The prospects of industrial civilization
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The prospects of industrial civilization
Routledge, 1996
2nd ed
- : case
- : pbk
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Note
First published in 1923. 2nd ed. originally published: London : George Allen & Unwin, 1959
Reprint of 2nd ed. with new introduction by Louis Greenspan
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The Prospects of Industrial Civilization provides a rare glimpse into areas of Russell's political thought which are often ignored. Written with Dora Black (who became Russell's second wife) on a trip to China in 1920, it is revealing both as a period piece and as a book for our times. Russell criticises his own age, and demonstrates how humanity perpetually struggles against the centralising forces of industrialism and nationalism.
He views industrialism as a threat to human freedom, as it creates large populations which have to be subject to controls and he likens Bolshevik Russia to Cromwell's England, asserting that both were dictatorships designed to force an essentially feudal society to adopt industrialism. He sees industrialism and nationalism as fundamentally linked and proposes one government for the whole world as a solution.
Russell is not blind to the positive side of industrialism; without machines an economy of subsistence would be the best for which society could hope, but argues that the global village and prevailing political democracy should be its eventual results.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Part I Part I
- Chapter I Causes of the Present Chaos
- Chapter II Inherent Tendencies of Industrialism
- Chapter III Industrialism and Private Property
- Chapter IV Interactions of Industrialism and Nationalism
- Chapter V The Transition to Internationalism
- Chapter VI Socialism in Undeveloped Countries
- Chapter VII Socialism in Advanced Countries
- Part II Part II
- Chapter VIII What Makes A Social System Good or Bad?
- Chapter IX Moral Standards and Social Well-Being
- Chapter X The Sources of Power
- Chapter XI The Distribution of Power
- Chapter XII Education
- Chapter XIII Economic Organization and Mental Freedom
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