Chapter 20 deals with the issue of social change. Sociologists tell us that social change is created by a) new technologies and or b) new or shifting ideas or beliefs. Maybe it’s both, but we have to understand it is generally one or the other that leads the way. For example – from the 1940’s until the 1990’s China did not accept the idea that Capitalism was or could be a useful way to organize their economy. In the 1990’s, China got rid of its Soviet-style, state run, planned economy. In less than 3 decades, the nation was transformed from a impoverished third-world nation to the number 2 economy in the world. It was an idea that made this happen, not a particular technology.
So here we are in 2021, we are always on the threshold of change in America. What big ideas or big technological changes do you see in the years ahead? Is change something we manage well? What happens when we resist change?