Towards the Post-industrial Society (1973) (Futures of Yesteryear)

Daniel Bell’s book The Coming of Post-industrial Society. A Venture in Social Forecasting (New York: Basic Books, 1973) was the product of much research during the 1950s. It became a classic reference for sociologists and was very quickly seized upon (not to say exploited) by those concerned with future studies. They found in it solid arguments and valuable insights into the evolution of Western societies.
In this extract from the introduction, Bell starts by reminding readers of what distinguishes forecasting from prediction. He then examines the main types of forecasting: technological, demographic, economic, political and social. The exercises in “social forecasting” seem to him to be the most important, to be given the highest priority, although they are also extremely difficult to carry out because so many, often imprecise variables have to be taken into account. To get around this difficulty, his advice is to rely on a rigorous theoretical framework and on good empirical indicators: future studies are not possible without a minimum of conceptual thinking and an objective awareness of current realities.
Finally, he puts this advice into practice by suggesting the best way, in his view, to understand the emergence of the “post-industrial society”. Bringing together facts and theories, he concludes that this new model of society can be observed in five major trends: towards a service economy; the pre-eminence of the professional and technical class; the primacy of applied theoretical knowledge; the planning and control of technological growth; and lastly the rise of a new “intellectual technology”.
This last point is fundamental in his eyes, and it leads him to talk (long before such notions were fashionable) about a “knowledge-based society” and “the information society”. At the same period, other writers shared Bell’s conclusions; we should remember, for example, that the term “post-industrial” was coined by David Riesman in the United States in 1958. During the 1960s, in France, Raymond Aron, Alain Touraine and André Gorz were developing similar analyses. At the time, their conclusions caused surprise; now they have become reality.