Delos Santos, Carmela N.

Reported on 24 September 2019

2018 – 03193 Submitted on 01 October 2019
Written Report on Modernization Theory
SW 111 Social Change & Social Development
Modernization and How It All Began
For the past reports, different factors of social change coined by different professionals
were discussed. This time, the reason of the said change in the society was not about economic,
political, technical, or social functionality. Max Weber introduced a new factor of social change,
and he said that it was the difference in the way we think. He had claimed in his works that there
is a change in the reason of people that caused the transition and eventually, a great divide from a
traditional society into a modern world. In this case, Weber explained that traditional meant
accepting the orders of the world as they are, no questions or protests given. For example, divine
monarchies that would elect kings said to be appointed by God or the system of feudalism wherein
the structure of landlords and peasants were how things ought to be. (CrashCourse, 2017) The
event that changed this way of thinking was brought about by religion and Weber wrote about this
in his work entitled “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.” People had thought of
religion’s social structure as something that God had wanted, and so they obeyed the system for
years. Martin Luther exposed the corruption and wrongdoings of the church by releasing the 95
Theses, which led to the rationalization of the people’s views and consequently, the protestant
reformation. This resulted to the questions of what really is it that God wanted and how does one
perform His duties well? How will one be included in the so-called salvation? John Calvin utilized
these questions and came up with the term “personal responsibility”, saying that for one to prove
that they lived their life to the fullest, one must be wealthy. This caused the traditional, communal
society to shift to an individualistic, capitalist society that focused dangerously on economic
success. (Weber, 1905)
Further explaining his theory of modernity in his work, Weber said that there are three
things considered for people to have a modernized way of thinking: calculability, methodical
behavior, and reflexivity. Calculability would mean knowing your inputs to understand better how
to produce more outputs, a play on the numerical data of your products if you will. Methodical
behavior would encompass a system of procedures and patterns that you create to have a better
system and maximize your calculated products. The most important one, what Weber worried most
about, was reflexivity – from the word reflect itself, was to think about the things you are doing to
realize the wrongs and improve them. (Weber, 1905) To sum this up, Weber stated that a
modernized society is one with direct instructions and standardized methodical behavior that is
continuously reflected upon and improved. (CrashCourse, 2017) This is where the worry of Weber
comes in, as people’s capability to reflect may deteriorate causing the system to be a continuous
chain of demands done by thousands of human machines who have no regards with personal
meaning.
In modernization, still written in his book, Weber had said that bureaucracy and social
stratification would inevitably emerge. Electing someone in position is not anymore done in the
traditional way; people could now think of what qualifications there should be in order for one to
lead the society. To be able to build character, fame, and power, those who want to run for a
position would need a backup for their campaign. This is where political parties come in, which
later on, would be paid back by their supported official by giving them seats and power in the
government. (Weber, 1905) An example to this system would be our current administration led by
Duterte, wherein it is clearly seen that he is giving back to those who have campaigned for him by
giving them seats in the house, shown through the recently appointed Mocha Uson as the new
director of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration. For the social stratification, Weber
stated that it is inevitable for the people to be separated into three classifications because the notion
of who the wealthiest is comes in. These three are class – which he said had no distinguishing
qualities, political parties, and status groups. (CrashCourse, 2017) He studied modernization a lot
that he knew the dangerous consequences of this social change, which would be tackled in the
criticism at the latter part of this paper.

