Article Report- A Postmortem on Daniel Bell's Postindustrialism

This week’s readings were about the postindustrial service economy, the article “A Postmortem on Daniel Bell’s Post Industrialism” written by Laurence Veysey, critically analyses the writings of Daniel Bell over the subject of the Post Industrialism Age. Laurence Veysey’s article was published in the spring of 1982 by The Johns Hopkins University Press. The article can be found in the American Quarterly, Vol. 34 No. 1, in pages 49-69. The intended audience for this article is scholars and researchers of the topic on the industrial era and how it transcended in American culture. In the scholarly article, Veysey critiques Daniel Bell’s major books The Coming of Post-Industrial Society which talks about the Postindustrial society as an era in which knowledge is central to the functioning of the entire society. Bell’s second major book, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism discusses the idea that romanticism has taken over American culture.

According to Bell’s books which were written in the 1970’s, postindustrialism was just on the rise in our society, however, Veysey notes that authors such as David Riesman described an era of postindustrialism in the 1950’s; well before Bell himself. Veysey argues that the conflicts that Bell dwells on do not connect with the larger American social structure; instead these conflicts are fought out solely within the elites that Bell directs his attention to. Thus, Veysey argues that Bell is not a dependable guide and his notion of postindustrialism is unserviceable for social historians.

Contrary to Bell, Veysey argues that an “age of affluence” enables us to better grasp the meaning of American social history more easily than postindustrialism during the years of 1920-1970. However, Veysey noted that it is difficult to pinpoint when exactly this era of affluence began. Veysey suggests the 1920’s could have been the beginning of the age of affluence but the Great Depression of the 1930’s prevented this from happening. During this notion of an “age of affluence” the majority of the population seemed to enter a more comfortable lifestyle. The 1920’s greatly influenced and changed the way labor hours were distributed, the focus of life changed from a work-oriented lifestyle to a leisure-oriented direction.

Laurence Veysey received his undergraduate education from Yale. At Yale he won the 1953 Adrian Van Sedarin Book Collecting Award for his assembled documents dealing with American railroads. He also attended the prestigious University of California, Berkeley. He was a history professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Veysey is mainly known for his major works like The Emergence of the American University and The Communal Experience. Veysey has also received accolades from other scholars, John R. Thelin in an article in the History of Education Quarterly exclaimed, “The Emergence of the American University, published in 1965, is a monumental work which endures in its influence and as a model of historical interpretation (Thelin, 1987).” Veysey also received the award Guggenheim Fellowship for Humanities, US & Canada along with a nomination for the National Book Award for Philosophy and Religion.

Work Cited:

 Thelin, J. R. (1987). Laurence Veysey's The Emergence of the American University. History of Education Quarterly , 517-523.

              Veysey, L. (1982). A Postmortem on Daniel Bell's Postindustrialism. American Quarterly 34:1 .