The question of social impacts and transformations related to technological and economic change is an important theme for the Technology, Economy and Society Program at IIASA. Especially the disruptive nature of major transformations in the technological and economic base, as well as the social forces shaping the process of structural adjustment call for more detailed research. 

The author develops and tests the hypothesis that important transformations in class structure in the historical process of industrialization (as reflected in changing employment patterns) go along with a discontinuous pattern in the propensity for social conflicts (as reflected in strike Although the results achieved are conceptually and empirically still preliminary, they nevertheless point to the importance of analyzing from a long-term, historical perspective the changing morphology of economies brought about by technological change and the relationship to societal conflicts and their possible resolution entailed in such restructuring processes. 

The present paper evolved as a part of the overall research effort of the Dynamics of Change and Sustainability of Systems Project to analyze social dimensions of technological change and economic restructuring. The described work is the result out of a fruitful and productive stay of the author in the 1988 YSSP program. It appears as IIASA Working Paper because it addresses an important issue, and due to the hypotheses put forward and their careful discussion and empirical examination given by the author, which merits wider dissemination and further discussion.