¦ Level and scale of education: the nature of the development of the institution of education (primarily formal) and its impact on the nature and pace of social change.

¦ The nature and level of development of scientific knowledge: the development of science as an independent social institution and its connection with other institutions of society.

Of course, in conducting a more detailed study of the social changes that occur as societies transition from one type of civilization to another, we would need to consider a much larger number of characteristics. For example, add to those already listed above the principles of social structuring, the nature of interaction with the natural environment, the role and place of religion in social life, the institution of marriage and family, etc. However, this, it seems to us, would significantly clutter our analysis, so we will limit ourselves to eight given above.

What types of societies do we distinguish? The answer to this question can be found in the diagram of the transition from one type of society to another as a result of one or another global revolution (see Fig. 21). Thanks to the work of Walt Rostow, it is generally accepted in sociology to divide societies into traditional and modern. However, in modern sociological studies, “modern” societies are often further divided into “industrial” and “post-industrial”. At the same time, V.L. Inozemtsev, analyzing the views of generally recognized theorists of post-industrial society, rightly points out that “not one of them examined in any detail the economic problems of pre-industrial societies, only occasionally mentioning their individual aspects in their works.” Meanwhile, it is possible to understand the true significance of modern trends in the development of human society only in the context of historical development. Extrapolation of the future is possible at least from three points - from the past through the present to the future. It seems to us that such a scheme is not complete enough, since, when studying the dynamics of the development of human society as a whole, it is hardly legitimate to exclude pre-traditional, that is, primitive societies from the analysis. We will try to fill these gaps to a certain extent.

§ 1. Primitive society

It should be recognized that in sociology the term “primitive society” itself is not used very often. This concept comes rather from evolutionary anthropology, where it is used to designate societies that represent a certain initial stage from which the development of more complex societies begins. This concept implies that modern man is more intelligent than his wild, irrational ancestors. Beyond this implied meaning, primitive society is seen simply as small-scale communities, illiterate, technologically simple and based on extremely simplified social relations, although it is recognized that these relations have already gone beyond the limits of purely gregarious, i.e. herd. interactions based on instincts and conditioned reflexes developed by the conditions of herd existence of even higher animals.

However, some sociologists have paid rather close attention to primitive society, since it is in it that most of those social institutions arise that form the framework of the social system in later phases of evolutionary development. Let us recall that it was the study of the elementary forms of religious life in this type of society that allowed Durkheim to develop a generalized sociological concept of religion, applicable to higher levels of social development. We must not forget that at least nine-tenths of the entire period of time during which the evolution of society occurred occurred precisely in primitive societies, and in some remote corners of the planet such forms of societal organization are preserved to this day.

The poor development of sociological concepts of primitive societies is explained primarily by the lack of reliable information about the nature of social relations in them, since they lack writing. Let us recall that the intellectual and social life of all stages of primitive societies, described by G. Morgan as savagery and barbarism, is based on oral tradition - legends, myths, accounting and observance of kinship systems, the dominance of customs, rituals, etc. Some theorists (for example, L. Lévy-Bruhl) assumed that these societies are dominated (from the French prelogique - pre-logical) by “pre-logical” forms of primitive mentality, which are associated with similar forms of technological and social organization.

Nevertheless, we should not forget that even at this simplest (but already significantly superior to that characteristic of animals) level of development, we are dealing with human society. This means that primitive communities should also be the object of sociological analysis, and the eight parameters of social institutions that we defined above may well be applicable as a tool for such analysis.

In primitive society the entire social organization is based on the tribal community. Let us recall that, due to the prevailing maternal law during this period, the concept of “clan” refers to the circle of relatives on the maternal line (having a common ancestor), who are prohibited from entering into marital relations with each other. Probably, it is the need to search for marriage partners outside one’s own clan that determines the need for constant interaction between several clans located in greater or lesser territorial proximity. A system of such interactions forms a tribe

1. (Of course, this diagram is somewhat simplified, since between the clan and the tribe there is also an intermediate structural unit - the phratry.) The need to maintain constant contacts has an impact on the community of language. A certain level of economic ties is also gradually emerging. Nevertheless, the social organization of primitive societies does not rise above the level of tribal alliances, formed mainly to fight some common enemy and disintegrating after the danger has passed. There is simply no need for more complex types of social organization: neither the population size, nor the level of division of labor, nor the regulation of economic relations require this.

The nature of the participation of society members in the management of its affairs. This character is largely determined by the small size of the primitive community. Research by anthropologists and ethnographers shows that the participation of members of a primitive society in the management of its affairs is relatively direct, although poorly organized, disordered, and spontaneous. This is largely due to the fact that management functions fall into the hands of individual community members (leaders, elders, chiefs) on the basis of random factors and are performed unprofessionally, most often, so to speak, “on a voluntary basis.” Generally recognized and permanent mechanisms for selecting the “elite” have not yet developed. In some cases, everything depends on physical strength; in others, age and related life experience are the deciding factor; sometimes - external data, gender or psychological (for example, volitional) traits. Cases of physical destruction of a leader after a certain pre-agreed and custom-sanctioned period are also described. One thing is clear: members of the tribal community are, to a much greater extent than ever before, informed about the general state of affairs in the community - already due to its comparative small number, and each of them can make a more significant and real contribution to management decision-making compared to by their distant descendants.

