The Sickness of an Information SocietyR. H. Tawney and the post-industrialcondition

Abstract

R. H. Tawney is frequently cited as one of the most distinguished social theorists ofthe twentieth century, and his position in the British school of ethical, democraticsocialism is assured. This paper revisits that contribution for the so-called post-industrial age. It emphasizes Tawney’s roots in philosophical idealism and Christiansocialism, demonstrating how these systems underpinned his famous critiques ofinequality and the acquisitive society. His deontological morality anticipates keyideas of John Rawls, leading similarly to a robust social egalitarianism. The moralbasis of Tawney’s left-liberal politics explains its durability and thus its relevance forthe Great Information Society Debate. Tawney would have rejected many of thepropositions associated with the information society thesis, including the allegedlyaxial role of information itself. While recognizing the importance of information andknowledge in democracy, he would not have supported transformationist rhetoricon behalf of an electronic information polity. Tawney’s essentialist socialism may bevulnerable to some of the better documented post-industrial trends, notably themove from goods to services. However, his work supplies useful resources for criticalperspectives on the technocratic social structure and on the exaggerated economicrole of teleworkers, inter alia. As regards the last in Daniel Bell’s triad of polity,social structure and culture, some might lament the anchorage of Tawney’s progressivepolitics in a particularist metaphysics, specifically Christianity. Yet the return ofreligious modes seems now as certain as the rise of new modes of information andcommunication. The Christian socialist values that inspired Tawney’s ideal of socialdemocracy, especially an expansive vision of brotherhood or ‘fellowship’, couldtherefore be appropriated for a modern normative theory of the information society.