Oleg Komlik — Ulrich Beck has died. His powerful concept of ‘Risk society’ is relevant as never was before

His 1986 book Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity is a scholarly (and political) bestseller which was translated into 35 languages, with about 24,000 academic citations. While firm in criticising those who claim Western societies are “postmodern”, Beck also offers an immanent critique of modernity’s failed promises. Due to its own successes, modern society now faces failure: while in the past experiments were conducted in a lab, now the whole world is a test bed. Whether nuclear plants, genetically modified organisms, nanotechnology – if any of these experiments went wrong, the consequences would have a global impact and would be irreversible.… 

Risk society is ‘an inescapable structural condition of advanced industrialization”. Modern society has become a risk society in the sense that it is increasingly occupied with debating, preventing and managing risks that it itself has produced. The changing nature of society’s relation to production and distribution is related to the environmental impact as a totalizing, globalizing economy based on scientific and technical knowledge becomes more central to social organization and social conflict. Whereas in earlier class-based societies only the proletariat was victimized, in the emerging worldwide risk society all groups – even the rich – are threatened.… 

“After all, the ecological issue, considered politically and sociologically, focuses at heart on a systematic, legalized violation of fundamental civil rights – the citizen’s right to life and freedom from bodily harm… In the ecological crisis we are dealing with a breach of fundamental rights that is cushioned and disguised during prosperity but that has socially destabilizing long-term effects that can scarcely be overestimated.” (quoted from: Beck, Ulrich. 1995. Ecological Enlightenment: Essays on the Politics of the Risk Society. Humanities Press. P. 8)

Economic Sociology and Political Economy
Ulrich Beck has died. His powerful concept of ‘Risk society’ is relevant as never was before
Oleg Komlik