The Rise of the Network Society by Castells Manuel;

Author:Castells, Manuel;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2011-08-19T16:00:00+00:00

It does not follow that societies at large are upgraded in their skills, education, or income status, nor in their stratification system. The impact of a somewhat upgraded employment structure into the social structure will depend on the ability of the institutions to incorporate the labor demand into the labor force and to reward workers proportionally to their skills. On the other hand, the analysis of the differential evolution of the G-7 countries clearly shows some variation in their employment and occupational structures. At the risk of oversimplifying, we can propose the hypothesis of two different informational models:

1 The service economy model, represented by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. It is characterized by a decline in the share of manufacturing employment in overall employment after 1970, as the pace toward informationalism accelerated. Having already eliminated almost all agricultural employment, this model emphasizes an entirely new employment structure where the differentiation among various service activities becomes the key element to analyze social structure. This model emphasizes capital management services over producer services, and keeps expanding the social service sector because of a dramatic rise in healthcare jobs and, to a lesser extent, in education employment. It is also characterized by the expansion of the managerial category which includes a considerable number of middle managers.

2 The industrial production model, clearly represented by Japan and to a considerable extent by Germany, which, while reducing also the share of their manufacturing employment, continues to keep it at a relatively high level (around one-quarter of the labor force) in a much more gradual movement that allows for the restructuring of manufacturing activities into the new socio-technical paradigm. Indeed, this model reduces manufacturing jobs while reinforcing manufacturing activity. Partly as a reflection of this orientation, producer services are much more important than financial services, and they seem to be more directly linked to manufacturing firms. This is not to say that financial activities are not important in Japan and Germany: after all, eight of the world’s ten largest banks are Japanese. Yet, while financial services are indeed important and have increased their share in both countries, the bulk of service growth is in services to companies, and in social services. However, Japan is also specific in showing a significantly lower level of employment in social services than other informational societies. This is probably linked to the structure of the Japanese family and to the internalization of some social services into the structure of the firms: a cultural and institutional analysis of the variegations of employment structure seems to be a necessity to account for the diversity of informational societies.

In between, France seems to be leaning toward the service economy model, but maintaining a relatively strong manufacturing basis and emphasizing both producer and social services. The close linkage between the French and the German economies in the European Union is probably creating a division of labor between management and manufacturing activities that could ultimately benefit the German component of the emerging European economy. Italy

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