ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the work of leading social theorists where they have touched upon theories related to the process of industrialisation and the development of industrial societies. It deals with a survey of the ideas of Marx, Weber and Durkheim and describes their great insights into the process of industrial development. The chapter shows that an exposition of the analyses of industrial society of six leading social thinkers in the period since the Second World War: Raymond Aron, John Kenneth Galbraith, Daniel Bell, Jurgen Habermas, Ernest Mandel and Herbert Marcuse. The great trinity of classical sociological thinkers, Marx, Weber and Durkheim, were all deeply concerned about the nature and direction of change of the industrialising societies of their time. The group of specialists, called by Galbraith the technostructure, is ‘the association of men of diverse technical knowledge, experience or other talent which modern industrial technology and planning require.
