Question

Compare and contrast the industrial and the post-industrial society.

Answer 1

Society can broadly be defined as the aggregate of people in a more or less ordered community or an economic, social, or industrial infrastructure, made up of a varied collection of individuals. It has been evolving from the time the first men appeared on earth to the present moment. An Industrial society is a society driven by the use of technology to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labour. A post-industrial society is one where the service sector produces more wealth than the industrial or manufacturing sector. It also refers to a growth in Information technology where it is possible for vast information to be stored, retrieved and dissipated through the use of computers. 

The use of energy was responsible for the industrial revolution in the industrial society as well as the emergence of the ICT sector in the post-industrial society. In the industrial society, steam and electricity transformed the method and scale of manufacturing. But in the post industrial society, energy is being transformed into information and knowledge. ICT serves as a resource, a control device for the organisation of large masses of material and production. Therefore we can see that intellectual technology is replacing mechanical technology nowadays. 

One more common feature in industrial and post industrial societies is mass-production of goods. . But the way in which manufacture was organized long ago and nowadays is different. As seen above, we are presently living in an era where coded programming, software and various other devices which have become the way in which resources are organized for production.