Post-industrial society

An advanced society from a technological point of view, that has surpassed or is in process of surpassing the traditional stage of extensive and intensive development of industry, communications, and large cities. Such a society unfolds its technic-economic, social and political activities over a broad and efficient base of information systems, especially systems of electronic communication through computers, used in financial operations and development of production. Earlier forms of social life and the economy are not eliminated, but are substantially modernized with the incorporation of new scientific-technological knowledge. The advance of information technology marks an important change in the role and power of the human intellect. Thus, since the 1950s a general change is produced in the development of civilization, in the human mentality and system of values; in technology and work; in social relations and management, in international cooperation, in the creative capacities of the human being himself. This tendency is universal in character, but advances at a different speed and intensity in different regions and countries, which increases the disproportions between them. Information technology does not in itself contradict the humanization of life, but contributes to this process when society and concrete personalities adopt this objective and consciously act in this direction.