Welfare Delivery in Post-Industrial Society

Abstract

Post-industrial society can be seen as a special case of the system-based concept of turbulent environments. A model of organizational behaviour in such enivronments reveals that short-term adaptation to emerging trends is the form of behaviour most likely to ensure organizational survival and success. Public sector welfare provision is seldom seen in this light and yet it is possible to identify several criteria whereby successful adaptation to turbulence can be achieved. Prominent among the adaptive strategies open to government welfare planners are decentralization, decreased specialisation, public participation, and open planning. In recent years human geography has become increasingly concerned with welfare. In many cases this has led to the adoption of Marxist ideology. The case for less extreme value positions that are associated with the middle of the political spectrum has been poorly articulated. This paper attempts to rectify this by demonstrating how the notion of post-industrial society can be used with key concepts from organization theory to produce a general model of welfare delivery. Post industrial society The notion of post-industrial society is not a new one (Dahrendorf, 1959; Lichtheim, 1963; Boulding, 1964; and Toffler, 1970). In its simplest form it is associated with the work of Bell (1976). Basically, a post-industrial society is characterized by the emergence of a quaternary sector in the economy, the pre-eminence of professional and technical classes, and an emphasis on information processing and planning. Of course the concept has its critics. Kumar (1976:462) for example, has stressed that post-industrial society is not really post-anything in an evolutionary sense because the concept of industrialism to which it refers is peculiar to one industry (cotton), in one area (Lancashire) in one time period (the nineteenth century). Despite this, it is indisputable th t th re have emerged technological, affluent, service societies in which a prominent place is accorded to information processing and planning (Marien, 1979), and it is to these societies that the term 'post-industrial' is applied in this paper. Great and rapid change is probably the most commonly perceived attribute of post-industrial society. Change in fact presents a challenge that is usually met by increasing the size of the bureaucracy. And as decisions become more technical the post-industrial society brings the scientist and the social scientist more directly into the political process (Bell, 1976: 43). The growth of the bureaucracy is not of course the only manifestation of post-industrial society. Another is the way in which rapid change has made it impossible to take account of the externalities of ndividual actions. A third is the increasing divergence between private and social costs. Unpr dictability and uncertainty have become the hallmarks of post-industrial society. Examples of this are easily found; in terms of economic conditions, attention has switched in a few years from the boom of the late 1960s to talk of chronic, long-term, endemic, youth unemployment. The oscillations in the energy market over the same period defy simple description. Events such as these alter the ground rules for survival and success in society. In times of gross and rapid change simple optimizing models of behaviour become singularly inappropriate and new values must be sought (Bell, 1976: 288). Together these changes have important implications for welfare: most obviously, rapid change contributes to welfare need while the prominence of planning encourages the emergence of large welfare-oriented organisations, particularly in the public sector. Thus, the identification of postindustrial society demands that some thought be given to welfare delivery in such a society.