It is clear that the power of the elders - that is, the most experienced and most respected members of the clan - could not be inherited. Engels, describing the system of power among the Iroquois, points to the following very characteristic point: “The son of the previous sachem was never elected as sachem, since maternal law prevailed among the Iroquois, and the son, therefore, belonged to a different clan.” By the way, the election of a sachem was a collegial act not only because it was carried out by all members of the clan, but also because it was subject to approval by the other seven clans that made up the Iroquois tribe, and the newly elected sachem was solemnly introduced into the general council of the tribe.

The status of elder was not ascriptive, but attainable by definition. To acquire this status, it was necessary not only to live to a certain age, but also to accumulate such experience, knowledge, skills and abilities that could be useful not only to their owner, but also to all other members of the community. With demographic growth, as well as the development and complexity of social relations, the stratification of society gradually increased, since at the same time the number of power strata increased and the concentration of power in them increased. “The political cone began to grow, but did not level off.”

The dominant nature of economic relations. In primitive societies it is hardly possible to talk about any significant development of the economy as such. Until the agricultural revolution, the level to which tools and technology developed did not allow production to arise on a noticeable scale, that is, the processing of natural products into labor products suitable for further direct use. Production (except for the heat treatment of food) is limited here to the manufacture of simple mining and fishing tools, as well as clothing - almost exclusively for personal use. The absence of a surplus product, and as a result, the impossibility of the emergence of private property and commodity exchange, does not create the need for the development of more complex production relations, making them simply meaningless. The economy of this period is natural in the full sense of the word, when everything that is produced is consumed without reserve by the producer himself and his family members.

General nature of the organizational and technological level. The life of a primitive society right up to the agrarian revolution is a constant extraction of means of subsistence, directly from nature. The main occupations of the members of the society are gathering edible plants, fruits and roots, as well as hunting and fishing. Therefore, the main products of labor are the tools used in these trades. However, these tools, as well as the tools for their manufacture, are as primitive as the entire life of society.

Cooperation among members of society is manifested mainly in joint actions, most often in the form of a simple addition of physical forces, in extreme cases - in the elementary distribution of responsibilities (for example, during a driven hunt). In one of the footnotes in Capital there is a reference to the French historian and economist Simon Lenguet, who calls hunting the first form of cooperation, and the hunting of people (war) one of the first forms of hunting. At the same time, as Marx states, “that form of cooperation in the labor process, which we find at the initial stages of human culture, for example, among hunting peoples or in the agricultural communities of India, rests, on the one hand, on social ownership of the conditions of production, on the other On the other hand, the individual is still as firmly attached to the clan or community as an individual bee is to a beehive.”

Employment structure. Primitive society is characterized by an elementary sex-age division of labor. Most of the men - members of primitive communities, depending on the natural conditions of their habitat, are engaged in one of the trades - either hunting, or fishing, or gathering. There is no need to talk about any deep specialization of community members by type of employment - both because of their small number and because of the low level of development of the productive forces. The practical absence of surplus product serves as the most serious barrier to the social division of labor. People of a primitive society are universal and comprehensive to the extent of the knowledge, skills and abilities accumulated in the community and due to the need to maintain the conditions of their existence, which takes almost all the time that is left for nothing else. At the boundary separating primitive society from traditional society, the first major social division of labor occurs - the separation of pastoral tribes from the rest of the barbarian masses. This means that the first employment sector appears - the agricultural one, which for a long time retains its leading position among the rest.

The nature of the settlements. The nature of the settlements. The nature of the settlements. The nature of the settlements. The nature of the settlements. During the vast period of existence of primitive society, most clans and tribes led a nomadic lifestyle, moving after migrating food sources - fish and game. The first beginnings of localized settlements, i.e. villages, are attributed by Morgan, and then by Engels, to an even higher stage of savagery. The first urban settlements arise only at the end of barbarism and at the dawn of civilization (in Morgan’s understanding), that is, with the transition to a traditional society.

In primitive society, the formation of social and individual intelligence (more precisely, its prerequisites) was accompanied by a number of important specific features. The accumulation of knowledge and its transfer to subsequent generations was carried out orally and individually. In this process, a special role belonged to the elderly, who in this society acted as guardians, guardians and even, in necessary cases, reformers of established morals, customs and the entire complex of knowledge that constituted the essence of material and spiritual life. Old people were the “accumulators” of social intelligence and, to some extent, were considered its embodiment. Thus, the respect that the rest of society had for them was not so much moral as largely rational. As A. Huseynov notes, they, “old people, acted as carriers of labor skills, the mastery of which required many years of exercise and therefore was accessible only to people of their age. The old people personified the collective will of the clan or tribe, as well as the learning of that time. During their lives, they mastered several dialects necessary to communicate with other consanguineous groups; knew those rituals and legends filled with mysterious meaning that were supposed to be kept in deep secret. They regulated the implementation of blood feud, they had the honorable duty of naming, etc... Therefore, the extraordinary honor and respect shown to old people in the primitive era cannot in any case be interpreted as a type of social philanthropy, charity.”

