Ecology and Society

An Introduction

Luke Martell

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780745610238
  9780745610221
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780745667720
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book introduces green ideas to students of the social sciences, showing how society affects and is affected by nature and assessing the future of the green movement.

1

Ecology and Industrialism

One of the obvious areas of sociology in which environmental concerns ought to be considered is the sociology of industrialism, the rationality and practices of industrialism being a repeated object of attention in discussions about the environment. The sociology of industrialism is a longstanding and well-researched field (see Kumar 1978 and Badham 1984) in which environmental issues are highly relevant yet largely excluded. This chapter discusses how such issues are relevant to this area of sociology. It looks at the limits of the sociology of industrialism and at an environmentalist analysis of industrialism. This sets us up for the rest of the book, which is concerned with the interaction between the study of society and politics and the ideas of environmentalism.

Environmental issues need to be more considered in the sociology of industrial societies – both in research and courses. However they are at present generally excluded by the focus of these on the internal requirements, contradictions and reproduction of industrialism. In the first section of this chapter I will outline the main preoccupations of the sociology of industrial societies and the way in which they focus on internal social processes at the expense of external natural-environmental factors. In the second section I will discuss why such factors are relevant to a complete understanding of social processes.

The section following that outlines the main claims of a famous and influential ecological study of industrialism, the Limits to Growth report, in order to demonstrate the relevance of ecology and environmental factors to the sociology of industrialism. The subsequent section deals with criticisms of the report. The report’s arguments are typical of those in the green literature more generally, and criticisms of it are typical of those often made of green thinking.

Finally I will shift the emphasis from developed industrial nations to less developed countries to show how, in this case also, economic, social and political development is interrelated with external natural-environmental factors and how the latter are integral to a complete sociological understanding of the predicament and future fate of the developing world.

The ecological limits and internalist focus of the sociology of industrialism

Sociologists have tended to focus on the interaction of industrial and social development in the formation and reproduction of industrial societies at the expense of attention to external natural-environmental factors affected by and affecting such processes. The sociology of industrialism is limited in ignoring, first, the environmental consequences of social processes – pollution, for example. Second, in a reverse direction, it ignores the range of factors which affect societal development which are natural as well as social – resource availability for instance.

Industrial and social processes have an effect on the environment and natural environmental factors affect industrial and social development. Yet sociologists focus on the internal social processes of industrial societies at the expense of their interrelationships with the natural environment. As such they are unable to gain a full and realistic understanding of the causes and effects of the industrial and social processes they are interested in. The neglect of the environment in the sociology of industrialism is problematic as such, not only for environmental but also for sociological reasons.

Sociology was founded amidst the establishment and gathering speed of industrialism, and its foundation was oriented to laying down a set of concepts and theories intended to make sense of the developing modern industrial order. Alienation and exploitation, the division of labour and anomie, rationalization and legitimacy were all major defining themes in the work of founding figures like Marx, Durkheim and Weber respectively (see Giddens 1971) and are of enduring concern in contemporary sociology.

The concepts and preoccupations that were developed by the founders of the discipline in the nineteenth century reflected this milieu and have imposed their imprint on sociology since. Sociologists of industrialism like Kumar (1978) and Badham (1984) describe this fact. Sociology textbooks like Lee and Newby (1983) reflect it, examining the interpretations of industrialism made by classical sociological theorists and the contemporary application of those early established preoccupations.

What, then, have been the typical concerns of sociological studies of industrial societies? To what extent have they failed to account for environmental factors? And how are such factors relevant to the explanation of the formation and development of industrial societies?

Industry and society

Maria Hirszowicz (1981:1) defines industrialism as ‘the new stage of social organisation in which human life is dominated by industrial production’. Sociologists tend to look at aspects of industrial society (the state, education, ideology and class divisions, for example) in terms of the extent to which they reproduce industrialism, cause it conflict or strife or gain their character from the stage of development of industrial production.

One way of understanding the preoccupations of the sociology of industrialism is to think of them as being concerned with the interrelationship of industry and society – both the effects of the development of industry on society and of society on industry. Let me take these two different directions of causality in turn.

First, sociologists have been concerned with the effects of industrial production and economic and technological change on social structures and processes. They look, for instance, at the effects of the development of mechanization, economic growth and the factory system on work organization, patterns of residence and migration, the degree of community in social relations, changing forms of political structure and shifts in forms of social structure and social mobility.

