Pre-industrial society

Pre-industrial society refers to specific social attributes and forms of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution. It is followed by the industrial society.

Some attributes of the pre-industrial societies

• Limited production (i.e. artisanship vs. mass production)
• Primarily an agricultural economy
• Limited division of labor. In pre-industrial societies, production was relatively simple and the number of specialized crafts was limited.
• Limited variation of social classes
• Parochialism—Social theories hold that communications were limited between human communities in pre-industrial societies. Few had the opportunity to see or hear beyond their own village. In contrast, industrial societies grew with the help of faster means of communication, having more information at hand about the world, allowing knowledge transfer and cultural diffusion between them.
• Pre-industrial societies developed largely in rural communities. Capitalism developed largely in urban areas.

See also

• Agrarian society
• British Agricultural Revolution
• Family economy
• Industrialisation
• Modernization theory
• Traditional society

Bibliography

• Grinin, L. 2007. Periodization of History: A theoretic-mathematical analysis. In: History & Mathematics. Ed. by Leonid Grinin, Victor de Munck, and Andrey Korotayev. Moscow: KomKniga/URSS. P.10-38. ISBN 9785484010011.