If we take into account the average life expectancy, which in primitive society was two or even three times less than in modern societies, it becomes clear that the proportion of old people in populations was much lower at that time than it is now. Although it should be noted that even in today's primitive tribes (for example, among the Australian aborigines), as A. Huseynov notes, a distinction is made between simply decrepit old people and those old people (elders) who continue to take an active and creative part in the life of the community.

The nature of the development of scientific knowledge. As mentioned above, in primitive society, the accumulation of knowledge and its transmission to subsequent generations was carried out orally and individually. In such conditions, the accumulation and systematization of accumulated knowledge, which in fact constitutes a necessary condition for the development of science, does not occur. Of the four types of knowledge that we identified in the first chapter, the stock of information of a primitive society about the surrounding world is limited only by knowledge of common sense, mythology and ideology, and at the elementary level - to the extent that Durkheim’s mechanical solidarity manifests itself in oppositions of the “one’s own” type. -stranger".

The process of transition from tribal to a new type of social structure - state - is usually characterized by the formation of so-called chiefdoms, which take shape in fairly large associations of people, usually no smaller than a tribe. A chiefdom is a special form of centralized social organization, initially based on devotion (loyalty), and not on formal institutions of coercion. Chiefdoms are already characterized by the emergence of certain patterns of social stratification and economic system, as well as the redistribution of material wealth.

The chiefdom is seen as a proto-state organization. This is a hierarchically organized system, in which there is still no extensive professional management apparatus, which is an integral feature of a mature state. But its main characteristic features already exist in rudimentary form - such as, for example, separate detachments of warriors who obey only the leader and recognize him as the only source of power, as well as a certain pyramid of power. The number of management levels here ranges from two to ten. Of course, this is not comparable to complex societies, but it already represents a serious step in this direction.

§ 2. Traditional society

Some sociologists, when describing the periodization of the development of human societies from lower to higher, use the term “civilization”, talking about “traditional civilization”, “industrial civilization”, “post-industrial civilization”. It is not by chance that we avoid this concept here and use the generalized term “society”. The fact is that this is dictated by the completeness of the picture of social dynamics that we have given. The concept of “civilization”, by definition, is not applicable to primitive societies, since they lack writing (it is no coincidence that the term “preliterate societies” is sometimes used in relation to them).

Let us once again turn to the diagram of the progressive development of human societies (see Fig. 21) in order to constantly keep in mind that the transition from one type of society to another occurs as a result of a certain global revolution. By comparing the transformations that take place during the transition from one type of society to another, we could consistently identify those social changes that are the result of this revolution. Primitive society is transformed into traditional society in the course of the development of the agrarian revolution, and the social changes that it brings to life form the common specificity of all traditional societies. We will try to describe these social changes in this paragraph.

The nature of the social structure. So, the transformation of primitive communities into a traditional society took place during the agrarian revolution, which caused enormous social changes not only in economics and technology, but also in all spheres of social life without exception. The emergence of a surplus, and with the development of private property - a surplus - product means the emergence of material grounds for the formation of a qualitatively new form of social structure - the state.

There is reason to believe that the institution of the state is more likely to arise among agricultural peoples. The fact is that farming requires a lot of labor and therefore leaves practically no time for military (or hunting) exercises for those involved in it. Labor costs in cattle breeding are much less, which is probably why every adult nomad is also a warrior. Agricultural communities are in greater need of professional military protection of their territorial borders: because of this, they have an objective need for separate armed detachments that form the backbone of the state earlier and more clearly.

The emergence of the state is closely connected with the emergence of first a surplus and then a surplus product, and therefore private property and the possibility of alienation of this product from its producer. Moreover, alienation is accomplished not only through purchase and sale, but also through the withdrawal of a certain part of the product in the form of tribute and taxes. This part of the surplus product goes to support the professional management apparatus, the army and the cooperative forces that ensure the ordering of social life.

Thanks to the emergence of the possibility of creating a surplus product and alienating it in favor of the state, a layer of people is gradually emerging in society who are not involved in the productive process, and therefore have a sufficiently large amount of free time necessary for intellectual pursuits. This is an elite not only in the social and managerial sense, but also in the intellectual sense. Let us pay attention to the fact that a certain part of its representatives are professionally engaged in management, which means quite constant and long-term processing of information required for making management decisions. The institution of the state begins to require more and more professionally trained officials to serve its needs, thereby giving rise to the institution of education. The state is also very closely connected with the development of the institution of law.

Gradually, in each of the traditional states, special, usually also armed, groups are created and expanded, which are entrusted with the functions of cooperative social control, regardless of what they are called - police, city guards, or something else. These organized civilian forces carry out the tasks of “internal” protection of the established law and order and property. Although formally professional police appear in most societies in the later, rather industrial, era, they have been present in one form or another throughout the existence of traditional societies.