Secondly and conversely, they have been interested in the way social structures and processes have an effect on industry and industrial and economic development. For instance, the extent to which social structures and processes, as well as gaining their character from the effects of industrial production, contribute to the reproduction of industrialism (e.g. through education, the family, the state or ideology) or cause it conflict or strife (e.g. as a result of class divisions, loss of state legitimation or ideological dissensus) – these are further issues of prime concern to sociologists.

Richard Badham has argued, along these lines, that the central concerns of the sociology of industrialism are the ‘social requirements of industrial development, social structures that either facilitate or hinder the efficient pursuit of industry and the impact of industrial development on society’ (Badham 1984:2).

Different areas of study of the industry–society relationship

Let me illustrate my argument about the focus of the sociology of industrialism on the effects of industry on social processes and vice versa by looking in more detail at major concerns in the area.

1 The effects of industrialism on social relations Sociologists working in this area are often interested in the social implications of technical and economic changes such as mechanization, economic growth and the factory system at the time of the industrial revolution and, more recently, developments such as automation and computerization. These are seen to have an effect on: the growth and decline of patterns of residence and migration, first urbanization with industrialization and later deurbanization with developments such as improved transport, communications and information technology; changes in the depth of social relations from pre-industrial community to alienation, anomie and looser forms of association after industrialization, associated with urbanization and the division of labour; changes in the experience of work and social structure and mobility with the decline of old forms of work and the growth of new occupations; the development of bureaucratic and democratic forms of political system and ideologies and forms of family and education suited to meeting the needs of industrialism.¹

2 The dynamic of industrialism Sociologists of industrialism are also concerned with explaining changes with the development of industrial societies arising out of technological change and concomitant social changes. Some explanations focus on the shift of industrial capitalism in its ‘late’ or ‘advanced’ phases from ‘liberal’ and ‘laissez-faire’ to more ‘corporate’ or ‘monopoly’ forms and then, in some, back to ‘disorganized’ forms. ‘Convergence’ theories propose an endogenously driven logic of convergence towards common sets of social and cultural institutions among industrial societies as a result of their common industrial character. ‘Post-industrialists’ see industrial societies as moving into a new era – the ‘information society’, ‘knowledge society’ or ‘service society’ – based on the manufacture of information rather than goods, service industry rather than manufacturing, white collar rather than blue collar work and post-scarcity, technical knowledge and expertise. ‘Post Fordists’ see industrial societies as moving not beyond industrialism but from a Fordist mode of industrialism based on mass production, standardization and uniformity in economic and social life towards greater diversification, flux and flexibility in production, consumption and social lifestyles. All these explanations are concerned to trace the dialectic between technology and social process, between technical change and new forms of economic organization and social structure.²

3 The bases of order and cohesion in industrialism Another area of concern in the sociology of industrial societies has been with the ideological and political bases on which social order, cohesion and compliance are secured and maintained. Sociologists look, for instance, at the role of dominant ideologies in securing normative agreement among dominant and subordinate groups in society. And they examine the way in which states secure and maintain their legitimacy among citizens through appeals to their democratic and representative credentials and by attempting to meet the contradictory demands of different groups in society. Once again the focus is on the relationship between industry and society. It examines the requirements of industrial production and capital accumulation and their relationship to social and ideological institutions and norms which meet those requirements.³

4 The reproduction of industrialism Relatedly, sociologists also examine the role of institutions like the family and education system in the biological and social production and reproduction of industrialism. They examine the sexual division of labour behind the production and reproduction of the workforce and their socialization in the family and education system into structures and imperatives of hierarchy, division of labour, competition and achievement appropriate to the smooth running of modern industrial capitalist economies.⁴ In other words they examine the relationship between the requirements of industrialism, and its productive base in particular, and appropriate social institutions.

5 The impact of industrialism on work and social structure Sociologists have also been interested in the effects of economic and technical change in industrialism on the nature and experience of work and on the shape of the occupational or social structure. They look, for instance, at the impact of the shift from agricultural and skilled craft production to less skilled assembly-line factory work with machines. They have had an interest in the development of techniques such as Taylorism and scientific management and, subsequently, the effect on types and locations of industry and the work experience of automation, computerization and the information revolution. Job satisfaction or enrichment, degradation and deskilling have been important concerns. Sociologists have been interested in shifts between different sectors of industry – agricultural, manufacturing and service, for instance – and the implications these have for the occupational and class structure in society – the decline of the male, manual, manufacturing worker, for instance, and the growth of white collar and part-time temporary work and the feminization of the labour force.⁵

The main point about these different areas of preoccupation in the sociology of industrialism is that they focus on the relationship between industry and society, whether they perceive causality in one direction or the other. They fail to break out of that relationship to a conceptualization of the relations between industry and society on one hand and the external natural world on the other: how they impact on the external natural world with resultant effects back again and how that external natural world imposes constraints and limits in its own right. I have focused so far on the ecological limits of sociological explanations of industrialism. The same sort of limits exist in relation to criticisms of industrialism.

