SOC 101: Society, Environment and Engineering

Ethics

Lecture:Transformation of Society: From primitive society to industrial

and post-industrial society
• Human culture and human biology are intertwined. Understanding how
culture is related to the physical evolution of the human species can, in
turn, help us understand the central role of culture in shaping our lives.
• Culture enabled early humans to compensate for their physical limitations,
such as lack of claws and sharp teeth and slower running speed relative to
that of other animals (Deacon, 1998).
• It freed humans from dependence on the instinctual responses to the
environment that are characteristic of other species. The larger, more
complex human brain permitted greater adaptive learning in dealing with
major environmental changes such as the Ice Age.
• For example, humans figured out how to build fires and sew clothing for
warmth. Through greater flexibility, humans could survive unpredictable
challenges in their surroundings and shape the world with their ideas and
their tools. In an instant of geological time, they became the dominant
species on the planet.
• Yet early humans were closely tied to their physical environment
because they lacked the technological ability to modify their
surroundings in significant ways. Their ability to secure food and make
clothing and shelter depended on physical resources close at hand.
Cultures varied widely according to geographic and climatic conditions,
from deserts to rain forests, the frozen Arctic to temperate areas.
• In the pre-industrial society food production which is carried out
through the use of human and animal labor is the main economic
activity.
• Pre-industrial society can be subdivided according to their level of
technology and their methods of producing foods.
The Earliest Societies:
• Hunting and gathering societies:
 Societies whose mode of subsistence is gained from hunting animals,
fishing, and gathering edible plants.
 For all but a tiny part of our existence on this planet, human beings have
lived in small hunting and gathering societies, often numbering no more
than 30 or 40 people. Hunters and gatherers gain their livelihood from
hunting, fishing, and gathering wild edible plants. Such cultures still exist in
some parts of the world, such as in India, a few arid parts of Africa,
Australia, the Arctic, and the jungles of Brazil and New Guinea. Most such
cultures, however, have been destroyed or absorbed by the spread of
Western culture. Currently, only about 5 million people in the world
support themselves through hunting and gathering—less than 0.1 percent
of the world’s population (Hitchcock and Beisele, 2000).
• Compared with larger societies—particularly modern societies such as the United
States—there was little inequality in most hunting and gathering groups; everyone
lived in what would today be regarded as extreme poverty. Because necessary
material goods were limited to weapons for hunting, tools for digging and building,
traps, and cooking utensils, there was little difference among members of the society
in the number or kinds of material possessions; there were no divisions between rich
and poor. Hunter & gather don’t create a wide variety of artifacts.
• Differences in position or rank were based on age and gender; men were almost
always the hunters, while women gathered wild crops cooked food, and brought up
the children.
• Hunting and gathering societies were usually participatory rather than competitive:
All adult male members assembled in the face of important decisions or crises.
• Hunters and gatherers had little interest in developing material wealth; their main
concerns were with religious values and ritual activities. Members participated
regularly in elaborate ceremonies.
• Small in Size: Hunting and gathering societies consist of very small
but scattered groups. The environment in which they live cannot
support a large concentration of people.
• Nomadic in Nature: These people are constantly on the move
because they have to leave one area as soon as they have
exhausted its food resources.
• Family and kinship are the only Defined Institutions: Hunting
gathering people have the only interconnected social institutions
which are somewhat well defined namely; family and kinship.
Family is all in all for these people.
• Limited or No Division of Labour: There is no scope for division of
labour in these societies except along the lines of age and sex.
Men and Woman, Young and old perform different roles, but there
are no specialised occupational roles.
Pastoral Societies:
• About 15,000 years ago, some hunting and gathering groups started raising
domesticated animals and cultivating fixed plots of land as their means of livelihood.
Pastoral societies relied mainly on domesticated livestock, societies whose
subsistence derives from the rearing of domesticated animals.
• Depending on the environment, pastoralists reared cattle, sheep, goats, camels, or
horses. Some pastoral societies exist in the modern world, especially in areas of
Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
• Pastoralism is a slightly more efficient form of subsistence. Rather than searching
for food on a daily basis, members of a pastoral society rely on domesticated herd
animals to meet their food needs.
• Pastoralists live a nomadic life, moving their herds from one pasture to another.
Because their food supply is far more reliable, pastoral societies can support larger
populations. As a result, the division of labour becomes more complex. For example,
some people become craftworkers, producing tools, weapons, and jewellery.
Horticultural Societies:
• At some point, hunting and gathering groups began to sow their own crops rather than
simply collect those growing in the wild. This practice developed as horticulture, in which the
group cultivated small gardens by the use of simple hoes or digging instruments. Like
pastoralism, horticulture provided a more reliable food supply than hunting and gathering
and therefore could support larger communities.
• Because they were not on the move, people who practiced horticulture could develop larger
stocks of material possessions than people in either hunting and gathering or pastoral
communities.
• Fruits and vegetables grown in garden plots that have been cleared from the jungle or forest
provide the main source of food in a horticultural society. These societies have a level of
technology and complexity similar to pastoral societies. Some horticultural groups use the
slash-and-burn method to raise crops. The wild vegetation is cut and burned, and ashes are
used as fertilizers.
• As with pastoral societies, surplus food leads to a more complex division of labor. Specialized
roles in horticultural societies include craftspeople, shamans (religious leaders), and traders.
Agrarian societies
• Agrarian societies use agricultural technological advances to cultivate
crops over a large area. This meant a greater surplus, which resulted in
