ABSTRACT
Industrial society theory is centrally concerned with the novelty and power of science and the social consequences of its industrial application. The development of large-scale industrial organization has fragmented and bureaucratized working conditions, within professional as well as manual strata, and facilitated an increasingly 'instrumental' attitude to work. Industrial society theory is condemned, not only for justifying existing forms of domination as the 'requirements' of modern technology, but for neglecting the extent to which the form taken by industrial development is itself at least partially the product of existing socioeconomic and political relationships. Finally, both 'humanist' and 'structuralist' forms of Marxism have condemned the ideological character of industrial society theory as obscuring the role of class relations and class conflict in both determining the form and use of industrial technology and directing the course of social change. The focus on the industrial complex and its social impact clearly creates a number of problems for industrial society theory.
