Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

CHAPTER FOUR
Regulation School theory
There is widespread awareness that we live in tumultuous times. To be sure, each
generation readily comes to believe that its own times are unprecedentedly
volatile, so some scepticism is in order when hearing those who announce that
we are going through a ‘second Industrial Revolution’. Nevertheless, something
special appears to be happening in our epoch. Authoritative and dispassionate
figures observe that ours is an exceptional period. Historian Eric Hobsbawm
(1994), for instance, considers that the decades since 1975 represent ‘the greatest,
most rapid and fundamental [changes] in recorded history’ (p. 8). It is widely
acknowledged that established relationships are undergoing major change and
that, in addition, the pace of change is quicker than at any time in history.
Take occupations: not very long ago most working-class youths in Britain’s
industrial areas such as South Wales and the North East could confidently (if
unenthusiastically) expect to follow their fathers into the collieries, shipyards or
steelworks. Those jobs, already reduced in the 1960s and 1970s, disappeared
during the 1980s. In these regions new occupations are either state-created
‘govvies’ or in areas such as tourism, leisure and personal care. No one believes
we can return to the old sureties. Indeed, occupations such as coal miner that
stamped parts of Britain with a distinctive identity (and accounted for as much
as 5 per cent of the entire workforce a century ago) are now almost as anachronistic
as silk weavers of Spitalfields.
Politically we had got used to a world divided into two camps after 1945.
But 1989 put an end to that, with what were the most momentous political
upheavals of the twentieth century bringing about the collapse of communist
regimes just about everywhere (China remains the major exception, with its queer
combination of authoritarian communism and support for the market). In the
space of a few months, what had become an apparent fixture of the political scene
had gone. The ‘transitional’ economies such as Ukraine, Bulgaria and Estonia
have experienced enormous upheaval and uncertainty, and no one can be confident
about their long-term future, but a return to the recent past is unimaginable.
Socially we have had major, if intermittent, riots on the mainland of Britain
over the past twenty-five years, erupting in urban centres such as London,
Liverpool, Birmingham, Bradford and Bristol, and extending even to suburban
High Wycombe. We cannot know when such lawless uprisings will next recur,
but there are few doubts that they will be repeated at some time and in some
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