The forms of government in most traditional states, with very few exceptions, are purely authoritarian in nature. This is the power of one ruler or a very narrow elite circle - dictatorship, monarchy or oligarchy. Of course, the monarchy had the longest and strongest traditions, and most often it was to it that everything came down; even dictators who seized power personally and did not have the formal title of monarch ultimately sought to legitimize their power in the form of a monarchy. The development trends of monarchies in mature traditional societies approaching the industrial revolution are such that they, as a rule, eventually develop a strong centralized state - most often in one form or another of an absolute monarchy. This is one of the important prerequisites for the success of the subsequent industrialization process.

Above, we briefly described the mechanisms of social changes in traditional society associated with the development of professionalism in the management field. This professionalization, combined with the establishment of the monogamous family and inheritance, leads to the emergence of an elite isolated from the rest of society. The emergence of the institution of state and law simultaneously determines the emergence of politics as such and the development of the political sphere of life. This sphere, like all others, is closely intertwined with the entire system of social relations. What does this mean?

In particular, the fact that in Europe, for example, until the twentieth century, the absolute majority of adults (including almost all women) were economically and legally dependent on the head of the family to which they belonged, since it was the family that constituted the main production unit in both agricultural and handicraft production. And only the heads of these families could be considered as full participants in the system of relationships of local (community) self-government. The level of government could not be taken into account at all, since it was entirely within the competence of those who belonged to the minority of the ruling elite. All other members of society, even being formally free, occupied a third-class position in the community, and possibly even lower.

Detachment from participation in government by the overwhelming majority of the population is characteristic not only of monarchical states, but also of ancient and medieval democracies. Suffice it to recall, for example, classical Athenian democracy. What was the Athenian demos, which we are accustomed to translate as “people”? This concept here denoted the free population of a state or city-polis, who had civil rights (in contrast to metics, perieks, slaves, etc.). Moreover, not the entire free population: only the male part of the adult free population, and exclusively urban, belonged to the demos of the city-state of Athens. By the time of the greatest prosperity of Athens, the total number of free citizens, including women and children, was approximately 90 thousand people, and there were 365 thousand slaves of both sexes, foreigners and freedmen under protection - 45 thousand. “For every adult male citizen “, Engels concludes, “thus there were at least 18 slaves and more than two who were under protection.” In other words, in fact the Athenian demos constituted less than 5% of the total population of the polis.

The dominant nature of economic relations. Traditional society takes shape simultaneously with the emergence of a surplus product, and, consequently, with the emergence of private property and commodity exchange. Private property remains dominant throughout the entire period of development of traditional and then industrial societies. We can only talk about changes in its main object in different periods. In the slave-owning formation, the main object of private property is people, in the feudal formation it is land, and in the capitalist formation it is capital.

Due to the relatively low level of development of productive forces in various production sectors of traditional societies, the so-called subsistence economy predominates. A subsistence economy, also called a “self-sufficient” or “natural” economy, is characterized by the following features.

1. An economic unit produces a product mainly for its direct consumption (and the most common production unit in a traditional society is the peasant family; to a lesser extent this applies to the artisan’s workshop, although it is also usually organized within the family.

2. This unit is rather weakly dependent on the market for its consumption; in any case, only a small part of the product produced goes directly to the market.

3. An extremely weak specialization or division of labor develops in an economic unit. This is no longer entirely natural farming, but it is still closer to it than to commercialized production.

The subsistence economy is considered typical of the pre-capitalist period of development. It is determined by the weak development of economic exchange. Of course, in reality, all these so-called self-sufficient farms actually buy and sell the product they produce on the market. So we are talking only about the relative share of the surplus product intended for sale or commodity exchange. And yet, the peasant family is extremely weakly dependent on the market and its conditions.

A characteristic feature of all traditional societies is acute inequality in the distribution of goods produced (a sharpened stratification profile). During the transition from a tribal system to a state system, this inequality sharply worsens. Engels, describing the origins of the Athenian state, points out that “the peasant could be satisfied if he was allowed to remain on the plot as a tenant and live on a sixth of the product of his labor, paying the remaining five-sixths to the new owner in the form of rent.” It is economic inequality that forms the basis of all other types of main stratification of traditional society - political and professional.

Undoubtedly, the variety of tools in traditional societies, especially at fairly mature stages of development, is immeasurably wider, and the level of technology is immeasurably higher. The art of artisans here is sometimes distinguished by such achievements that cannot always be repeated even with the help of modern technical means. However, as we have already said, sociology, being a “generalizing” science, is interested primarily in the general features characteristic of any era as a whole. When considering a traditional society, two such common features should be noted.

Firstly, one of the reasons for the existence of limits to the increase in output per capita of a traditional society is the use in the productive process as a source of energy exclusively or mainly the muscular power of humans and animals. You can literally list on one hand the areas where inanimate energy sources are used: the energy of falling water (to rotate a mill wheel) and the wind (the movement of sailing ships or the rotation of the same mill shaft).

Secondly, the main economic unit throughout the traditional era is, as we have already mentioned, the family, the household enterprise. In feudal agricultural production, the landowner is at the head of the group of households, and his relations with household servants and peasants are built on the principles of paternalism, according to the patriarchal model. Next in the hierarchy are members of his family, farm managers, servants, then peasants. The most common primary unit of production is the peasant family, headed by the peasant and consisting of his children and household members, who, as already mentioned, were to varying degrees dependent on the head of the family, and all families of the community - on the landowner, owner of the land and agricultural land . Moreover, their field of activity (literally) is located in close proximity to their home.