Critiques of industrialism

Sociologists have not been uncritical of industrialism. From Marx, Weber and Durkheim on they have questioned the capitalist or socialist, individualist or bureaucratic forms that industrialism has taken. They have looked sorrowfully at its centralizing, bureaucratic and alienating tendencies, at division and conflict and at what has been lost as well as gained relative to the past (see Giddens 1971).

But the critique of industrialism has been ‘internalist’ and has rarely looked at industrialism in its external context. The first sense in which it has been internalist relates to the range of empirical factors of which its conceptual framework extends to taking account. The second relates to the range of theoretical alternatives it incorporates.

The empirical point first: critiques of industrialism have been mostly within a concern with the industrial or social forms industrialism has taken. Exploitation, bureaucratization, anomie and so on all describe phenomena internal to industrial and social relations. The critiques do not generally break out of the industry–society relationship to a framework which assesses the relationship between industry, society and the wider natural environment.⁶ This is the first empirical sense in which critiques of industrialism are internalist. They are empirically uninclusive of the range of relationships involved in industry–society–nature processes when they try to build critical appraisals of the merits and limitations of industrial societies.

The second way in which critiques of industrialism are internalist concerns more the range of theoretical alternatives accounted for in criticisms of industrial societies. In addition to not taking the external natural world into account, they have, after some initial hankering for a pre-industrial past, become increasingly focused on alternative paradigms within an acceptance of industrial production and growth to the exclusion of alternatives outside the industrial paradigm. Critiques have been around socialist or capitalist, liberal or collectivist alternative forms of industrialism. They exclude attention to evaluations which come from outside industrialist assumptions and can question industrialism itself as well as the different forms of it. So in a theoretical as well as empirical sense their focus is internal to industry society factors and the paradigm of industrialism and does not extend to a conceptualization of relations external to the industry–society relationship and to alien non-industrial paradigms of reference and evaluation.

Ecology and the sociology of industrialism

Let me summarize the usefulness of ecology for a fuller and more realistic sociology of industrialism, capable of conceptualizing the range of factors involved in the formation and development of industrial and social processes. There are three points: the first concerns the meaning of ‘ecology’; the second the traditional focus of sociology; the third the relevance of natural factors identified by ecologists to societal processes of interest to sociologists.

First, ‘ecology’. This is usually taken to mean the study of the relationships between humans, plants and animals and between them and their wider environment. In other words it looks not only at the internal societies of species but also at how their character and development forms in interaction with other species and in relation to broader environmental conditions.⁷

Secondly, sociology, on the other hand, is not a particularly ecological discipline in the full sense of this word, because it analyses the internal structures and processes of human societies in isolation from the external natural environment and without paying attention to the relationship between society and external natural factors in the way that ecologists do. Sociologists do look at individuals in their social environment. There has even been a branch of the discipline – human ecology – dedicated to a fuller ecological conceptualization of social life in the wider context of its physical surroundings.⁸ But few sociologists have stretched out to a conceptualization of social life in the natural environmental context.

These two points so far suggest that sociology does not take full account of the range of social and non-social factors which impinge on the formation and development of human societies and that ecology can bring back into sociology a fuller account of such excluded external natural factors.

This brings us to the third point. What sort of relationship with society have I suggested that external natural factors have? There are three ways in which such a relationship can be seen to occur: the first involves the impact of nature on society; the second the impact of society on nature; the third the effect of society’s impact on nature back on society again.

First, external natural factors limit the way in which societies develop. Sociologists have been well aware of the significance of technological developments, cultural conditions, the existence of specific social groupings and political c...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Introduction
• 1 Ecology and Industrialism
• 2 The Sustainable Society
• 3 Green Philosophy
• 4 The Green Movement
• 5 Ecology and Political Theory
• 6 Rethinking Relations between Society and Nature
• 7 The Future of Environmentalism
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• References
• Index