Bell’s postindustrial stage theory is a crude analogue of Marx’s productive forces.

Evidence

The idea of postindustrial society is, of course, nonsense. As formulated by Daniel Bell, for example, the concept denotes the latest stage in a progression: from traditional to industrial and now to postindustrial society. Each stage is differentiated by what might be thought of as a (rather crude) version of what Marx called the productive forces: traditional society is based on agriculture, and industrial, surprisingly enough, on modern manufacturing industry involving the scientific control of nature and the use of artificial energy sources. Postindustrial society is characterized by the^ shift from goods production to a service economy, and by the central role ptayeB by theoretical knowledge as the source of both technical innovation and policy formulation. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 459

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out Bell’s stage model of postindustrial society as service-economy plus theoretical knowledge as driver — useful for contesting it against Marxist categories.
• XREF: The stage-theory-vs-Marx parallelism directly engages the reader’s Marxist counter-thesis to Jameson’s postmodernism. — connects to: Bell’s postindustrial theory rests on technological determinism cruder than vulgar Marxism. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 462