And in craft production, at the head of the workshop is a master craftsman; The direct workers, as a rule, are members of his family - his wife and children, unmarried students and journeymen, civilian (also most often unmarried) artisans. Usually, almost all of them live under one roof - as a rule, the same one under which they work, and precisely as family members - for shelter, board and clothing. You can literally count on one hand the professions whose representatives worked far from home - sailors, fishermen, miners, cab drivers.

Employment structure. The structure of employment in traditional society is formed during the agrarian revolution. It is determined by a gradual increase in the level of productivity and the share of surplus labor in the total volume of labor. Most likely, in the early stages of development, the division of labor here is not yet very significant. At the beginning, “the second major division of labor takes place - crafts were separated from agriculture.” This means the emergence of a second employment sector - craft, which will not soon develop into industrial (or industrial). Then “production directly for exchange” arises - commodity production, and with it trade, not only within the tribe, but also with overseas countries; this lays the foundation for the future service sector of employment. Finally, management activities are professionalized, followed by religious activities; both belong to the information sector, which combines all professional activities related to the processing and accumulation of social information. Hereinafter, we include in the information sector all those “who produce, process and distribute information as their main occupation, as well as who create and maintain the functioning of the information infrastructure.”

It is likely that the ultimately emerging nature of the distribution of members of a traditional society in various sectors of employment may differ significantly from one specific society to another, depending on the general level of development, ethnic, cultural, geographical and other conditions, but there are also general patterns here.

Firstly, due to a certain diversity of social needs (which, of course, increases as society develops), all four main sectors are gradually filled.

Secondly, the overwhelming majority of members of society are employed in the agricultural sector, which must “feed”, that is, provide produced food products not only to its own workers, but also to representatives of other sectors. Given the extremely low productivity of agricultural labor in these eras, it must be assumed that more than half of the working-age members of traditional societies belonged to the agricultural sector.

The nature of the settlements. One of the most important characteristics of the development of traditional societies, starting from the earliest stages, should be considered the emergence of fundamentally new types of settlements - cities.

“The city, surrounding with its stone walls, towers and crenellated parapets stone or brick houses, became the center of a tribe or a union of tribes - an indicator of enormous progress in the art of construction, but at the same time a sign of increasing danger and the need for protection.”

Cities become centers of residence for members of society belonging to the second and third sectors of employment - traders and artisans, and then for representatives of the fourth sector, information. Stone walls, the protective power of which becomes a factor that attracts many of the representatives of these classes, surround not only the houses of the leaders of tribal unions (and then states), but also monasteries. Therefore, the entire political, industrial (more precisely, craft), as well as intellectual life of traditional societies is concentrated here. However, as already mentioned, throughout the traditional era, the vast majority of members of society were rural residents. This follows from the employment structure of traditional societies described above, where the basis of the economy is the agricultural sector, which absorbs a huge part of the working population.

Level and scope of education. The emergence of education as a special social institution dates back to the traditional era. In the previous period, the lack of material carriers of information did not make it possible to reliably store, accumulate and systematize knowledge, as well as to avoid numerous, as in the case of a “damaged telephone,” distortions (including the inevitable normative and value-based coloring) in the process of oral transmission. At the same time, in all traditional societies, education is the privilege of a rather thin social layer. And it's not just a lack of trained teachers. One of the main reasons is the extreme high cost of books that could be used for training.

The material prerequisites for the growth of mass literacy appeared only towards the end of the traditional era, after the invention of printing. Nevertheless, printed books and periodicals that appeared later, especially with secular content, remained for quite a long time the property of only the elite part of society. This is probably partly due to the high price of printed publications, due to their small circulations. Prosper Merimee, in his short story “Tamango,” mentions an interesting fact from the life of one of its heroes, Ledoux, when he was a mate on a privateer ship: “The money received from the booty taken from several enemy ships gave him the opportunity to buy books and study theory navigation." But this is already the era of the Napoleonic wars - in fact, the beginning of the industrial revolution in France.

However, the main obstacle to the growth of the number of educated people is the lack of needs and serious incentives for the vast majority of members of society to receive any kind of education: their daily work activity most often does not require any new information, no new knowledge beyond what was received from the first mentors and gained with experience; In addition, the work itself, exhausting and lasting half a day or more, leaves almost no time or energy for additional intellectual pursuits. Moving up the social ladder in a society divided by fairly strong class barriers (which is the social structure of most traditional societies) also has virtually no connection with obtaining an education.

The above applies to three of the four employment sectors we identified above, with the exception of the information sector, where even in that period the very content of work required a relatively large amount of knowledge, which can only be obtained through systematic education. However, in a traditional society, the proportion of people employed in this sector is still negligible compared to all other sectors and cannot have a serious impact on increasing the role of education for successful professional activity and on the emergence of a corresponding need on a mass scale.

The nature of the development of scientific knowledge. With the advent of writing, the potential for the formation of scientific knowledge arises. Its development, especially in the initial stages, is significantly hampered by the dominance of three other types of knowledge in the public consciousness. Nevertheless, as history shows, in traditional societies the development of science, of course, does not stand still.

