Deindustrialists

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals or groups who promote or support the reduction or dismantling of industrial activity and manufacturing sectors within an economy
2. Advocates or entities emphasizing the decline or withdrawal of heavy industry and factory-based production in favor of alternative economic models
3. Persons or organizations engaged in the process or ideology of moving away from traditional industrial operations toward post-industrial or service-oriented frameworks

Etymology: Its deepest root is a word for diligence. Latin "industria" meant hard work or activity, and English "industry" first meant that same diligence before it came to name factories and the businesses that run them. "Industrialization" was built on that later sense, and "deindustrialization" is built on that in turn. The result is a chain of three additions: the Latin "de-" meaning "away" or "reversal," the -ize and -ation of industrialization, and finally the agent suffix "-ist," which marks a person or group practicing or advocating a process. The "-ist" suffix means these are people, or organizations, who promote or carry out the shift away from manufacturing toward service-based economies. The word is a modern economic coinage rather than an old one, so its meaning follows the process it names, and it is used mainly in discussions of economic policy and regional decline.

Synonyms: anti-industrialists, industrial decline advocates

Antonyms: industrialists, industrial developers