World Industrialization

61914 or the Birth of Extended Machinism

6.1. Major changes in social dynamics

The year 1914 saw changes which can be described as multi-dimensional, and which profoundly marked the years to come. The development of new social dynamics brought about or accompanied considerable changes. Indeed, these new dynamics were very dissimilar to those of the three periods we have already analyzed. Based on the existing links between technologies, social relations and people at work, these new social dynamics were marked by very significant events such as world wars, the development of economic and social crises and fundamental technological changes.

6.1.1. World wars

World War I sparked among the nations involved a search for inventions and innovations based on military strategies, far removed from traditional economic strategies. The economy was thus subjected to various forms of regulation modifying the rationalities and, especially, the strategies of the economic actors, from self-sufficiency and rationing to the prioritization of the war industries and almost total control of the state. World War II only amplified these developments and these norms of regulation.

6.1.2. The increasing number of crises

Crises became increasingly serious, regular and thus took on a different status because they were inevitable (M. Flamant and J. Singer-Kerel, 1968; Léon, 1977). They had already developed in the 1900s as, for example, the “electrical crisis” and the “Richman panic” of 1900–1903 ...