Modernisation, Urbanisation

UNIT 4 MODERNIZATION, and Industrialisation

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND
URBANIZATION*
Structure
4.0 Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Modernization
4.3 Industrialization
4.3.1 Post-Industrial Society
4.4 Urbanization
4.5 Let Us Sum Up
4.6 Key Words
4.7 Further Readings
4.8 Specimen Answers to Check Your Progress

4.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit you will be able to
Describe the process of modernization
How the industrialization paved the way of modernization?
Discuss the process of urbanization.

4.1 INTRODUCTION
In this unit we will discuss modernization, industrialization and urbanization as
the process of development.

Modernization, Industrialization and Urbanization are three important processes

of social change by which the process of development can be explained. In fact,
industrialization and urbanization can be viewed as sub-processes of the process
of Modernization resulting primarily from technological advancement.

Modern societies emerged in Europe in the eighteenth century with the discourses
of enlightenment. In the nineteenth century, modernity (a form of social life
characterizing modern societies) got identified with industrialism (industrial way
of social life) and the sweeping social, economic and cultural changes associated
with it. The Industrial Revolution, resulting from scientific developments,
transformed the world from an agricultural to a largely industrial system. The
setting up of factories led to the migration of large numbers of people engaged in
agricultural work to seek employment in the urban areas, in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Gradually modernity, resulting from modernization, became
a global phenomenon. Now let us discuss modernization.

* Prof.Manisha Tripathy Pandey, HOD, Deptt. of Sociology, Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi
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Theorising Development
4.2 MODERNIZATION
Modernization is a multi-dimensional process of social change which transforms
the social, cultural, economic and political organization of a society. It declares
the passing of tradition. Enlightenment was the first pursuit of modernity. The
main philosophes of Enlightenment, such as reason, empiricism, science, progress,
freedom, universalism etc., are what the process of modernization encompasses.
Industrialization in Britain and the political revolutions in England, France and
the US gave new values of capitalism, citizenship, democracy and development.
All of these led to the progressive evolution or process of modernization.

James O’ Connell (1976) defines modernization as a process through which a

traditional or a pre-technological society passes, as it is transformed into a society
characterized by machine technology, rational and secular attitudes and highly
differentiated social structures. It meant the adoption of ‘Western’ political and
economic institutions. For Daniel Lerner (1958), modernization is “the process
of social change whereby less developed societies acquire characteristics common
to more developed societies; the process is activated by international, or
intersocietal, communication”. Modernization is the process of social change in
which development is the economic component. It implies a social process which
produces an environment in which there is a rising output per head. Lerner gives
certain characteristics of modern societies which modernization was ideally seen
as resulting in:
A degree of self-sustaining growth in the economy
Public participation in politics, i.e. electoral democracy
A culture of secular and rational norms
An increase in mobility in the society i.e. freedom of physical, social and
psychic movement
Emergence of a personality type, i.e. a “mobile personality” characterized
by rationality, empathy and other-directedness (orientation of a person who
depends on constant approval of others for confirmation of his self-image).
Employment of certain kinds of means to achieve modernization.
Huntington (1976) in his essay “The Change to Change: Modernization,
Development and Politics” said that modernization, and by implication
development, was a revolutionary process transforming rural agrarian cultures
into urban industrial cultures. Alvin Toffler (1980) described the move from the
“First Wave” (agricultural society) to the “Second Wave” (industrial age society)
as modernization. He also talks of transition in developed countries from an
“Second Wave” to the “Third Wave” (post-industrial) society.

As a systemic process, modernization is the product of different forces and

processes: economic (the global capitalist economy), political (the rise of the
secular state and polity), the social (formation of classes and an advanced sexual
and social division of labour), and the cultural (the transition from a religious to
a secular culture).In brief following are the characteristics of modernization (see
Box 4.1)

