Modernization Theory - Modernization and Traditional Society

Modernization and Traditional Society

Modernization theorists often saw traditions as obstacles to economic growth. Furthermore, while modernization might deliver violent, radical change for traditional societies it was thought worth the price. Critics insist that traditional societies were often destroyed without ever gaining promised advantages if, among other things, the economic gap between advanced societies and such societies actually increased. The net effect of modernization for some societies was therefore the replacement of traditional poverty by a more modern form of misery, according to these critics. Others point to improvements in living standards, physical infrastructure, education and economic opportunity to refute such criticisms.

Read more about this topic:  Modernization Theory

Famous quotes containing the words traditional and/or society:

    The traditional disputes of philosophers are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful.
    —A.J. (Alfred Jules)

    ... she was a woman. She had been taught from her earliest childhood to make use of this talent which God had endowed her, would be an outrage against society; so she lived for a few years, going through the routine of breakfasts and dinners, journeys and parties, that society demanded of her, and at last sank into her grave, after having been of little use to the world or herself.
    Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826–1898)