tion with the church. Indeed the party becomes the "church." By being the credo of the disadvantaged in some sense, it feeds on a common identification with "exploited" people both in the West and elsewhere. Socialism insofar as it is accepted as a higher stage of evolution than capitalism is a symbol of modernity. Capitalism is identified with foreigners and exploitation. That socialism, industrialization, and organization have mutually reinforcing qualities is most important for political entrepreneurs. In order to maintain their support, they must begin to achieve some of the goals of nationalism. Most of these goals require organizing society for far more stringent efforts than colonial officials would ever have considered possible. In addition, social welfare costs rise as attacks on immobilities in the system are made. The political entrepreneur must provide a useful all-purpose goal in order to permit subordinate goals to be attained, but he cannot allow his support to diminish as he takes concrete action. Industrialization becomes the all-purpose goal. Through organization, and thereby industrialization, all subordinate goals become attainable. However, nationalists soon recognize that industrialization does not come about at once. Organization is used to direct state enterprise simultaneously toward both developmental and welfare objectives. Forced savings become necessary-a costly means for political entrepreneurs because their followers may become disaffected. Discipline then must be tightened further. The political entrepreneur must cajole and coerce to keep his organization intact until he can begin to send out a stream of benefits. He transforms his political entrepreneurship into economic entrepreneurship via government enterprise and directs his energies to success at that level. State enterprise serves a number of purposes. At the very least it provides rewards for loyal party followers. At the most it attacks prevailing social organization. With industrialization as the all-purpose goal, party and government actions have their own justification, because industrialization itself sets impossible social tasks. Crisis is produced by the objectives and process of industrialization because of the very difficulties that it imposes. Yet once a large-scale attempt to industrialize is made, at least up to the point at which enterprise is so established that net economic growth is registered, all social groups in the system are largely dependent on government and its economic activities. Sources of pluralism in the system are weakened, and all voluntary associations except trade unions become functionally more precise. Everyone becomes dependent in large measure on the gov ernment, and political entrepreneurs become the organizational leaders of a changing society. Industrialization then serves to preserve organization, and it seeks industrialization as a way to gain subordinate goals." At this point socialism as an ethic becomes significant. Organization, which is the object of political entrepreneurship, tends to be regarded with hostility by colonial officials. In compartmentalized systems it is regarded as dangerous. In participant commercial systems organization takes on invidious characteristics by recruiting into mass movements people who have not been socially, economically, or politically successful. In bazaar economies organization fastens on grievance and is, by its very nature, irresponsible. Organization consequently has a history of presumed "irresponsibility," which has been a source of "risk" for political entrepreneurs. On coming to power, they speak for society and with the voice of responsibility. In other words, they need an ethical code that will be widely accepted. Christianity is identified with imperialism in underdeveloped areas and is not conducive to meeting their organizational and industrial needs. By contrast, socialism is an expression of the welfare state. Built into it is modesty about the personal use of power, but a justification for unabashed use of power for industrial and welfare purposes. Further, contemporary socialism in non-Western areas expresses firm beliefs in individual dignity. Some of the values embodied in Christianity are now embodied also in socialism. Socialism is used, first, to justify accumulation of capital for government enterprise; hence taxes, forced savings, and even conscription become morally and organizationally desirable objectives. Both capital and labor are regarded as sources of wealth. Socialism emphasizes disciplined labor and abstinence from current consumption via governmental control. Second, socialism provides for heavy reinvestment in industry as the means of inducing progress, and is heavily weighted with a technological notion of progress. Third, socialism provides the ethics of individual abstinence by emphasizing responsibility to corporate groups-society, party, and work group-while individualism is regarded as potentially antisocial. Thus devotion to party leader, ? See David E. Apter, "Nationalism, Government and Economic Growth," Economic Development and Cultural Change, 7:117–136 (January 1959) for an analysis of optimal conditions for economic growth and mobilization. See also Rupert Emerson, "The Erosion of Democracy in the New States," in his From Empire to Nation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), Chapter 15. organization, and state are justified as socially necessary and part of the selflessness required to bring about dramatic social development. Socialism in both its ideology and its practice has a high regard for rationality. The rationality of capitalism is measured in the market place; that of socialism is measured in planning. Its guide to success is the number of followers and supporters retained by the political entrepreneur, for these determine the effectiveness with which changes that facilitate the industrial process are brought about in the system. Finally, socialism is a form of contemporary puritanism. It emphasizes social thrift, hard work, the dignity of labor, and selflessness. All these are necessary to political entrepreneurs if they are to use government as a major source of industrialization, and the political party as the means. Socialism makes political entrepreneurs respectable leaders of society and makes colonial and business oligarchs disreputable. 