Abstract

Post-industrial society is also defined as a "post-class" society, reflecting the breakdown of the stable social structures and identities characteristic of industrial society. If before the status of an individual in a society was determined by his place in the economic structure, that is, by the class affiliation to which all other social characteristics were subordinated, now the status characteristic of the individual is determined by a multitude of factors, among which the increasing role is played by education and the level of culture (according to P. Bourdieu "cultural capital"). On this basis, D. Bell and several other Western sociologists put forward the idea of a new "service" class.