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 Box 4.1 Modernisation, Urbanisation
and Industrialisation
Characteristics of Modernization
It is based on capitalist mode of production, characterized by wage labour
and market economy.
Emphasizes a high degree of structural differentiation and specialization.
Growth of democratic political system based on political representation of
various ideological groups and adult franchise.
Growth of bureaucratic institutions and large-scale organizations.
Rise of individualism and freedom.
Emphasizes the idea of social progress and social emancipation.
It was with the backdrop of Industrial Revolution and industrialization the classical
pioneers of Sociology gave their theories of social change. Their works indicate
that they were concerned with the process of modernization. Marx, in his analysis
of modes of production, talked of commodity production in capitalism, which
led to oppression, exploitation and alienation. He opined that the ultimate progress
lies in the attainment of socialism. Durkheim considered that division of labour
and differentiation would lead to the development of society.More the
differentiation, more functional dependence leading to organic solidarity and
greater level of modernity. For Max Weber, emergence of industrial society would
lead to the rise of bureaucratic-rational society and societal progress would come
through rationality. Modernity abandons transcendental world and gives
dominance to science and rational calculation of social action. Simmel
investigated modernity in two sites: city and money economy. Modernity is
experienced in city life and with diffusion of money. His modernization process
includes the process of creating value, where money provides the basis of
development of market, modern economy and ultimately capitalist (modern)
society.

Development is the key word which helps to analyze modernity. There are many
contemporary theories of modernity given by Giddens, Ritzer, Bauman and
Habermas. Many scholars believe that modernity is a continuing process and an
unfinished project. Anthony Giddens (1990) gives a theory of modernity and
describes the modern world as a “juggernaut”. For him, modernity is multi-
dimensional and it’s four institutional aspects are:
Capitalism
Industrialism
Coordinated administrative power focused through surveillance
Military power
Both Giddens and Beck characterize the late-modern world as a risk society.
Thus, there is a shift from classical modernity characterizing industrial society
to late or advanced modernity characterizing risk society. According to Ulrich
Beck (1992:10),

“Just as modernization dissolved the structure of feudal society in the nineteenth

century and produced the industrial society, modernization today is dissolving
industrial society and another modernity is coming into being…….... we are
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Theorising Development witnessing not the end but the beginning of modernity – that is, of a modernity
beyond its classical industrial design”. Beck labels this new form as reflexive
modernity.

Modernization is not only a process, but also a set of theories. We will discuss
the theories of modernization in the next unit. Historically, modernization came
with industrialization and urbanization. Let us discuss these processes.

4.3 INDUSTRIALIZATION
Industrial Revolution in England propelled industrialization not only in England
but Europe to be followed by rest of the world. Industrialization paved the way
for modernization. Industrialization is the process of social and economic change
by which the economy shifts from primarily agriculture to manufacture of goods.
It refers to the emergence of machine production, based on the use of inanimate
power resources, which revolutionized production, leading to mass production
and innovations. The factory-based system of production and technological
division of labour led to cataclysmic changes in society. The bureaucratically-
managed industrial firms started mass production of goods, according to the
demands of impersonal markets. As demand for labour increased,people migrated
to cities in large numbers, leading to urbanization.

It was the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century which led to industrialization.
The application of power-driven machinery for manufacturing in England, and
most of Europe, led to many technological changes, agricultural innovations,
advances in transportation and communication and changes in all institutions of
society. Traditions weakened and religious practices got a blow leading to death
of monarchy and feudalism. There was a rise of large-scale organizations in
cities and the importance of cities increased. The classical sociologists in Europe
started writing about the changes in society as a result of industrialization and
contrasted pre-industrial with industrial societies. The well-known classifications
of Tonnies’ Gemeinschaft and Geselleschaft, Durkheim’s mechanical solidarity
and organic solidarity, Maine’s status and contract, Spencer’s militant society
and industrial society, to name some, bring out the differences between societies
before and after industrialization.

Industrialization gradually became the new order of the world as it helped in

capital formation raising productivity. Investment in capital assets is an important
pre-requisite of economic development. Industrialization generates employment
opportunities, provides educational opportunities, improved access to food and
better utilizes resources. All of these make industrial development extremely
valuable to the local economy. Other effects on society include a significant
population growth, a growing demand for raw materials, a rising standard of
living, improvement of transportation and communication, and the development
of new social classes, especially the middle class and the entrepreneurs. But
industrialization also negatively impacts the environment and causes pollution,
increased greenhouse gas emission and global warming.

