Abstract
Weber and Saint-Simon observed the significance of expertise and scientific knowledge for modern organizations, and in so doing they perceived how these profoundly affected the character of modern society as a whole. However, another side to modernization has always existed: it can be perceived in the failures of bureaucracy, rationalization, market capitalism, and state socialism, through employing scientific and technical knowledge, to produce a society that could be considered educated, healthy, just, and free. Further “development,” and the accompanying extension of rationalization, have been ceaselessly represented as capable of ensuring that solutions could eventually be found to all major social problems. Belief in such a utopian representation is on the decline in many modernized societies. From Chernobyl to Challenger, from the perceived failures of educational systems to educate and of hospitals to heal, the model crumbles.
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Notes
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Dwyer, T. (1991). Afterword. In: Life and Death at Work. Plenum Studies in Work and Industry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0606-9_8
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