ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the processes of technological revolution and their impact on society in two groups of countries: the developed Western societies of Europe and North America; and the socialist countries of Eastern and East central Europe. It draws on these two groups of countries, focusing on an East-West comparison and excluding the whole variety of underdeveloped or less developed countries in the southern hemisphere. The rapidity of economic, scientific and social changes in our time produces new problems and complicates the solution of the old ones. Due to the unwillingness of the political leadership to accept more fundamental, reforms, the Polish economy remained over-centralized and inefficient, which resulted in a slow rate of growth and recurring social tensions. The struggle for reforms accelerates interest formation and contradictions in the whole structure of socialist societies.
