Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 180

Many human societies and groups thrive and generate wealth even in the most inhospitable regions of the world. On the other hand, some survive quite well without exploiting the natural resources at their disposal. For example, Alaskans have been able to develop oil and mineral resources to produce economic development, while hunting and gathering cultures have frequently lived in fertile regions without ever becoming pastoralists or farmers.

Physical environments may enable or constrain the kind of economic development that is possible. The indigenous people of Australia have never stopped being hunters and gatherers, since the continent contained hardly any indigenous plants suitable for regular cultivation or animals that could be domesticated for pastoral production. Similarly, the world’s early civilizations originated in areas with rich agricultural land such as river deltas. The ease of communication across land and the availability of sea routes are also important: societies cut offfrom others by mountain ranges, impassable jungles or deserts often remain relatively unchanged over long periods of time.

However, the physical environment is not just a constraint but also forms the basis for economic activity and development, as raw materials are turned into useful or saleable things. The primary economic influence during the period of modernity has been the emergence of capitalist economic relations. Capitalism differs in a fundamental way from previous production systems, because it involves the constant expansion of production and the accumulation of wealth without limits. In traditional systems, levels of production were fairly stable, as they were geared to habitual, customary needs. But capitalism promotes the constant revision of production technology, a process into which science is increasingly drawn. The rate of technological innovation in modern industry is vastly greater than in any previous type of economy, and raw materials have been used in production processes in quantities undreamed of in earlier times.

Consider information and communications technology (ICT). Over recent decades, the power of computers has increased many thousand times over. A large computer in the 1960s was constructed with thousands of hand-made connectors, but an equivalent device today is much smaller (often hand-held) and needs just a few silicon chips in an integrated circuit. The impact of science and technology on how we live may be driven largely by economic factors, but it also stretches beyond the economic sphere. Science and technology both influence and are influenced by cultural and political factors. Scientific and technological development helped create modern forms of communication such as radio, television and the internet, and these electronic forms have changed the way politics is conducted and partly shape how we all think and feel about the world.