From Industrial Society to the Risk Society: Questions of Survival,Social Structure and Ecological Enlightenment Ulrich Beck Are Risks Timeless? Aren't risks at least as old as industrial society,possibly even as old as the human race itself?Isn't all life subject to the risk of death? Aren't and weren't all societies in all epochs‘risk societies'? On the contrary,should we not (or must we not)be discussing the fact that since the beginning of industrialization,threats famines,epidemics or natural catastrophes have been continu- ally reduced?To list only a few key words:the reduction of infant mortality,the 'bonus years'(Imhof),the achievements of the welfare state,the enormous progress in technological perfection over the past hundred years.Isn't the Federal Republic of Germany, in particular,an Eldorado of bureaucratically organized care and caution? Certainly there are new risks',such as nuclear power,chemical and biotechnical production and the like.But,considered math- ematically or physically,are these not dangers of great scope,but also of exceedingly small,actually negligible probability?Looking at them coolly and rationally,does that not imply that they should be given a lesser status than long accepted risks,such as the incredi- ble carnage on the highways or the risks to smokers? Certainly,ultimate security is denied to us human beings.But is it not also true that the unavoidable 'residual risks'are the downside of the opportunities for prosperity,relatively high social security and general comfort that developed industrial society offers to the majority of its members in a historically unparalleled manner? Is the dramatization of such risks not in the end a typical media spec- tacle,ignoring established expert opinion,a‘new German anxiety', as untenable and just as short-lived as the debacle regarding the Theory,Culture Society (SAGE,London,Newbury Park and New Delhi),Vol.9 (1992),97-123 Downloaded from ics.sagepub.com at Shanghai Jiaotong University on June 17.2012 from the SAGE Social Science Collections.All Rights Reserved.from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved. Downloaded from tcs.sagepub.com at Shanghai Jiaotong University on June 17, 2012