|
The World
to Come
A Glimpse of Post-Industrial Society
By Amin Sharif
Charles Dickens began his novel, A Tale of Two Cities, by stating, “It was the best of times
and it was the worst of times.” We know that Dickens was,
then, referring to those stormy days at the beginning of the
French Revolution. But he may well have used those same words to
describe the first stormy days of the Post-Industrial era.
And just as the French Revolution ushered in something
new and different—bourgeois capitalism, that upset the entire
social order, so, too,
post-industrialism threatens to reshape
the very fabric of society. What is astonishing is that most
people, especially black and minority people, have little or no
grasp, at all, of what post-industrialism is or what it means to
their lives. This is tragic because one can not change or shape
what one does not understand.
But, if most people do not understand
post-industrialism, they do feel and understand its effects.
Let me cite a concrete example of what I am talking
about:
Walk in any Black barber shop and you will
see four generations of Black men. The oldest generation came of
age in the heyday of the third stage of industrialism.
Sociologists and historians call this period the
Mass
Production and Mass Urbanization stage of industrialism.
This was the period when many Blacks left the South and came
north to work in the steel mills. We are speaking of the World
War II days and later. This generation of Black men are usually
in their late eighties or as young as seventy. These brothers
are steeped in the old traditions. They like Blues, Swing, and
Big Band music.
The next generations of Black men to be seen
in the barber shop are men about a decade or two younger—say
in their fifties and forties. They came of age in the
Automotive-Petroleum
Suburbanization period of industrialization. These are the
guys who worked in places like GM or other big factories of the
1950’s and 60’s. They dig Jazz and Motown Soul music.
The third generation of young men is made up
of guys who are in their thirties and twenties. They may have
never worked in a factory. They may never have known steady
work. They grew up hearing older men speak about “back in the
day” and “old school” values. And they are the generation
that saw the once vibrant industrial cities of the north turn
into the Rust Belt. They listen to hip-hop and new style R and
B.
The fourth generation is the black teenagers.
If they live in a city like Baltimore, seventy percent will drop
out of school before they reach 18. They may have never applied
for a job, more than likely already have been in jail, and may
already be teen fathers. They listen to hip-hop and wonder if
they have a future at all. They are cynical and have every right
to be so. These are the first children of post-industrialism.
What is significant about these generations
of Black men is that, as time passed, their ties to “work”
became less stable. Indeed, many in the last generation of Black
men have little or no knowledge of what it is to work at all.
With these observations comes the first and most important thing
we need to know about the post-industrial world: things have changed forever!
No longer can Black men make money by bending
their backs in the “hard” industries of the North. For the
most part muscle power is out! Brain power is now at a premium.
To put it in street terms, the script has been flipped!! A new
world has emerged and everything old is under threat of being
swept away.
It is this transition from “hard”
industry—steel mills and auto plants—to a new world economy
that constitutes one of the basic features of post-industrial
society. We have only to look at some figures to understand the
depth of this shift away from hard industry to a more technical,
service-based economy. Below are listed the major countries of
the West and how work in these nations has been restructured.
| Nations |
Agriculture |
Industry |
Service |
| France |
3.3 |
26.1 |
70.8 |
| Germany |
1.3 |
32.1 |
66.6 |
| Italy |
3.1 |
30.4 |
66.5 |
| UK |
1.3 |
28.8 |
69.9 |
| US |
1.7 |
26.1 |
72.2 |
These figures were compiled in 2002 by the
OECD* and show two important facts. First, of all the countries
listed, the United States has undergone the largest shift from
an industrial to a service economy. Secondly, that the shift
from an industrial to non-industrial economy is a universal not
a localized phenomenon throughout the West.
The information provided by the OECD begs the
question: What caused the shift from industrialism to
post-industrialism?
The simple answer is that a multitude of
factors—mainly technological—had arisen to challenge modern
Western Industrial society as early as 1939. Alvin Toffler
asserts that it was the “programmable digital computer”
invented to “decode messages during World War Two” that
began the push towards post-industrialization. For out of the
technology that produced the computer came “even more
sophisticated information technologies” that precipitated “a
general crisis of industrialism.” And while most people may
not understand the history behind the computer, they do
understand its impact on their lives.
ATM’s, pc’s, cell phones, digital cable,
satellite television—a myriad of gizmos and gadgets that
confound older folk and comfort younger folk—permeate the
lives of everyone on the planet from
Bombay to Boston. It is the
production of these gizmos and gadgets that have replaced hard
industrial manufacturing as the basis of Western economic
activity.
What people must understand is that the days
when the General Motors** or
United States Steel were considered
the giants of the world’s economy are gone forever.
Post-industrialization means that the uneducated and unskilled
populations of the West are doomed to be left out of almost all
significant economic activity. In sociological terms,
post-industrialism will create an expanding underclass made up
of poorly educated and unskilled Black and minority people!
We have said that the
post-industrialization
means an end to production/assembly line jobs and the expansion
of the tech/service sector. One would think that these sectors
would provide security for the post-industrial worker. But there
are problems ahead for these sectors also. The high tech sector
has been affected by the watchword of the post-industrial age:
“downsizing.” Instead of expanding the economy,
post-industrialism seems to be contracting the economy. The
question is why?
The answer lies in how post-industrialism is
structured. For the period of industrialism, bigger was better.
Large factories, huge labor forces, massive usage of raw
material made enormous output possible. Industrialization was,
simply put, a large scale operation. But production in the
post-industrial period stresses the exact opposite of what made
industrialization work. Efficiency over scale is what
characterizes post-industrialization: Smaller
is better.
