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Industrial society
 
 
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In sociology
Sociology

Sociology is a branch of the social sciences that uses systematic methods of Empiricism and critical theory to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, sometimes with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare....
, industrial society refers to a society with a modern
Modernity

Modernity is a term that refers to the modern era. It is distinct from modernism, and, in different contexts, refers to cultural and intellectual movements of the period c....
 societal structure. Such a structure developed in the west in the period of time following the industrial revolution
Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, production, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomics and cultural conditions in United Kingdom....
. Pre-modern
Premodernity

In a historical context, Premodernity is the period in Western civilization that came after Ancient history and before Modernity, which is usually recognized to have begun in the mid-1400s, marked by the invention of the printing press and the introduction of movable type in Europe....
, or Pre-industrial society
Pre-industrial society

Pre-industrial society refers to specific social attributes and forms of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution....
 are also called agrarian societies
Agrarian society

An Agrarian Society is one that is based on agriculture as its prime means for support and sustenance. The society acknowledges other means of livelihood and work habits but stresses on agriculture and farming, and was the main form of socio-economic organization for most of recorded human history....
. Industrial societies are generally mass societies
Mass society

Mass society is a description associated with society in the modern, Industry era. Descriptions of society as a "masses" took form in the 19th century, referring to the leveling tendencies in the period of the Industrial Revolution that undermined traditional and aristocracy values....
.

Industrial society is characterized by the use of external energy sources, such as fossil fuels, to increase the rate and scale of production. The production of food is shifted to large commercial farms where the products of industry, such as combine harvesters and petrolium based fertilizers, are used to decrease required human labor while increasing production.






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In sociology
Sociology

Sociology is a branch of the social sciences that uses systematic methods of Empiricism and critical theory to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, sometimes with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare....
, industrial society refers to a society with a modern
Modernity

Modernity is a term that refers to the modern era. It is distinct from modernism, and, in different contexts, refers to cultural and intellectual movements of the period c....
 societal structure. Such a structure developed in the west in the period of time following the industrial revolution
Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, production, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomics and cultural conditions in United Kingdom....
. Pre-modern
Premodernity

In a historical context, Premodernity is the period in Western civilization that came after Ancient history and before Modernity, which is usually recognized to have begun in the mid-1400s, marked by the invention of the printing press and the introduction of movable type in Europe....
, or Pre-industrial society
Pre-industrial society

Pre-industrial society refers to specific social attributes and forms of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution....
 are also called agrarian societies
Agrarian society

An Agrarian Society is one that is based on agriculture as its prime means for support and sustenance. The society acknowledges other means of livelihood and work habits but stresses on agriculture and farming, and was the main form of socio-economic organization for most of recorded human history....
. Industrial societies are generally mass societies
Mass society

Mass society is a description associated with society in the modern, Industry era. Descriptions of society as a "masses" took form in the 19th century, referring to the leveling tendencies in the period of the Industrial Revolution that undermined traditional and aristocracy values....
.

Industrial society is characterized by the use of external energy sources, such as fossil fuels, to increase the rate and scale of production. The production of food is shifted to large commercial farms where the products of industry, such as combine harvesters and petrolium based fertilizers, are used to decrease required human labor while increasing production. No longer needed for the production of food, excess labor is moved into these factories where mechanization
Mechanization

Mechanization or mechanisation is providing human operators with machinery to assist them with the physical requirements of work. It can also refer to the use of machines to replace manual labor or animals....
 is utilized to further increase efficiency. As populations grow, and mechanization
Mechanization

Mechanization or mechanisation is providing human operators with machinery to assist them with the physical requirements of work. It can also refer to the use of machines to replace manual labor or animals....
 is further refined, often to the level of automation
Automation

Automation or industrial automation or numerical control is the use of control systems such as computers to control industry machinery and industrial processes, reducing the need for human intervention....
, many workers shift to expanding service industries.

Industrial society makes urbanization
Urbanization

Urbanization is the physical growth of rural or natural land into urban areas as a result of population im-migration to an existing urban area....
 desirable, in part so that workers can be closer to centers of production, and the service industry can provide labor to workers and those that benefit financially from them, in exchange for a piece of production profits with which they can buy goods. This leads to the rise of very large cities and surrounding suburban areas with a high rate of economic activity.

These urban centers require the input of external energy sources in order to overcome the diminishing returns
Diminishing returns

In economics, diminishing returns is also called diminishing marginal return or the law of diminishing returns. According to this relationship, in a production system with fixed and variable inputs , beyond some point, each additional unit of variable input yields less and less output....
 of agricultural consolidation, due partially to the lack of nearby arable land
Arable land

In geography, arable land is an agriculture term, meaning land that can be used for growing agriculture. Arable land is currently being lost at the rate of over 200,000 km? per year....
, associated transportation and storage costs, and are otherwise unsustainable. This makes the reliable availability of the needed energy resources high priority in industrial government policies.

Some theoreticians -- namely Ulrich Beck
Ulrich Beck

Dr. Ulrich Beck is a Germany sociologist who holds a professorship at Munich University and at the London School of Economics....
, Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens

Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens is a United Kingdom sociology who is renowned for his theory of structuration and his holism view of modern society....
 and Manuel Castells
Manuel Castells

Manuel Castells is a sociology associated particularly with research into the information society and communications. According to the Social Sciences Citation Index's survey of research from 2000 to 2006, Castells was ranked as the fifth most cited social sciences scholar and the foremost cited communications scholar in the world....
 -- argue that we are located in the middle of a transformation or transition
Transition

Transition or transitional may refer to:* Transition * Transitional fossil* Transition * Transition metal* Transition state* Transition: an operation of a finite state machine...
 from industrial societies to post-modern
Postmodernity

Postmodernity is generally used to describe the economic and/or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist after modernity....
 societies. The triggering technology for the change from an agricultural to an industrial organisation was steam power, allowing mass production
Mass production

Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines. The concepts of mass production are applied to various kinds of products, from fluids and particulates handled in bulk to discrete solid parts to assemblies of such parts ....
 and reducing the agricultural work necessary. Thus many industrial cities are built around rivers. Identified as catalyst or trigger for the transition to post-modern or informational society
Informational society

In sociology, informational society refers to a postmodernity type of society. Theoreticians like Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Manuel Castells argue that since the 1970s a transformation from industrial society to informational society has happened on a global scale....
 is global information technology
Information technology

Information technology , as defined by the Information Technology Association of America , is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to data conv...
.

Bibliography

  • Grinin, L.
    Leonid Grinin

    Leonid Grinin is a philosophy of history and sociologist.Born in Kamyshin , Grinin attended Volgograd Pedagogical University, where he got an Master's degree in 1980....
     2007. Periodization of History: A theoretic-mathematical analysis. In: . Moscow: KomKniga/URSS. P.10-38. ISBN 9785484010011.


See also

  • Industrial (disambiguation)
  • Industry
    Industry

    An industry is the manufacturing of a Good or Service within a category. Although industry is a broad term for any kind of economic production, in economics and urban planning industry is a synonym for the secondary sector, which is a type of economic activity involved in the manufacturing of raw materials into goods and products....
  • Industrial Revolution
    Industrial Revolution

    The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, production, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomics and cultural conditions in United Kingdom....