest and as industrialization produces organizational sameness.

Within this context of a world-wide transition from pre-industrial fragmenta- tion to industrial unity, the authors seek to clear up confusion about industrial relations. Thus, in Part II, they return repeatedly to their central point that, although any given industrial relations system tends to persist while the old and new cultures remain in conflict, never- theless uniformities are at work. A major one is the critical function of enterprise managers in building and developing the industrial apparatus, in exploiting tech-




niques that "structure" the labor force for industrialization, and in achieving greater and greater management professionaliza- tion. Still another is the "glacial impact" of worker organization. Rather than be- coming Marx's vanguard of the future, except in a rare case the workers only gradually pressure the industrializing society toward the goals that are inevitable in any case. Beyond the initial stages, they rarely thwart the march of industrialization, but in varying degrees hurry the leaders along the road. Worker protest soon gets "organized, channeled, con- trolled" (p. 233).

With the uniformities as the central concern, the authors make the case that the primary focus of industrial relations should be on the "web of rule" that binds managers and managed together in the drive toward industrialism. While this idea is more fully developed in an earlier volume,3 it is now tied explicitly to the strategies of industrializing elites. Al- though "there is an almost infinite variety of ways of arranging the actual network of relationships among workers, managers, and the state in the industrializing country to perform the common functions of establishing the web of rules and to control protest" (p. 239), a distinctive industrial relations structure emerges for each elite -seen in the view of elite and managers toward industrial workers and vice versa, the division of rule-making authority, the degree of detail of the substantive rules, the role of labor organization at the work place, and the type of control over protest. The substantive rules themselves -affecting such matters

'John T. Dunlop, Industrial Relations Sys- tems (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1958). See also Clark Kerr and Abraham Siegel, "The Structuring of the Labor Force in Industrial Society: New Dimensions and New Questions," Industrial and Labor Re- lations Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (January 1955).

as labor recruitment, commitment, train- ing, redundancy, and compensation -re- flect these structures. But as industrialization progresses, the threads of the web of rules are elaborately woven and become the sinews for commonality from nation to nation.

To be sure, as the authors conclude, industrialization generates uniformities and differences. Out of a wide variety of pre-existing cultures, industrialization pulls diverse industrializing societies whose initial differences are explained by pre-industrial social structures, geography, stage of history, and historical accidents. Out of this diversity, however, the universal compelling force of industrialism lifts the world to a higher, but common, plane. From these economic and social differences, a new pluralistic arrangement of authority emerges, which dissipates separate cultural and ideological systems, but releases individual "bohemianism" - made possible by the leisure, education, and choice that are the fruits of industrialization.

The framework offered by the authors is of such generality as to invite varying interpretations of the volume's main thesis. There are numerous problems of theoretical consistency, conceptual preci- sion, and factual substantiation. Given the enormity of the task the authors under- took, perhaps such difficulties were un- avoidable. Although all these aspects of their analysis warrant careful appraisal, what follows is confined to the most fundamental issues the book presents: (1) industrialism is the single compelling force of the modern world; (2) social dynamics are best seen in the strategies of industrializing elites; and (3) the web of rule defines the key characteristics of industrial relations systems. Upon these interrelated points, in this reviewer's opinion, rests the validity of the main




thesis of Industrialism and Industrial Man. It is not the intention here to demonstrate that the concepts and the argu- ment are necessarily incorrect, but simply to raise alternative considerations, which the theory seemingly does not adequately bring out and which may be of vital im- portance for empirical testing. Otherwise, the risk is that the three points may become only facile labels rather than analytical tools.

THE CONCEPT OF INDUSTRIALISM

The first of these, industrialism, may be easily misread. This is not to doubt that industrialization is changing the economic character of the world. What is in doubt is that industrialization sooner or later everywhere will command the com- bination and organization of resources, which the authors appear to imply. Even though the authors view the concept of industrialism as a variable tendency, there is a presumption that it will take a singu- lar form. It need not be disputed that labor differentiation, large-scale organization, and the values associated with rising productivity will characterize future societies. But it is conceivable that variations within any one of these traits will be of such degree that industrialism may be in actuality a number of distin- guishable forces. In other words, may not industrialization be opening the way to a large variety of technological, economic, and political arrangements that will have differing philosophical, value, and social impacts?

