Behind the logic of modernization theory were intellectual resource theorists such as economists and social scientists. Economists were concerned with confronting problems attendant upon the scale and complexity of the macroeconomics of growth. Social scientists analyzed industrial society. The problem of modernization and social change is that the concept holds only with a model of the social world as a self-regulating harmonious whole held together by common values, and that the ideal of modernization was the process whereby the less developed countries would shift from traditional patterns of life to become developed. (Preston, 171) The goal was industrial society, society driven by the demanding logic of industrialism, which would lead to the convergence of political economic systems. There are of course, criticisms of modernization including the attempts by theorists to elucidate matters by deploying a further set of dichotomous contrives such as agricultural and industrial, rural and urban after starting the Dichotomy with traditional and modern. Thus, the strategy of the argument is ‘the bridge across the great Dichotomy between the modern and traditional societies is the Grand Process of Modernization.’ (Preston, 172)

The construction of modernization theory is suffused with the political concerns of the U.S. in the 1950s and the early 1960s, the idea that capitalism will produce widespread prosperity, and the logic that industrialism would drive the global system forward. The issues of international bipolarity, containment, and aid-donor competition were also at the core of the construction of modernization. Europe had been through a whole plethora of disaster, war, revolution, and depression. There was a massive shift of power to the United States. The dominance of the U.S. and the Soviet Union led to bipolarity, while containment concerned halting the spread of communism and the future prosperity of the world. Thus, in the 1950s modernization theory was born, to protect the interests of the U.S. and to have functioning liberal market economies, as well as ensure resistance to communism and the future prosperity of the world. This aided

Some topics in this essay:
Soviet Union, Third World, Truman Doctrine, Modernization’ Preston, Western Europe, French Revolutions, Maynard Keynes, Cold War, PreNewtonian Science, Walt Rostow, third world, modernization theory, world countries, third world countries, economic growth, marshall plan, social change, fear communism, modernization school thinking, traditional modern, construction modernization, industrial society, communism future prosperity, future prosperity world,