Industrialization has radically changed the social structures and production

processes. The classical thinkers discussed the negative effects of capitalism,
which had its genesis in the factory mode of production and industrialization.
The repetitiveness, division of labor, fragmentation of tasks characterize industrial
54 employment. Karl Marx talked about “alienation”; Max Weber talked of “iron-
cage” and “disenchantment of the world” as a result of bureaucratization and Modernisation, Urbanisation
and Industrialisation
technological advancement. He believed that rationalization and demystification
of all aspects of modern social life is bound to happen.

Industrialization has historically led to urbanization or expansion of cities by

creating economic growth and job opportunities that draw people to cities.
Establishment of factories within a region creates a high demand for factory
labor leading to urbanization.

4.3.1 Post-Industrial society

An industrial society is a modern society. Daniel Bell (1973), in The Post-
Industrial Society, predicted that rather than industrial production, we are moving
towards a society where services and knowledge related technologies would
dominate. He believed that postindustrial society would replace the industrial
society as the dominant mode. The main features of the post-industrial society,
according to him are:
a shift from manufacturing to services
the centrality of the new science-based industries
the rise of new technical elites and the advent of a new principle of
stratification.
In this ‘information age’, the information technologies and related-industries
dominate. The axial principle (the fundamental logic of economy and society) is
theoretical knowledge, whereas axial principle in industrial society was technical
knowledge. As theoretical knowledge is strategic resource of the new society,
the university and the research institutions become the axial structure where this
resource is located. Intellectual technology rather than machine technology, is
dominant. White collar jobs replace blue collar jobs. Within this society there is
an increase of professional, technical and scientific groups. It is engaged primarily
in production of a service and not in production of good. Bell’s prediction of
post-industrial society was based on already emerging patterns in America in the
1970s.

Box 4.2
Postmodernity
Modernity is associated with the sweeping changes that took place in the
society and also in the fields of art and literature such as, industrialization,
urbanization, rationality, development, democracy, capitalism and free market.

Postmodernity refers to a historical epoch/period or a socio-cultural condition

following the modern age. It is a life beyond modernity. It indicates a
modification or change in the way in which we experience and relate to modern
forms of life or modernity. It has a history of reaction, rejection and rebellion.
In the postmodern age, there is a decline of humanism and values of
enlightenment.

In 1959, C.W. Mills speculated that modern age is being succeeded by post-
modern period in which values of scientific rationality and political freedom
were being challenged. In 1973, Daniel Bell wrote about the post-industrial
society, which is information society. In 1969, Peter Drucker wrote The Age 55
Theorising Development
of Discontinuity and in 1971, Alain Touraine wrote The Post-Industrial Society.
According to Lyotard (1979), “the status of knowledge is altered as societies
enter the postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as the postmodern
age”.

4.4 URBANIZATION
After industrialization, urbanization is world’s greatest and continuing revolution
in recent times. It represents a revolutionary change in the whole pattern of social
life. It is a product of economic and technological developments. Urbanization
as a social process has brought about great transformations in man’s way of life.
Being a global phenomenon and because of fast growth of urban centers, the
present era is referred to as the ‘Age of Urbanization’.

Urbanization is the process of becoming urban, moving to cities, changing from

agriculture to other pursuits prevalent in cities, such as trade, manufacturing,
industry and management, and corresponding changes of behaviour patterns.
An increase in the size of towns and cities leading to growth of urban population
is the most significant dimension of urbanization. These centers are essentially
non-agricultural in character. Urbanization as a process of population
concentration has been systematically treated by H. T. Eldridge (1956). For him,
it involves two elements: ‘the multiplications of points of concentration’ and
‘the increase in size of individual concentrations’. As a result, the proportion of
the population living in urban places increases.

Urbanization refers to the changing morphological structure of urban

agglomerations and its development. Demographers call it as the redistribution
of population between rural and urban areas. It is a worldwide process – an
index of economic development combined with the latest scientific temperament
and technological aggrandisement to secure a place among the economically
self-reliant countries. It means the breakdown of traditional social institutions
and values for the people in the west. In the Indian context, it envisages change
in the mode of life styles, emergence of class system, nuclear family and highly
secular religion on the debris of caste system, joint family and strict religious
practices.

