ABSTRACT
Since the 1960s there has been a growth in literature questioning the continuing nature of industrialism and the potential advent of a postindustrial society. Originally this perspective gained most influence in neopluralist circles in the USA, although it was also inspired by the rise of a variety of social movements in the late 1960s (Dunleavy and O’Leary 1987:290-2). This development has been accompanied more recently by proclamations that Western capitalism has moved variously from Fordism to post-Fordism (Amin 1994b), from modernity to postmodernity or into the age of McDonaldisation (Ritzer 1993). The 1990s have also witnessed new literature which accepts that post-industrial societies have now emerged (Esping-Andersen 1991, 1993; Clement and Myles 1994).
