Professor Keller came up with some brilliant observations about the waves of modernization a few days ago. As it happens, it’s not in any great treatise, but in a short article of less than a page.
The earlier-born know Marx’s interpretation of the means of production (a fundamental breakthrough occurs when the existing organization of society does not allow for a sufficiently efficient use of the new technology), and in addition there are plenty of economic interpretations based mostly on the nature of the investment cycle.
Jan Keller looked at it from a completely different angle. He asks which societal waves have profited from the various modernization waves and which have lost out.
If someone has become too powerful, they will not be satisfied with the status quo but will push for change.
This can be logically deduced and added to. The breakthrough changes are due to how power relations changed in the preceding period. If someone has become too powerful, they will not be satisfied with the status quo but will push for change. If we look at it this way, we see that waves of modernization in favor of working people took place from the mid-19th century to the 1950s. Not that those at the top have particularly lost out, but each wave of modernisation has been designed to improve the situation of those at the bottom as well.
Each wave of modernization has brought not only an increase in inequality but also an objective worsening of the position of normal workers.
From about the 1980s onwards, the civilizational trend reversed. Each wave of modernization has brought not only an increase in inequality but also an objective worsening of the position of normal workers. It can’t be a question of technology. The chips don’t have their political interests, they don’t favor one or the other. It is a question of how power and economic conditions changed in the preceding period.
So if you’re interested in where the next wave of modernization is going, look at how power relations are changing now.