Box 4.3
Over-urbanization
Over-urbanization refers to the increased exemplification of the characters
of urbanization in a city or its surrounding rural area. It results due to the
excessive development of urban traits. As the urban activities and occupations
expand, secondary functions like industry increase, bureaucratic
administrative network develops, mechanization of life and the influx of urban
characters into the surrounding rural area, over urbanization gradually replaces
the rural and traditional traits of a community. Mumbai and Calcutta are
examples of such cities.

This socio-cultural and psychological process whereby people acquire the material
and non-material culture, including behavioural patterns, forms of organization,
and ideas that originated in, or are distinctive of the city. Although the flow of
cultural influences is in both directions, but the cultural influences exerted by
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the city on non-urban people are probably more widespread. Thus, urbanization Modernisation, Urbanisation
and Industrialisation
resulted in what Toynbee called the “Westernization” of the world.

Box 4.4
Sub-urbanization
Sub-urbanization, or the growth of suburbs, is closely related to over-
urbanization of a city. Over-crowding of cities by population results in sub-
urbanization. Delhi is a typical example. Sub-urbanization means urbanization
of rural areas around the cities characterized by the following features:
A) a sharp increase in the non-agricultural uses of land
B) inclusion of surrounding areas of towns within its municipal limits, and
C) intensive communication between town and its surrounding areas.
The study of cities was a subject that had already in the second part of the 19th
century in early classical sociology with its celebrated dichotomies, such as
Maine’s distinction between status and contract and Morgan’s contrast between
savagery, barbarism and civilization. It was further developed by Tonnies, who
contrasted gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, and by Durkheim, who distinguished
between “mechanical and “organic” solidarity. Tonnies and Durkheim believed
that the gemeinschaft type of social organization, or mechanical solidarity, is
fully developed in cities, particularly in modern cities. Fustel de Coulanges in
his famous work on the ancient city, regarded it as a crucial stage in the
development of all civilizations and particularly of western civilization. Other
sociologists like Max Weber (1961) and George Simmel (1950) have stressed on
dense living conditions, rapidity of change and impersonal interaction in urban
settings.

Simmel considered the importance of urban experience that is, chose to focus on
urbanism (life within the city) rather than urbanization (development of urban
areas). “The Metropolis and Mental life” (1903) is an essay detailing his views
on life in the city, focusing more on social psychology. The unique trait of the
modern city is the intensification of nervous stimuli with which the city dweller
must cope. This is because of the movement from the rural setting where the
rhythm of life and sensory imagery is slower, habitual and even, to city with
constant bombardments of sights, sounds and smells. In the city, individuals
learn to discriminate, become rational and calculating, and develop a blasé and
detached attitude.

Louis Wirth (1938) was one of the pioneers of the study of urbanism and his was
the first systematic attempt to distinguish the concepts of urbanism and
urbanization. “Urbanism is that complex of traits that makes up the characteristic
mode of life in cities”. Urbanization is not merely the process by which persons
are attracted to the city and incorporated into its system of life. It also refers to
that cumulative accentuation of the characteristics distinctive of the mode of
life, which is associated with the growth of cities, and finally to the changes in
the direction of modes of life recognized as urban.

In his essay “Urbanism as a way of life” (1938) in the American Journal of

Sociology, Wirth focused more on urbanism - urban lifestyle - than on structure.
He indicated that size, density and heterogeneity – regarded as the principal
traits in defining cities – are conducive to specific behavioral patterns and moral 57
Theorising Development attitudes. Urbanism, as a way of life, for With, is approached empirically from
three interrelated perspectives:
1) as a physical structure comprising a population base, a technology, and an
ecological order;
2) as a system of social organization involving a characteristic social structure,
a series of social institutions, and a typical pattern of social relationships;
and
3) as a set of attitudes and ideas, and a constellation of personalities engaging
in typical forms of collective behaviour and subject to characteristic
mechanisms of social control.
Sjoberg (1960) distinguished among three different types of societies, each with
its own relationship to city culture:
1) preliterate “folk” societies in which there are no cities,
2) literate preindustrial city cultures, and
3) Industrial, urban ones.
According to Sjoberg, preindustrial cities, dependent on animate (human or
animal) sources of energy, are subsystems of feudal societies or bureaucracies
and do not possess impersonality, secularism, and large size that are characteristic
of cities in the folk-urban dichotomy. Conversely, industrial societies that possess
a developed technology, derived from inanimate sources of power, have fully
developed cities with independent economic resources.