Thinkers of the pre-industrial era made many important discoveries in almost all areas of scientific knowledge. It was precisely due to the fact that by the beginning of the industrial revolution the foundation had been laid in almost all branches of scientific knowledge, and primarily in the natural sciences, it was possible to relatively quickly and effectively create a very branched system of applied and technical sciences, which began to be used in technological production processes with with the aim of increasing their efficiency.

However, as one of the founders of the concept of post-industrial society, D. Bell, notes, science and technology developed autonomously in traditional society, almost independently of production. People who engaged in science quite often (if not in the vast majority) did it almost disinterestedly, for the sake of satisfying their own intellectual needs. This, on the one hand, ensured their greater dedication. However, on the other hand, the overall, total efficiency of such activities, not “supported” by the needs of the economy, could not be too high. Therefore, the increase in scientific knowledge was gradual, relatively slow, rather linear in nature and required considerable time for its accumulation.

§ 3. Industrial society

In the previous chapter, we described the conditions for the emergence and course of development of the industrial revolution - a process also called industrialization. Let us recall that the industrial revolution sets into motion three socio-economic laws - the law of saving time, the law of increasing needs and the law of labor change, the influence of which in the previous traditional era was weakly noticeable and of a latent nature. As a result, the law of acceleration of history enters into a phase of explicit manifestation (see Fig. 19, Chapter 10). It is obvious that over the quarter of a millennium that spans the era of industrialization, the total volume of social changes - both in quantitative and qualitative terms - turned out to be actually much greater than over the previous hundred thousand years of development of society as a whole.

There is a certain logic of industrialization, according to which countries and peoples, approaching this stage of development, regardless of the initial historical, ethnic, cultural and religious-ideological foundation, or socio-political structure, inevitably acquire similar characteristics.

In other words, the more industrialized societies are, the more they tend toward uniformity of social order.

This thesis, called the convergence thesis in sociology, argues that the process of industrialization produces common and uniform political and cultural characteristics of societies that may have had very different origins and social structures before industrialization. All societies ultimately move towards a common level of development, since industrialization for its successful implementation requires the fulfillment of certain, and the same, conditions. These required conditions include:

¦ deep social and technical division of labor;

¦ separation of the family from the enterprise and workplace;

¦ formation of a mobile, disciplined workforce;

¦ a certain form of rational organization of economic calculations, planning and investment;

¦ trend towards secularization, urbanization, increased social mobility and democracy.

Throughout the twentieth century, especially in its second half, we can observe how the industrial order of organizing industrial and agricultural production, which has developed in Western societies, is rapidly spreading and being introduced into the fabric of the social life of many societies, which from time immemorial had fundamentally different ways of life. Using the examples of the most advanced societies of Asia and Africa, one can be convinced of the validity of many provisions of the convergence thesis: the new order produces social changes not only in the sphere of economics, technology and production organization, but also entails changes in most other areas, giving them the qualitative originality inherent West. Leisure activities, clothing style, forms of service, manners of behavior, rational architecture of business buildings - all this, one way or another, is built on Western models, creating the basis for mutual understanding and recognition and refuting the famous phrase of the English poet from the times of militant colonialism. Even the dominant “unit of society”, the nuclear family - both as a social type and as a collection of certain values ​​- has become, according to a number of researchers, “one of the most successful exports from the Western world.

It quickly spread to Asia and Africa and is becoming a universal phenomenon today.”

Let us try to briefly trace how these social changes found expression in industrial societies for each of the system-forming characteristics we have chosen.

The nature of the social structure. In industrial society, during the period of overcoming feudal fragmentation, nations are formed from various tribes and nationalities on the basis of capitalist economic ties and the formation of internal markets.

A nation is the highest level of historical communities of people known to us today; it is characterized by the unity of the language (in any case, the literary one and, on the basis of it, the official state language), common habitat, economic ties, and culture. The emergence of clearly defined geographical boundaries is dictated by the requirements of protectionism, the protection of national entrepreneurship from outside intervention. Recent history records many diplomatic, military and other actions on the part of all states aimed at consolidating the territorial outlines of the state, their recognition by external partners, and reliable protection.

Thus, one of the main social changes in the field of social structure during the transition from a traditional society to an industrial one is the formation of national states with clearly defined territorial boundaries. Within these boundaries, there is a tendency for the entire population to have approximately equal claims to the territorial space it inhabits at a given point in time. This is reflected in the fact that a state's territorial claims tend to correspond to cultural, linguistic and ethnic divisions.

The certainty and stability of state borders to some extent indicates the proximity to the completion of the territorial division of the world. In general, this is probably true. Most of the wars that were fought during the era of industrialization were associated - at least formally - not so much with territorial, but with economic and political reasons. During the industrial revolution, as industrial societies matured, a system of national communities gradually emerged, i.e., a territorial division of the world in the form of a kind of “network of national political communities,” which displaces both the former simpler traditional societies and the system of former absolutist empires.

