If a nation becomes "post-industrial" it passes through, or dodges, a phase of society predominated by a manufacturing-based economy and moves on to a structure of society based on the provision of information, innovation, finance, and services.
As the term has been used, a few common themes (not limited to those below) have begun to emerge.
Daniel Bell popularized the term through his 1973 work The Coming of Post-Industrial Society [1]. Before Bell, the term was also used routinely by the Latin American social philosopher Ivan Illich in his book Tools for Conviviality.
Recently, the term has grown and changed as it became mainstream. The term is now used by admen such as Seth Godin[2], public policy PhD's such as Keith Boeckelman [3], and sociologists such as Neil Fligstein and Ofer Sharone[4]. Clinton even used the term to describe Chinese growth in a round-table discussion in Shanghai in 1998.[5]
A virtual cult of 'creatives' have sprung up embodying and often describing and defending the post-industrial ethos. They argue that businesses that create intangibles have taken a more prominent role in the wake of manufacturing's decline and that in some countries, the production of creative intangibles produces more exports than manufacturing alone.
Actor and artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre, Kevin Spacey, has argued the economic case for the arts in terms of providing jobs and being of greater importance in exports than manufacturing (as well as an educational role) in a guest column he wrote for The Times.[6]
Seth Godin in his recent book, "Linchpin" suggests that information technology and globalization will lead to creative jobs being the only ones left in advanced economies.
He suggests becoming creative before the market changes in your neighborhood.
Paul Romer, a professor of economics at Stanford, revolutionized the appreciation of knowledge as a valuable asset. As he says it is not just the "ingredients" (supply) that makes good food, it is the "recipe" (knowledge) that counts too. Better recipe, better food means better knowledge, more economic growth.[7]
More recently, economists at Berkeley studied the value of knowledge as a form of capital, like a factory or a truck. Speaking along the same lines of their argument, the addition or 'production' of knowledge, could become the basis of what would undoubtably be considered 'post-industrial' policies meant to deliver economic growth.[8]
In 2010, the OECD (the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development) encouraged the governments of advanced economies to embrace policies to increase innovation and knowledge in products and services as an economical path to continued prosperity. [9]
When historians and sociologists considered the revolution which followed the agricultural society they did not call it a "post-agricultural society". "Post-industrial society" signifies only a departure, not a positive description.[10][11]
One of the word's early users Ivan Illich prefigured this criticism and invented the word conviviality or the phrase convivial society, to stand as a positive description of his version of a post-industrial society.
A group of geographers (such as Allen Scott and Edward Soja) argue that industry remains at the center of the whole process of capitalist accumulation, with services not only becoming increasingly industrialized and automated but also remaining highly dependent on industrial growth.
Some observers, including Soja (building on the theories of the French philosopher of urbanism Henri Lefebvre), suggest that although industry may be based outside of a 'post-industrial' nation, that nation cannot ignore its necessary sociological importance.