The Emergence of Modernization Theory in Post-World War II

Modernization is said to have emerged during the 1950s after the gruesome World War II.
The imperial countries were starting to lose their power due to the loss and damages they
encountered in the war, and added by the fact that the third world countries were starting to develop
nationalism and realize the need of freedom. With this, the United States, who was now holding
the greatest power in the global context, worried that with the freedom of the poor countries,
socialism may persist because of the notion that capitalism had failed. (The Sociology Guy, 2018)
Socialism would mean capitalism would fall, trade would be lessened, and the idea of
modernization would die down. From the discussion during the presentation, Ka Jake explained
that the United States, a capitalist country that strives in global connections, wanted to stop this by
intervening in socialist countries and establishing Scandinavian countries that served as welfare
and buffer states to keep the United States at an advantage. This enforcement of modernization
would last up until the 1980s, according to Paul Nolte, as critics of the theory would question the
credibility and bias of what the United States is doing. The theory eventually died down, but made
a comeback during the 1990s with a reformed structure: now focusing on cultural sensitivity and
skepticism. (Nolte, 2015)

Walt Rostow and the Modernization Theory

Walt Rostow believed that modernization provided a solution to poverty that suggests
changes in economy and cultural values, all of which were non-communist. (Rostow, 1960) To be
able to attain modernization, the country has to go through the five stages that he coined. These
stages were written in the height of the Cold War and were clearly influenced by historical and
political contexts during his time. (Jacobs, 2019) The first stage would of course be the traditional
society, where agriculture, subsistence, and barter were prominent and the society was dependent
on the rural economy. In this traditional society, there is a lack of knowledge in science and
technology hindering machines from people. A transition would mean going to the second stage,
from traditional to a seemingly capitalist society, where infrastructures are built and there is an
appreciation of education since it would lead to the specialization of work. This would then result
to a surplus in production that would contribute to the shift in stage three. The society in stage
three would now take off to a modernized one, where industrialization and growths in the regional
sector, investment, and politics happens. Due to this growth, the society would later on go to stage
four: the drive to maturity. In here, according to Rostow, development would mean focusing on
investments, especially in capital. When there is great investment, diversification in all terms, rise
in the standards of living, and innovations would be present. The last stage, as investment further
grows with diversity, would happen in the means of high mass consumption. The economy would
now be a flourishing capitalism in the age of consumer-oriented and service-dominated society,
mostly dependent on the global economy. (Rostow, 1971) If one denies these changes, it cannot
call its country developed.
Walt Rostow’s stages were looked at thoroughly by the class after the presentation and
found out that in his modernization theory, it is assumed that all societies are homogeneous and
would follow happily in order to achieve development. He disregarded the differences and
diversity in priorities of the societies. He did not leave any space for those who would retain their
culture but still develop in other ways and other aspects. Rostow, according to Julia Jacobs, just
assumed that everyone should follow the top-down steps to development that the powerful Western
countries wanted. He did not give a chance for a bottom-up approach which was later coined by
the critics, wherein the recognition of countries developing by self-sufficient local efforts and not
through the integration of local economy to the global economy by establishing market relations.
(Jacobs, 2019)

Modernization Theory and its Basic Assumptions

Modernization theory states that development is a unipolar movement of patterns and
stages that directs all societies to undergo changes from a traditional system into an urbanized and
industrialized form. (Shrum and Ynalvez, 2015) This entails that all societies are predetermined to
undergo similar stages once modernization is entered. With this, internal factors are given
importance in order for the societies to develop. These internal factors would include formal
education, industrialization and commercialization of agriculture, the prosper of entrepreneurial
elites and a market-based economy, the development of mass media, and the establishment of
democracy and political structures. According to Shrum, external factors are more often than not
ignored, but there is one that the societies are valuing and funding: science. The reason to this is
because the trade and transfer of science would help improve and modernize a society with the
technological knowledge it brings. (Shrum, 2000) Furthermore, utilizing Rostow’s stages,
investment is a great part of modernization, and a large part of a modernized society’s investment
is spent on scientific researches that are vital for the society’s machineries and advancement.
Moreover, the central claim of the modernization theory is that the structural changes of a
society go in predictable patterns, and most of the time inevitably leads to urbanization,
bureaucratization, and producing changes in gender roles. (Inglehart, 2001) Weber already
explained in his theory of modernity how the change in the way people think cause
bureaucratization. For the change in gender roles, because people are now rational, especially
women, the basic order of gender roles were no longer accepted. Women had started to assert equal
rights and opportunities in the era of modernization, which led to their inclusion in the labor force
in the capitalist society. But these are not the only things that may inevitably happen, as according
to Inglehart, mass participation and mobilization are yielded by modernization. (Inglehart, 2001)
A growing number of people becomes politically aware, articulate, and critical due to
rationalization and having formal education, additionally, with the help of urbanization and mass
media bringing people closer together unlike the traditional society where peasants were scattered
so conscientization was harder.
For the conclusion of the modernization theory’s basic assumptions, the work of
Herkenrath and Bornschier were quoted, saying “As far as modernization theory is concerned,
development is simply a matter of knowledge and technology transfer that is unproblematic and
straightforward, context free, and not disruptive of existing social and cultural arrangements in
developing countries.” The unproblematic and undisruptive do not hold true in all cases, and so
with this, we are heading on to the criticisms of the modernization theory.