19 CHANGING SOCIAL STRUCTURES Clark Kerr The world is currently undergoing a great economic and social transformation. In essence, this transformation is in the commitment of man to a new way of life. Throughout history most of mankind has been committed to a constant way of life, even though particular ways have varied from one place to another and, to a much lesser extent, from one time to another. Commitment to a constant way of life seems to be the natural state of man. The current period of history is distinguished from all others, however, by the immensity of the process of destroying old commitments, no matter how constant they may have been, and by the world-wide uniformity of the new commitment. Men everywhere are transferring themselves fully and finally into the industrial way of life. Great uniformity is developing out of great diversity. Industrialism, itself, is the significant new form of social affiliation. This transformation may be viewed from its end result, the way points between, and its points of origin. The end result is marked by great similarity; the way points, by both great similarity and great dissimilarities; and the points of origin, by great dissimilarities. Viewed from the end result, the transformation is one great process of such overwhelming impact that the current and local variations are almost unimportant. Viewed from points in between, there are roads and alleys and even dead ends; some societies choose one of these and some choose another. The great questions are: why was one choice made rather than another, which choice is best, and how may the choice be influenced? Viewed from the points of origin, the transformation is a complex, confusing process, yielding to few generalizations, and the final outcomes are somewhat uncertain. Each situation is unique and deserves unique consideration. Each view has its merits and each is necessary to a full understanding of this "greatest transformation.” INEVITABILITY OF COMMITMENT The best place to start is with a view of the end result; for industrialism is a great magnet which is drawing all human life to it and ordering the orientation of this life. Whether a society has been matrilineal or patrilineal, whether based on family or tribal owner ship of land, whether responding to the Protestant ethic or the Bantu ethic, or whether it goes through a prior commercial revolution or not, it ends up following the logic of industrialism. The logic of industrialism requires that many things be done. The new society must be on a reasonably large scale, at least as compared with many pre-existing societies; the logic of industrialism may even insist eventually on a single world-wide economy. There must be urban centers of some size. An increasingly diverse occupational structure must reflect an increasingly advanced technology. An educational system must be created to feed this occupational structure and advance the technology that lies behind it. A wage structure reflecting the supply of and demand for the various occupational skills must be developed, although it may reflect, of course, more than these forces alone. A labor market mechanism must be established to sort out and distribute and redistribute workers into a myriad of jobs. There must be managers and there must be the managed-those who give the orders and those who obey them; and these two groups must be related by a whole web of rules governing their relations. There must be industrial discipline at the level of the individual worker and of the group; and the imposition of this discipline requires means for handling the inevitable protests which arise in the industrial order. The state must be reasonably strong to govern the industrial order, and may perhaps become excessively so. Finally, the men who live within the industrial order must accept its imperatives. There is no place for anarchy in the logic of industrialism. This is not to suggest that industrial societies may not be diverse among themselves, at least for a time, but only that their similarities are very great, that they will be much more nearly alike than preindustrial societies, and that these similarities are important for labor commitment, however significant the variations may be in terms of human welfare or in other respects. The variations are found mainly in the emphasis on state as against private initiative, in the character and the role of the elite classes, and in the rate of economic progress which in turn relates to both of the other major variations. To fulfill its logic, industrialism will sweep before it many of the behavioral patterns of prior times, as it has certainly done with almost astonishing success. There are few things so changeable as "customs." In terms of the da ly lives of men, however diverse they may be in parts of the world today, one can foresee with great clarity what they must become. The present can be penetrated best from the vantage point of |
