Social Change: Causes of Social Change
Causes of Social Change
Overview
Social change is broadly defined as the transformation of cultural,
economic, political and social institutions and relationships over time.
Sociologists are interested in identifying how change is initiated, for
what or whose purposes and with what consequences. While some aspects
of social change create positive results (for instance, democracy and
human rights expanded in the aftermath of the American and French
revolutions), many have unintended consequences (for instance, the
expanded availability of
communications technology blurs conventional
boundaries between home and work). In fact, not all social groups view
and respond to social change as positive. While social change might seem
inevitable from a contemporary perspective, its causes and pace vary
over time. In past historical periods social change was often forced by
disease, famine or war: in modern times, social change has been
increasingly linked to technology and the availability of information.
Technological development is, in turn, associated with 'modernization,' a
process of social development through which societies move from one set
of economic, political and social arrangements (for instance,
traditional) to another (for instance, modern). These transitions are
not necessarily discrete. For instance, within contemporary contexts,
traditional forms of interaction (such as face-to-face) coexist with
technologically directed interaction (such as instant messaging).
Finally, not all social groups appreciate social change. While liberal
reformers are typically in favor of social change (because they define
social change in terms of social improvement), social conservatives are
more hesitant about social change because they are concerned about the
loss of tradition, for instance, in relation to authority.
Defining Social Change
Social change is broadly defined as the transformation of cultural,
economic, political and social institutions and relationships over time.
In order to chart social change, it is necessary to develop a baseline
(a point against which all data are measured) and to create reliable
instruments of measurement. The general baseline for measuring broad
social change in Western societies is the great transformation
associated with the Industrial Revolution in England (and later
elsewhere) from 1780-1840, and the Democratic Revolutions of the United
States in 1776 and of France in 1789 (Lee & Newby, 1989). Both the
French and American Revolutions were engendered by and ushered in ideas
such as democracy, equality and liberty, which had consequences for
social arrangements, institutions and relationships. The spread of
Enlightenment thinking (a belief in scientific objectivity and in reason
as a counter to superstition and religious dogma) among the European
and American educated classes in the eighteenth century created a new
spirit of possibility that prompted nineteenth century commentators such
as August Comte, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim to
ask questions about the kinds of social changes that might be desirable
for society; to explore the causes of social change; and to understand
its consequences (Seidman, 1994). Thus, sociology emerged as a
discipline focused on identifying, understanding and interpreting the
various dimensions of industrial society (Bas, 1999, p. 287) or, of
modernity, a period referring to the last two hundred years or so, in
which occurred transformations of both space and time (Berman, 1982).
Indeed, at the heart of sociology is a dynamic (or diachronic) view
of society as constantly changing in response to certain economic,
social or political forces. Sociological analysis seeks to chart such
changes and explain why they are occurring. These concerns became
especially pressing from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
century when traditional social arrangements (such as the authority of
the established church and an agrarian way of life) began to shift and
were challenged by the emergence of science, technology and mass
production (Straus, 2002); when society was shifting from a
predominantly rural population organized around subsistence farming to
an urban, industrialized population (Bas, 1999). Industrialization
brought with it new living arrangements (the growth of cities) and
population growth; intellectual and cultural change (through the spread
of ideas about democracy and equality via new media, such as penny news
sheets); and increasing secularism (as scientific thought challenged
religious beliefs). Sociologists drew on and adapted scientific method
and created models of social change to explain this broad transformation
from 'simple' homogenous societies to 'complex' highly differentiated
societies, broadly understood as modernization.
Classical Models of Social Change
In contrast to feudal societies, which remained static for a long
period, or which were seen to change in cyclical ways, to be modern is
to live with social change and in an environment in which "all that is
solid melts into air" (Berman, 1982). However, classical sociologists
and social commentators have differed in their explanations for change
and in their view of its consequences. First, late eighteenth century
Enlightenment thinkers, such as David Hume and Adam Ferguson, argued
that scientific reason would stimulate social change for the moral
advancement of society. Concomitantly, social change became synonymous
with the idea of social progress. Second, Marx saw social change as
necessary and as the product of conflict and revolution. He observed
that while "philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is
to change it" (1976, p. 5), through a scientific understanding of
society, which would, he thought, liberate humanity from the oppression
of capitalism and the experience of alienation (Seidman, 1994, p. 48).
Third, the French sociologist, Emile Durkheim argued that social change
occurs through a process of differentiation in which society moves from
mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity. For Durkheim, the pressing
problem wrought by modernity was the state of anomie created by social
confusion as traditional norms were challenged and changed. These
macro-models have been developed to explain broad shifts from one kind
of society (agrarian) to another (industrial), and processes of social
organization, such as industrialization.
Further Insights
Industrialization
Industrialization — the transformation of a society based primarily
on agriculture to one based on manufacture — was associated mainly with
changes in technology (e.g. new machines that speeded up and
standardized the process of production, especially and initially in the
textile industry) and changes in the social organization of production
(e.g. the factory system) (Hobsbawm, 1962). Eric Hobsbawm's (1969)
history of industrial change shows how a confluence of changes in other
industries, such as the introduction of steam power, not only
contributed to the invention of new machines, but also stimulated other
industries, primarily iron and coal, which all in turn contributed to
the growth of the factory system, mechanized labor and a new working
rhythm based on clock time rather than on the necessities of seasons and
tides (Thompson, 1967). This new emphasis on clock time as the basis of
social organization had implications for the experience of work, as
people became increasingly subject to the supervision of employers and,
later, managers, and a distinct boundary emerged between 'work' and
'home.'
Industrialization largely replaced a tradition where craftsmen made
goods in low volumes with a system that focused on volume and
predictability (Cossons, 2008). This transformation of work had
implications for household arrangements and family relationships. For
instance, legislation in nineteenth century England made it
progressively more difficult for women and children to participate in
factory-based work, contributing to a sexual division of labor
buttressed by the emergence of a Victorian ideology of separate spheres
(Bradley, 1992). Some feminist sociologists argue that the sexual
division of labor continues to have consequences for women's experience
of work and employment in the twenty-first century. For instance, while
one of the main social changes in Western Europe and in the US since the
Second World War has been the expansion of women in the workplace,
there are persistent divisions between the kinds of work available to
women (and the levels at which it is available) and the pay women
receive for their work.
Post-industrial Society
Patterns of work and employment have shifted throughout the twentieth
and into the twenty-first century. For instance, fewer people now work
in manufacturing and the factory system has been largely replaced by
other systems (for instance, outsourcing). More recently, manufacturing
has been relocated from first world countries to developing countries,
leading some researchers to argue that work is becoming increasingly
post-industrial and globalized. Post-industrial society refers to social
organization that is not industrial (as defined above) and is highly
complex. Some sociologists (such as Daniel Bell, in his classic book
"The Coming of Postindustrial Society: a Venture in Social
Forecasting,"...
