Criticism of Technological Determinism in the Study of the Dynamics of Industrial Society in the West

The article analyzes the criticism of established ideas about the historical dynamics of industrial society, which are characterized by Eurocentrism, economic and technological determinism. On the basis of a historiographic analysis, the authors of the article distinguish three ideological flows of criticism of Western industrialism. The first direction speaks about the principal finiteness of the hegemony of the industrial West and the erosion of its system core. At the end of the twentieth century, structuralist theories critically rethought the Eurocentric model of capitalism. Representatives of the California School (J. Goldstone, A.G. Frank, R.B. Wong, C. Pomerantz, J. Lee, W. Feng) claimed that the success of industrial Europe was due to the temporary lag of the East. Sociologist I. Wallerstein claims that Western capitalism is unstable, and Western dominance ends in the 21st century. The second direction criticizes the foundations of the overly mechanized, deterministic society, in which the interests of profit and conveyor production suppress a person. Philosophers of the 20th century (O. Spengler, L. Mamford, J. Ortega y Gasset, G. Marcuse, J. Habermas) criticized the mechanism of industrial society. In the 1960s, J. Galbraith introduced the concept of technostructure, whose goal is unlimited economic growth. J. Beniger introduced the concept "revolution of control", which was understood as the formation of supranational structures that carry out centralized control of production and exchange. The third direction unites sociocultural theories. At the turn of the 20th century, ideas developed that public institutions and people's behavior are formed under the influence of not only economic factors, but also cultural traditions and social attitudes (F. Tonnies, M. Weber). The sociocultural approach was developed by P. Sorokin, who considered the desire for bodily comfort and pleasure to be the basis of industrial society. Psychologists D. Atkinson, J. Cortes, D. McClelland associate the achievements of Western countries with the dominance of collective motivation for success. Philosopher M. McLuhan linked the rise of the West in the New Age with the spread of universal education and literacy in Europe. Sociologists Sh. Eisenshtadt, R. Collins, Ch. Tilly distinguished religion, political system and autonomy of individual as factors of progress. Historian J. Bronowski expressed the idea of a connection between sociocultural shifts and technological development. The authors of the article come to the conclusion that historiography has developed an understanding of the high role of sociocultural factors of historical dynamics. Linear Eurocentric theories are largely corrected by a number of provisions, including important factors such as the long process of cultural change, the evolution of social behavior, rationalism, and the formation of large corporations.

Keywords

Authors

References