The life of traditional states was permeated with religious influence. Almost all modern industrial states have a distinctly secular character. In each of them, the industrial revolution sooner or later leads to secularization, a process in which religious ideas and organizations lose their influence due to the increasing importance of science and other forms of knowledge. Formally, this can be expressed in legal acts on the separation of the state from the church and the church from the school, as well as on freedom of conscience, that is, the right of citizens to profess any religion or not to profess any.

The nature of the participation of society members in the management of its affairs. Industrial society, as most historians and philosophers unanimously note, for its free development requires the maximum development of democracy: it is this form of government that allows the most reliable timely and relatively painless adjustment of the legal and political space in accordance with the rapidly changing requirements of the economy.

Along with the development of the industrial revolution, gradually, throughout the 19th and then 20th centuries, there was a transformation of the civil rights of all members of industrial society. This process, although quite rapid by historical standards, nevertheless takes the life of more than one generation. In any case, universal suffrage (as the right of all adults over the age of 21, regardless of gender and social origin, to elect and be elected to representative bodies of at least local government) was introduced in England only after the First World War. But, one way or another, the proportion of members of society who have gained access, if not to management, then at least to minimal participation in political life, along with the successes of the industrial revolution, increases significantly - mainly due to women, as well as younger and less economically independent members society.

The implementation of democracy always requires more or less active participation of members of the demos in political life - primarily in the electoral process. We will not touch here on the possibilities of manipulating public opinion, the pressure exerted in one form or another by the opposing parties in the election struggle on its formation. It is clear, however, that it is one thing when the entire demos (or, in modern language, the electorate) consists of several tens of thousands of people, and quite another thing when it includes hundreds of thousands or even millions. Namely, this is the situation that develops during the first of the industrialization processes we are considering - the formation of large national states. For an effective struggle for power it is already necessary:

¦ firstly, the involvement of mass media (which must be created and thoroughly developed), since without their use it is virtually impossible to have a constant and massive impact on public opinion;

¦ secondly, the involvement of an instrument for organizational support of the election campaign; Mass political parties are such an instrument

One of the characteristic features of industrial societies, which R. Aron pointed out, is the institutionalization of political life around mass parties. The formation of stable political orientations, attitudes, likes and dislikes among citizens presupposes a fairly long and stable assimilation by them of a whole complex of both elementary and more complex knowledge, allowing them to: determine their intentions; understand the alignment of various political forces and their real capabilities; be aware of your interests and preferences; understand the mechanisms of one’s own participation in the election campaign, etc.

The assimilation of this kind of knowledge is gradually increasing, as if active participants in the political struggle are sparing no expense on the development of a unique system of “political education”, which is organically woven into the fabric of the social process of industrialization. Lenin's famous phrase that an illiterate person is outside politics only summarizes the many years of painstaking and lengthy work of many different parties to win over the political sympathies of as large a part of the population as possible. And this involvement of an increasingly large part of the population, sometimes against its own will and desire, in political games, even as passive participants, a kind of “weight background”, undoubtedly has an impact on increasing the general intellectual level of society.

In the economic sphere, one of the most characteristic features of industrial society is the almost complete commercialization of production. The essence of commercialization, especially in the initial stages of the development of the industrial revolution, is expressed as succinctly as possible in the simplest slogan: “Everything is for sale!” This means almost undivided dominance of the market. While in a traditional society a relatively small share of the product produced goes to the market, and the rest is consumed by the producers themselves, the vast majority of economic units in an industrial society produce the lion's share of their product, if not all of it, precisely for the market; and on the market they acquire everything they need both for the productive process and for personal consumption. Thus, during the industrial revolution, the subsistence economy disappears or remains for some time only in peripheral regions where capitalism has not yet penetrated.

The core basis of all production and non-production relations in industrial society becomes private ownership of capital, which Marx defined as “self-increasing value.” The colossal growth in turnover naturally presupposes the presence of a highly developed and reliable financial, credit and monetary system. Both the establishment of such a system, and the maintenance of uninterrupted functioning, and especially its development, presuppose the presence of a sufficiently large and ever-increasing number of specially trained people employed in it. Such preparation leads to an increase in both social and individual intelligence, as well as to a general rationalization of all social life. In the general culture of industrial society, muscular labor is increasingly valued. In almost any production, not the quantity, but the quality of workers, which depends on the education they have received, begins to play a more important role.

The rate of economic growth is increasingly outpacing the rate of demographic growth: population growth initially rapidly accelerates, then gradually decreases, and in some places stops completely. Fertility loses its former value. Parents no longer see their children as those who will provide them with a peaceful old age, and the authorities cease to see fertility as a source of economic or defense potential. “Producing offspring is expensive and has to compete with other demands and forms of self-satisfaction and self-realization.”

The economic well-being of almost all members of society is also changing. One of the components of the industrial revolution is the revolution in labor productivity, which over the 75–80 years of the twentieth century actually turned the proletarian into a representative of the middle class with an income gradually approaching the level of representatives of the upper class. Additional productivity translates into an increase in the purchasing power of the population, in other words, leads to an increase in living standards.

Productivity growth is also realized in increasing the duration of workers’ free time.