Industrialism and Industrial Man does not penetrate this admittedly difficult question. Its strokes are so broad that we are left with a highly impressionistic picture that is analytically troubling. An enormous challenge lies in sorting out the meanings of industrialism, and the au-

thors have only faintly pointed the way to meet it. If, in fact, we can conceive of a variety of industrialisms, the problem of depicting future society becomes greatly complicated. Not only are we faced with reconciling short-run diversity and long-run uniformity among industrializing societies, but also with the possibility that the long-run results will differ in degree, if not in kind. Had the authors delved into this question more fully, there would be a sounder basis upon which to evaluate their contention that the world is moving inevitably in the same direction. This may still prove to be the case; but, until the concept of industrialism is further refined along the lines this reviewer indicates, nagging doubts about the contention will remain.

To assume the singularity of industrialism, moreover, readily invites oversim- plified cause-and-effect analysis, when in actuality industrialism may be a determinate, as well as a determinant, of social arrangements. That it is possible for industrialism to take plural forms calls for detailed inspection of the factors associated with each form. Should this idea be pursued, industrialism may dissolve into mere description of a resultant of a set of more fundamental social, economic, and political characteristics. This reviewer can conceive of widely differing mixtures of work and leisure, individualism and groupism, and choice and compulsion- arising from the common phenomenon of industrialization -that stamp societies with as much variety as exists today. Whether these different admixtures will produce greater or lesser world tensions is anybody's guess.

Failure to exploit these questions is a basic weakness of the book. It raises the thought that the authors possibly have been ensnared by their own culture, even though they protest against this; for their




vision of the future appears to be mainly a product of Western experience and re- flects the values associated with the industrialization of the West. They seemingly shunt aside the notion that industrialization may serve alternative valuations, ranging from the materialism of the West to the mysticism of the East, and that it may not necessarily transform long-stand- ing philosophies and views of life.

The logic of industrialism, as presented by the authors, provides the consoling thought that the world is headed toward increasing compatibility. Much as this reviewer hopes they are right, the con- ceptualization in terms of Western experience may lead to unwarranted com- placency. Even if the authors are logically correct about the direction of future society, this reviewer is left with the un- easy feeling that short-run conflict in the world might easily snuff out this hope- ful possibility, and that industrial relations may continue indefinitely to follow the vagaries of international conflict rather than converge toward the long-run prescription the authors believe industrialism demands.

THE INDUSTRIALIZING ELITES: A LIMITED TYPOLOGY

Again, it is not difficult to accept the notion that a changing society has to be led, and that the necessary leadership may take diverse forms. The authors have met this point adeptly with their ideal types. One may quarrel with seeming inconsis- tency and overlapping among and between the types, but the method is used profitably to demonstrate how we need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that economic development always follows the same course (here, they truly escape eth- nocentrism).

The authors, however, pose a fundamental question about the dynamics of

social change: Should we confine our attention, as they suggest, to the inter- action of the industrializing elites with pre-industrial culture and surrounding economic circumstances? There is a seri- ous problem here of whether they are getting at the most appropriate set of dynamics. This reviewer believes that the authors have only barely hinted at the vital process of elite transformation. While the authors are surely correct in warning against assuming that the ideal types have actual counterparts, the main elements out of which a given industrializing elite emerges and develops are so abstract as to leave the reader wondering where, in fact, the different depictions apply. A case in point, for example, is that of Japan, cited as a prominent instance of the dynastic elite. Superficial examination of Japanese industrial history may recom- mend that Japan be placed in the dynastic category, but then we are neither sure of this nor able to explain whether she is managing to escape from the category. The elements that make up the type do not inherently furnish the mechanisms that explain the changes that have oc- curred, except in a most general way. Much the same point may be made about any of the other examples of nations cited to represent this or that elite type. It is not that the typology is not a good one, but simply that it lacks internal construc- tion to demonstrate how a type comes into being, persists, and changes.

Related to this point is the relatively small attention paid to the basis of political power and shifts of power in the industrializing society. Apparently, it is as- sumed that the determinism of industrialism generates and distributes political power. This is not convincingly demon- strated. Yet, it is within this context that the authors reach their conclusions about the role of labor movements. We are told,




for example, that the traditional argu- ment between the Perlmanites and Marx- ists over whether labor should have pri- marily an economic or political empha- sis has become "a less and less exciting debate" (p. 4). This reviewer suspects that the decline in excitement was due to undeveloped notions of what determines who holds political power and of the strategy for obtaining it -a fundamental question of dynamics that Marx, Perlman, and other traditionalists were posing.