Criticism on Modernization Theory

The modernization theory is flawed in many ways, and many critics are well aware of this
notion. Max Weber himself was one of the first ones to criticize modernity and the effects it may
bring. He was wary of people eventually losing their reflexivity and being locked in an iron cage
of bureaucratic capitalism. (CrashCourse, 2017) This would produce what he calls human
machines – individuals that have no personal drive and meaning and are shaped by capitalism to
produce efficiently and nothing more. These human machines were said to be inevitably stuck in
a mindless routine that exploits and oppresses them.
Another one of the many criticisms came from Callon during the year of 1995, wherein he
said that the theory focuses too much on the objective and scientific aspect, disregarding the
negative effects it may bring. (Shrum and Ynalvez, 2015) The context of humanities is not given
importance in the modern world. The subjective thought of who might be affected in the said
modernization is ignored so long as there is an efficient production and rising capitalism. The
important thing in this modernization process is that the society gears toward new things,
regardless of who it might step on or leave behind, a harming and dangerous truth that humans
would encounter in modernity.
The last criticism that I included was Naofusa’s statement in 1999, where he said that
modernization would entail that an indigenous culture would be dominated and replaced by the
west because modernity is totally Western-biased. (Naofusa, 1999) This modernization theory
outright says that if you are not like the modern western countries, you cannot develop. It straight
up rejects the non-Western countries that are competing in the global economy because they are
not up par with the western standards. Even Walt Rostow is criticized because his theory reeked
of superiority complex and Western bias, disregarding the changes and development other
countries are attaining in their own paces. He also disregarded other factors of social change and
development like geographical and natural factors, wherein the differences in the site and situation
of the countries contribute as to why they are having a hard or an easy time in achieving their
progress and growth. Lastly, Rostow did not acknowledge that countries set different goals for
them and instead generalized that the whole global society wished for what the United States had.

Relevance in Social Work

One can apply this theory to serve as a guide in assessing the society and how it functions,
undergoes changes, and attains development in this time of rationalization, industrialization, and
the rise of the evil that is capitalism. A social worker may assess an individual or a society’s
capability to reflect and from there realize the problems a modernized environment brings.
Furthermore, in applying the concept of transformative social work, a social worker should always
remember to look thoroughly at the process of a society, to assess the underlying issues, and
critically evaluate the structures and functions of a modernized society. This would help social
workers to avoid executing the traditional way of social work, wherein one’s job is to only give
immediate help and make the problem exclusively individual. Moreover, as social workers who
are for helping the people gain awareness and consciousness and in return learn the struggles and
experiences of the people to further understand the issues of modernization, a social work
professional may help organize people that would eventually become a mobilization which would
address the problems brought about by the cruel modernization. There are a lot of things a social
worker can learn from the modernization theory, but one should not stop there, and instead apply
the things learned as they practice the profession.
Works Cited
[CrashCourse]. (2017, May 08). Max Weber & Modernity: Crash Course Sociology #9. [Video
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[TheSociologyGuy]. (2018, February 24). Theories of Development: Modernization Theory.
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