Four Phases in Transitions
Description
Wim Grommen:
"The first (and second revolution) transformed an agricultural society into an industrial society where mechanization (finally) relieved man of physical labor. The craft industry could not compete with the factories that put products of the same or even better quality on the market at a lower price. The result was that many small businesses went bankrupt and the former workers went to work in the factories. The effects of industrialization were seen in the process of rapid urbanization of formerly relatively small villages and towns where the new plants came. These turned into dirty and unhealthy industrial cities. Still people from the country were forced to go and work there. Because of this a new social class emerged: the workers, or the industrial proletariat. They lived in overcrowded slums in poor housing with little sanitation. The average life expectancy was low, and infant mortality high. The elite accepted the filth of the factories as the inevitable price for their success. The chimneys were symbols of economic power, but also of social inequality. You see this social inequality appear after each revolution. The gap between the bottom and the top of society becomes very large. Eventually there are inevitable responses that decrease this gap. It could be argued that the Industrial revolutions have created the conditions for a society with little or no poverty.
The third revolution transformed an industrial society into a service society. Where mechanization man relieved of physical labor, the computer relieved him of mental labor. This revolution made lower positions in industry more and more obsolete and caused the emergence of entirely new roles in the service sector." (http://basisinkomen.nl/wp-content/uploads/The-present-crisis-a-pattern-paper.pdf)
Characteristics
Wim Grommen:
"In general transitions can be seen to go through the S curve and we can distinguish four phases:
a pre-development phase of a dynamic balance in which the present status does not visibly change
a take-off phase in which the process of change starts because of changes in the system
an acceleration phase in which visible structural changes take place through an accumulation of socio-cultural, economical, ecological and institutional changes influencing each other; in this phase we see collective learning processes, diffusion and processes of embedding
a stabilization phase in which the speed of sociological change slows down and a new dynamic balance is achieved through learning."
(http://basisinkomen.nl/wp-content/uploads/The-present-crisis-a-pattern-paper.pdf)