The picture that the authors present of power distribution during the industrialization advance is, it seems, a curious one. A main element of the industrializing elite - the managers - loosens any grip it has had on political power as it pro- fessionalizes. At the same time, the labor movement dissolves into a congerie of parochial (occupational) interest groups, no one of which holds impressive political power. In other words, power becomes so dispersed that it loses significance as an important force in the industrial society. It is not clear why this must follow. The contest for political power could well be a most outstanding feature of industrialization (as indeed seems to be the case, especially in the newly emerging econo- mies), and the quest for power may com- pete strongly with the values the authors claim industrialism will promote. It may be true that "the road to industrialization is paved less with class warfare and more with class alliances" (p. 232), but it does not necessarily follow that political passivity will fall upon management and labor alike. If there is to be some concen- tration of power (and the authors strongly assert that, if anything characterizes future industrial society, it will be the omni- presence of the state), then their analysis lacks an important ingredient of explain- ing who gains access to it and how. Were this element more explicit in their analy-

sis, it probably would lead us back to the "old" question of economic versus political strategy for both management and labor (or any other group).

The problem here, it seems to this reviewer, is that the dynamics of strategy need to be developed around a theory of organizational choice and influence, admittedly only now seeing its beginnings. Such a theory is probably far more complex than the authors assume, and also probably tied more strongly to pre-existing culture patterns than they appear willing to admit. Further, if pre-industrial cultures are highly diverse (an as- sumption the authors seem to waver on -for example, they apparently accept the universality of the extended family), how choices are made and how influence is exercised may take such a variety of forms as to vitiate further the invincibility of industrialism. In turn, industrialization could engender dissimilar, not similar, industrial relations systems.

THE "WEB OF RULE" AND INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT

This brings us to the third fundamental point: whether the web of rule concept adequately conveys the essence of an industrial relations system. As a means for comparative analysis, the notion is extremely helpful. It is certainly a start- ing point for bringing forth similarities and differences in industrial relations and for attempting to trace why they exist. But the authors appear to overlook two important strands of analysis. One is that they do not fully take into account what is known about organizational behavior; the other is the tendency to equate overt protest with the phenomenon of conflict.

The authors seem to presume that the web of rule, as it is elaborated, will chan- nel relationships along determinate lines. Such elaboration, however, may merely




be symptomatic of the failure of earlier rules to achieve their intended social control. Perhaps the most important contri- bution of organizational theorists in re- cent years has been in this vein; that rule making invites both intended and unin- tended behavioral consequences. Rule elaboration may continually generate new tensions as well as settle old ones. This reviewer would suspect that onrushing technical change - especially automation, organizational restructuring, and information technology - might well step up dys- functionalism, produce both rational and irrational behavior, intensify the struggle between centralization and decentraliza- tion, and extend "bohemianism" into organizational life as well as into leisure time. In turn, there could be coalitions of various kinds that may not follow occupational lines alone. This reviewer sug- gests that such behavior is a reasonable alternative to the pluralistic industrialism which the authors forecast will flow from rule elaboration.

Similarly, the authors may have treated the phenomenon of conflict too lightly. It is reasonable to predict, as they do, that overt protest declines in the process of industrialization (although the evi- dence they cite in this regard is not wholly convincing). But it does not follow that conflict in the world of the future will be characterized by "desperate little battles . . . fought all over the social land- scape" (p. 296). Many of the battles are indeed likely to be desperate, as sub- groups seek marginal gains within large- scale organization, but that they will all be minor skirmishes is another matter. Rather, just the opposite could occur, as groups coalesce with one another while large-scale organization spreads, and com-

munication and computational skills im- prove. This possibility, of course, goes back to the point on power, for one of the hallmarks of future industrial society may be movements to mobilize the numerous contending groups for major tests of the value choices confronting society in an age of industrialization. Such con- tests could readily revolve around ideological differences. As industrialization unfolds, one might expect industrial conflict to ascend to new peaks and descend to new valleys in succession. Here, it appears that the authors have successfully refuted Marx and Mayo, but fall short of setting Perlman aside once and for all.

In view of these two points, the web of rules concept, useful as it is, need not be taken as a depiction of industrial relations as a whole, but rather as a key to further analysis. Indeed, this reviewer would argue that to do so would lead to fruitful research results.

* * * *

Despite these criticisms, Industrialism and Industrial Man sets forth one of the most provocative hypotheses ever ad- vanced for the industrial relations field. The testing of this well formulated and immensely significant hypothesis calls for unified efforts by social scientists. Upon it rests great promise for developing a distinctive discipline of industrial relations. The authors have sketched out a method of analysis, for which analytical tools now should be sharpened and concepts fully developed. Perhaps the authors may be proven wrong in predicting the converging force of industrialism, but they have illuminated the way for resolv- ing urgent problems of a highly troubled industrializing world.



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Our Future Industrial Society: A Global Vision