towns that became centers of trade supporting various rulers,
educators, craftspeople, merchants, and religious leaders who did not
have to worry about locating nourishment.
• Farmers provided warriors with food in exchange for protection against
invasion by enemies. A system of rulers with high social status also
appeared. This nobility organized warriors to protect the society from
invasion.
• Bartar: Exchange (goods or services) for other goods or services without
using money.
• These societies, which were based on settled agriculture and the
development of cities, led to pronounced inequalities in wealth and
power, and were ruled by kings or emperors. Because writing was
present and science and art flourished, these societies are often called
civilizations.
• Feudalism was a form of society based on ownership of land. Unlike
today's farmers, vassals under feudalism were bound to cultivating
their lord's land.
• Feudalism to mean a type of culture and society where land holding is
the basis of political and economic power.
• In exchange for military protection, the lords exploited the peasants into
providing food, crops, crafts, homage, and other services to the
landowner.
 Industrialized societies:
 Between the 15th and 16th centuries, a new economic system emerged that began to replace
feudalism. Modern societies are capitalistic. Capitalism an economic system based on the
private ownership of wealth, which is invested and reinvested in order to produce profit.
 Capitalism is marked by open competition in a free market, in which the means of production
are privately owned, competition for markets to sell goods, acquire cheap materials, and use
cheap labor and restless expansion and investment to accumulate capital. Capitalism, which
began to spread with the growth the Industrial Revolution in the early nineteenth century, is a
vastly more dynamic economic system than any other that preceded it in history.
 The introduction of foreign metals, silks, and spices stimulated great commercial activity in
European societies. industrial societies rely heavily on machines powered by fuels for the
production of goods. This produced further dramatic increases in efficiency. The increased
efficiency of production of the industrial revolution produced an even greater surplus than
before.
 Once again, the population boomed. Increased productivity made more goods available to
everyone. However, inequality became even greater than before. The breakup of agricultural
based feudal societies caused many people to leave the land and seek employment in cities.
 This created a great surplus of labor and gave capitalists plenty of laborers who could be hired
for extremely low wages.
 Strongly developed nation-states in which the majority of the population works in
factories or offices rather than in agriculture, and most people live in urban areas.
 Industrialization—the emergence of machine production based on the use of
inanimate power resources (such as steam or electricity). The industrialized, or
modern, societies differ from any previous type of social order in several key
respects, and their development has had consequences stretching far beyond their
European origins.
 Industrialization originated in eighteenth-century Britain as a result of the Industrial
Revolution, a complex set of technological changes between 1750 and 1850 that
affected people’s means of gaining a livelihood. These changes included the
invention of new machines, the harnessing of power resources (especially water
and steam) for production, and the use of science to improve production methods.
 Because discoveries and inventions in one field lead to more in others, the pace of
technological innovation in industrialized societies is extremely rapid compared
with that of traditional social systems
• In even the most advanced of traditional civilizations, most people
worked on the land. By contrast, in industrialized societies today, the
majority of the employed population works in factories, offices, or
shops. And slightly more than half of all people (53 percent) live and
work in urban areas.
• The largest cities are vastly larger than the urban settlements of
traditional civilizations. Large-scale organizations, such as business
corporations or government agencies, influence the lives of virtually
everyone.
• With industrialization, transportation and communication became
much more rapid, promoting a more integrated “national”
community.
Post-Industrial Societies:
• Post-industrial societies are societies dominated by
information, services, and high technology more than the
production of goods. Advanced industrial societies are
now seeing a shift toward an increase in service sectors
over manufacturing and production.
• The U.S. is the first country to have over half of its work
force employed in service industries. Service industries
include government, research, education, health, sales,
law, banking, and so on. It is still too early to identify and
understand all the ramifications this new kind of society
will have for social life.
• In fact, even the phrase "post-industrial" belies the fact
that we don't yet quite know what will follow industrial
• An increase in the size of the service sector or job that perform
services rather than creating goods (industry). Manual labor jobs
and blue collar jobs are replaced with technical and professional
jobs.
• New focus on information and technology means that people must
pursue greater education & shift in workplace from cities to homes:
New communications technology allows work to be performed from
a variety of locations.
• We’re experiencing a transition to a new type of society that is no
longer based primarily on manufacturing or low paying service
work, but rather relies increasingly on information technology,
artificial intelligence, and robotics to replace human labor in a
growing range of jobs—from unskilled labor slinging hamburgers to
the highly skilled work of engineers, accountants, and other
professionals.
• The post-industrial society is large due to the shift in the kinds of work and
the processing of information technology. There is much emphasis on
information processing and therefore, sometimes the emerging post-
industrial society is also called ‘information society’.
• There is a focus on new technologies, how to create and utilize them as well
as harness them, New technologies foster the need for new scientific
approaches like IT and cybersecurity, Society needs more college graduates
with advanced knowledge who can help develop and advance technological
change.
• In a post-industrial society, knowledge is the basis for invention and
innovation. It creates added value, increases returns and saves capital.
Intellectual technology (based on math and linguistics) is at the forefront,
utilizing algorithms, software programming, simulations and models to run
new "high technology. The infrastructure of a post-industrial society is based
on communication whereas the infrastructure of industrial society was
transportation.