ABSTRACT
The idea of postindustrial society emerged in the 1960s, provoked by contemporary revolutions in technology, management, consumption, and employment. It portrays a new world where technicians, professionals, and managers dominate; where old fashioned manual labor disappears; where consumers’ appetites are driven toward services. The theorists of social culture believe in the coming of a new majority with post-materialist values focused on the quality of life. The issues of traditional industrial society, such as poverty, scarcity, and social class fade into historical memory. Economists often premise their analysis on Engels’s Law. As nations become richer, consumption will shift from basic necessities to “luxury” goods, such as leisure and services. In the past, the service economy was usually defined as the residual left when a person has accounted for agriculture and industry. Retail store employment may be large, and it may even grow, but it is hard to see anything postindustrial about it.
