Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY
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The premise of this model of society and social change is challenged when
one examines the substance of service work (i.e. services in terms of occupations
rather than of sectoral categorisations) and the real relations between the tertiary
and other industrial sectors. It is apparent upon closer examination that service
occupations, defined as those the outputs of which are non-material or ephemeral
(Gershuny and Miles, 1983, p. 47), are not limited to the service sector. An
accountant working in a bank or in an electronics factory can be categorised as
belonging either to the service or the manufacturing sector, though the work done
may scarcely differ. Similarly, a carpenter working in a college of education or
on a building site can be in either category. What this implies is that industrial
classifications do not illuminate effectively the type of work performed, and that
many producers of goods can be found in the service sector while many nonproducers
are in the primary and secondary sectors. In fact, Gershuny and Miles
calculate that as much as half the growth in service occupations is a result of
‘intra-sector tertiarisation’ rather than of inter-sector shifts (1983, p. 125).
For example, when a manufacturer expands white-collar staff, perhaps in
marketing, training or personnel, the firm is taking on service workers the better
to allow the company to stay in business more effectively, by for instance
improving sales methods, teaching workers to be more efficient, or more carefully
selecting employees. These are each expressions of an increased division of
labour within a particular sector which boosts the number of service occupations.
Most important, however, such examples must lead us to reject Bell’s presentation
of the service sector as some sort of parasite on the industrial base. If we
can recognise similar occupations across the sectors (managers of all sorts, clerks,
lawyers, etc.), then we surely cannot assert that in one sector some of these occupations
are productive while in another all they do is consume the resources
generated from the other. One has rather to cast doubt on the value of a sectoral
division which suggests one is wholly productive while the other is concerned
only with consumption.
This does bring into question the use of regarding society in terms of separate
sectoral levels, but the definitive rejection of such a way of seeing comes when
one looks more closely at the service sector itself. What one sees there is that
a good deal of service sector work is engaged, not in consuming the wealth
created by industry, but in assisting its generation. Gershuny, in contending
that ‘the growth of the service sector of employment . . . is largely a manifestation
of the process of the division of labour’ (Gershuny, 1978, p. 92), leads one
to realise the ‘systematic link between the secondary and tertiary sectors’ (Kumar,
1978, p. 204) and the consequent absurdity of sharply distinguishing realms in
the manner of Bell.
Browning and Singelmann, for instance, identify ‘producer services’ such as
banking and insurance that are largely a ‘reflection of the increasing division of
labour’ (Browning and Singelmann, 1978, p. 30). It is only by donning a pair
of theoretical blinkers that one can perceive services as distinctly apart from
production activities. The following observation from Gershuny is subversive of
all theorisations that foresee services springing from the ‘productivity’ of the
‘goods producing sector’:
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