Civilization: agricultural, industrial, information society

Civilisation is an advanced stage of human society with settled life, cities, government, writing, division of labour, science and culture. It is "enlightened" when people replace ignorance, superstition and blind authority with knowledge, reason, science, education and humane values. This happened in Europe during the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment (17th–18th century: Newton, Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau).

How civilisation can be enlightened

• Spread of education and literacy to all.
• Use of reason and scientific method instead of superstition.
• Freedom of thought, speech and press; respect for human rights and democracy.
• Use of technology for welfare, with ethics ("science with humanity").
• Equality of gender, caste and class; rule of law.
• Protection of the environment and culture.

Agricultural society vs industrial society

How industrial societies entered into information society

1. Automation reduced factory jobs, and labour shifted to services.
2. Transistor, IC and microprocessor made cheap computers.
3. Computers and telecommunication (satellite, optical fibre, internet, mobile) spread information instantly.
4. Knowledge, software and data became the main source of wealth.
5. Higher education produced knowledge workers; R&D grew.
6. Globalisation moved manufacturing abroad while rich countries kept information work.

Information society thus has knowledge as its key resource, networked organisations and ICT in every sector.