Here’s an example of what I mean. Take the
television. Back in the olden days, televisions were huge. In
the 1950’s no one thought that it would be possible to build
one that could fit in your hand. If they did conceive of
such a thing, it was usually found in science fiction magazines.
Today, you can go to any store that sells electronics and get a
hand held model—in color no less. I won’t even mention the
reduction of the size of cell phones. I have no doubt that one
day a cell phone will be produced small enough to rest in a
human ear and activated by the human voice. But that’s what
post-industrialism does; it makes things smaller by being more
efficient.
But efficiency is not just a matter of size.
Efficiency also has to do with how much labor goes in to
producing an item. And here is the rub of the high tech sector,
efficiency means less labor is needed to make a product in the
post-industrial age. Translated, this means as we become more
and more efficient, there may be fewer jobs to go around.
Let me give another example to illustrate my
point. During the industrial period, the finish on cars was
spray-painted on by a given number of workers. But soon robots
(post-industrial invention) and not human workers were doing the
job. And despite the cry of the autoworkers union (UAW), today
not a single car comes off the production line of GM hand
painted by humans! If this model prevails, there may eventually
be fewer people working in the high tech sector than there are
now.
Okay, if there are problems in the high tech
sector, then what about the service sector. The good news is
that there are a lot of service jobs out there. The bad news is
that they don’t pay very much.
What an industrial worker in GM made in a
month once upon a time sometimes takes a service worker two,
maybe three, months to make. And these jobs usually have few
benefits to offer their workers. When they do offer benefits as
in the case of those offered to State employees, there is always
pressure to make the State worker assume more and more of the
cost for these benefits. This can be devastating when without
some form of health care a worker’s entire life savings can be
wiped out by illness or injury!
But I started this essay quoting
Dickens.
And, undoubtedly, the reader will complain that I have given
every possible “worst case” scenario when speaking of
post-industrialism. This may be true. But, if I have been
pessimistic, it is all to the good of the reader. Understanding
the pitfall will keep the reader well ahead of the game. Still,
let me say now that the post-industrial period contains just as
many wonderful possibilities as pitfalls.
For example, the pc, websites, and the
Internet have allowed human beings to interact on a level
heretofore known. Current information technology allows the
possibility of real consensus building to occur around issues as
diverse as global warming, freeing political prisoners to home
schooling. If you
are reading this article than you are most certainly at the ChickenBones:
A Journal website. You have been brought here by
post-industrial technology and you have at your disposal
thousands of files about African-American politics, culture,
art, music and other subjects. This website and others currently
online, such as Arthur Flower’s
Rootsblog:
A Cyberhoodoo Webspace,
truly allow a handful of brothers and sisters to be real players
in how African-American and progressive thought develops in
America—perhaps even in the world.
Moreover, there is the potential for the
remaking of the workplace through this technology. For instance,
if large industrial factories are gone forever, they might be
replaced by new-worker co-opts. These co-opts could be designed
to allow several families or any number of persons to enter in
to the productions of goods and services that can be both
consumed and traded out for other goods and services the co-opt
need. Several of these co-opts might come together to take part
in bigger projects. After these projects are over, they might
choose to operate autonomously or in concert with other co-opts.
And, these co-opts might extend to the creation of art,
music, or literature. Alvin Toffler in his futurist book,
The
Third Wave, speaks of a new consumer/producer society made
possible by current on-the-shelf technology.
Today, many students are obtaining degrees
through “distance learning.” And there is no doubt that this
“electronic” curriculum will expand. This process may make
colleges and universities obsolete. Interactive programming may
allow a student to study with a “digital” professor. Another
possibility is that students may be taught by a computer
generated construct that would eliminate the need for human
teachers all together.
One can envision that the entire course of
study for Harvard, Yale, Howard, or Morehouse downloaded by a
student anywhere in the world. These students’ finals would be
taken via a computer rather than in a classroom. Such
decentralized learning would eliminate forever the disparity in
funding for education. In the post-industrial period, all
students would be allowed to obtain the same basic package of
curriculum wherever they live and whoever they are!
It is this same post-industrial technology
that could make “global democracy” a possibility. We can
literally wire the entire world and conduct plebiscites on
issues important to the whole of humanity or a nation-even a
village. And if “global democracy is denied to us, we can
mobilize and oppose those who would force their will on us
through e-mailing other like-minded people and calling them into
the street for massive demonstrations.
New local political parties might emerge
owing no allegiance to more centralized, hierarchical centralize
parties of the left and right. Like economic co-ops, local
political parties might come together to elect a presidential
candidate and then quickly dissolve to deal with local or
regional issues. The post-industrial era can be one of
heightened progressive—even revolutionary—activity if we so
desire! Yet, if
these promises are to be made real, then we must do it
ourselves. We must organize ourselves! We can not afford to be
passed over and passed by.
Black people, especially, have a role to play
in the post-industrial environment. We were scorned and
dismissed during the industrial age. Tied to plantations, then
to the plant floor, and now pushed out into the street like
refuse. Black people have a chance to make a place from
themselves in this new world. But to do so, we must throw off
cynicism and we must act boldly, as boldly as the first slave
who escaped the plantation. And just as that slave threw off the
shackles of slavery by following the North Star. We must find a
new pole star to act as our compass in the new post-industrial
world! Truly now, we have nothing to lose and everything to
gain!!
Notes
*Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development
** Currently General Motors make more money
through mortgages lending than by selling cars!
posted 2003
* * *
* *
*
* * * *
 |
Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
|
* *
* * *
|
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
|
 |
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* * * *
*
ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music, and more)
update 4 February
2012
|
