| Abstract: | The author discusses and contrasts two different usages of the phrase “post-industrial society”. The independent development of these two usages has culminated in the present distinction between post-industrial society as a technological, affluent, service society, and post-industrial society as a more decentralised and ecologically conscious agrarian society. This new global version of the old Jefferson-Hamilton debate—a political continuum best viewed at right angles to the familiar left-right political spectrum—may become the dominant political struggle of our time. A useful synthesis of the two visions is possible, though, if our intellectual segregation, exemplified by the two visions, can be overcome. |