Urbanization, according to Meadows and Mizruchi (1969), refers to the processes

by which urban values are diffused; movement occurs from rural areas to cities;
and behaviour patterns are transformed to conform to those which are
characteristics of groups in the cities. They believe that the concepts of urbanism
and urbanization are important from the view of understanding city life.
Urbanization represents the process by which urbanism emerges and develops
out of the interaction of technology and society; or change and development in
technology and society occur in and through urbanism.
Check Your Progress
1) What is modernization?
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2) What is Industrialization?
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3) What is urbanism? How is it different from urbanization? Modernisation, Urbanisation
and Industrialisation
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4.5 LET US SUM UP

In this unit we see that many classical and contemporary thinkers have analysed
the processes of modernization, industrialization and urbanization from time to
time. All these processes are seen as precursors to the progress and development
of a modern society.

4.6 KEY WORDS

Urbanism: Urbanism is that complex of traits that makes up the characteristic
mode of life in cities

Postmodernity: Postmodernity refers to a historical epoch/period or a socio-

cultural condition following the modern age. It is a life beyond modernity. It
indicates a modification or change in the way in which we experience and relate
to modern forms of life or modernity.

Gemeinschaft : Gemeinschaft is a social system in which most relationships are

personal or traditional and often both.

Gesellschaft: In the Gesellschaft, the society of tradition is replaced with the

society of contract. In this society neither personal attachment nor traditional
rights and duties are important

4.7 FURTHER READINGS

H.T. Eldridge. (1976). “The Process of Urbanization”, in J. J. Spengler and O. D.
Duncan (eds.) Demographic Analysis. Glencoe: The Free Press.

Harrison, David.(1991) The Sociology of Modernization and Development.

London: Routledge,1991,Chapter 1 and 2.pp1-54

4.8 SPECIMEN ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR

PROGRESS
1) Modernization as a process through which a traditional or a pre-technological
society passes, as it is transformed, into a society characterized by machine
technology, rational and secular attitudes and highly differentiated social
structures.

2) Industrialization is the process of social and economic change by which the

economy shifts from primarily agriculture to manufacture of goods. It refers 59
Theorising Development to the emergence of machine production, based on the use of inanimate
power resources, which revolutionized production, leading to mass
production and innovations.

3) Urbanism is that complex of traits that makes up the characteristic mode of

life in cities. It is a way of life, an urban lifestyle. For Louis Wirth, size,
density and heterogeneity, which were the principal traits in defining cities,
are conducive to specific behavioral patterns and moral attitudes.
Urbanization is the process by which persons are incorporated into city
life. It is the cumulative accentuation of the characteristics distinctive of
the mode of life, which is associated with the growth of cities, and finally
to the changes in the direction of modes of life recognized as urban.

REFERENCES
Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
Bell, Daniel. 1973. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social
Forecasting. New York: Basic Books.

Connell, James O’. 1976. “The concept of Modernization” in Cyril. E. Black

(ed.) Comparative Modernization. New York: The Free Press.

Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford

University Press.

H.T. Eldridge. (1976). “The Process of Urbanization”, in J. J. Spengler and O. D.

Duncan (eds.) Demographic Analysis. Glencoe: The Free Press.

Huntington, S. P. 1976. “The Change to Change: Modernization, Development

and Politics” in Cyril. E. Black (ed.). Comparative Modernization. New York:
The Free Press.

Lerner, Daniel. 1958. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle
East. Glencoe: Free Press.

Meadows, P. and Mizruchi, E.H. (ed.), 1969, Urbanism, Urbanization, and

Change: Comparative Perspectives, Addison-Wesley: Reading.
Sjoberg, G. 1960. The Preindustrial City: Past and Present. Free Press.
Toffler, Alvin. 1980. The Third Wave. Bantam Books.
Wirth, Louis, 1938, “Urbanism as a Way of Life”, American Journal of Sociology,
XLIV.

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