Continuous and sustainable economic growth and the development of mass production lead to the fact that the main criterion for assessing the effectiveness of society becomes not just the feeling of its members in a state of well-being (which, in principle, is possible even with a relatively low standard of living in combination with equally low demands), but a steady growth in real economic well-being. This leads to a gradual leveling (flattening) of the profile of economic stratification and a decrease in its height. The differences between economic statuses that exist in an industrial society are distributed along the scale of inequality more and more evenly and smoothly in comparison with traditional society.

General nature of the organizational and technological level. The industrial revolution sets in motion two interrelated factors that determine the level of development of both technology and production organization.

The first factor is the dominance of machine production based on mechanization. First of all, the application of inanimate energy sources to the mechanization of production is increasing - steam engines in the first stages of industrialization, electricity and internal combustion engines in subsequent ones. The possibilities for increasing power are practically unlimited.

In addition, the process of industrialization turns out to be closely related to the constant introduction of technical and technological innovations into production, as well as rapid obsolescence (which increasingly outstrips purely physical wear and tear) of existing machines, mechanisms, equipment and production technologies.

As a result, all participants in the productive process, regardless of their desire, must constantly master more and more new types of equipment and technologies - this is how the above-mentioned law of labor change manifests its effect. This, in turn, forces people to constantly improve their intellectual level, and many to engage in technical creativity.

The second factor is the reorganization of production on a factory basis. It is closely related to the general process of increasing capital concentration and reflects it. The family loses its former role as the main economic unit. Many people, machines and mechanisms are concentrated in spatially limited areas. There is a density of contacts and such an exchange of information (moreover, special information, largely of a scientific and technical nature), which was impossible in a traditional society with its predominantly agricultural and handicraft production, characterized by intra-family or intra-shop isolation.

The sharp decline in the role of the so-called “small family business” in the production of goods and services leads to the fact that only a very narrow range of professions allows a person to earn a living while remaining within the confines of his home. The place of work of the absolute majority of members of society is located at a greater or lesser distance from their homes, since the nature of modern production requires the concentration of equipment and labor in a special localized space. Even the work of scientists is impossible outside of libraries and technically equipped laboratories concentrated in universities and research centers.

All these changed social conditions are enormously increasing the density of professional and personal contacts and direct interactions that people now have to enter into with each other during the working day and throughout their lives. Moreover, these contacts in the vast majority are not of a related nature. According to some data, the total number of such contacts today per “average” member of society during one calendar year is approximately equal to their volume in a lifetime a hundred years ago. As a result, the total volume of information circulating in society increases accordingly, including (and perhaps even in a special way) that of a scientific nature.

Employment structure. A characteristic feature of industrial societies is a fall in the share of the population employed in agricultural production, and, accordingly, an increase in the share of workers employed in the industrial sector. The beginning of this process in England, the birthplace of the industrial revolution, was very dramatic and closely related to the so-called “enclosure” policy. Beginning in the 15th century, this policy became comprehensive in connection with the outbreak of the industrial revolution. As a result of an avalanche-like increase in production volumes in the textile industry, prices for its raw material - wool - soared. Landowners - landlords and squires - feverishly rushed into sheep farming, which promised unprecedented opportunities for rapid enrichment. Tenants were driven away, and they, deprived of the main means of production - land, turned for the most part into vagabonds and beggars (according to the expression common at that time - “the sheep ate the people”). The so-called parliamentary (i.e., permitted by legislative acts) “enclosures” led in England to the virtual disappearance of the peasantry as a class.

Where did all this dispossessed mass rush to in search of a means of livelihood? Of course, to the cities where a real economic boom was taking place at that time. The newly created factories and factories had an almost unlimited labor market capacity for their time. Simplification of the labor process, which sometimes amounted to a few simple manipulations with the machine, did not require much special training, which could take years in previous craft production. They paid pennies for work, actively used child labor, and entrepreneurs incurred virtually no social costs. However, there was nothing to choose from. Several processes merged here, in particular, the growth of cities and the restructuring of the employment system, which was expressed primarily in the increase in the number of people employed in industry and the decrease in the share of people employed in agriculture.

In 1800, US agriculture employed 73% of the self-employed population; in 1960, this share dropped to 6.3%, and in the 1980s, it fell by more than half. In general, this indicator—the proportion of the population employed in agriculture—serves for many researchers as an important indicator of the level of industrial development of society. For example, the American sociologist R. Bendix considers modern a society where less than half of the current population is employed in agricultural labor; Moreover, industrial societies classified as “modern” can differ quite significantly according to this criterion. So, if by the beginning of the 70s of this century, about 5% of the population of the UK economy was employed in the agricultural sector of the economy, and less than 6% in the USA, then for the USSR and Japan these figures were 45 and 49%, respectively.

The nature of the settlements. With the beginning of the industrial era, a process called urbanization rapidly unfolded - a significant increase in the role of large urban settlements in the life of society. This becomes a natural consequence of a number of different aspects of industrialization discussed above.

The growth of urban settlements in the 19th century and the replenishment of the three non-farm employment sectors occurred largely due to migration from rural areas. Cities provided livelihoods to millions of people who might have simply died or never been born if they (or their parents) had not migrated to the cities. Those who moved to these cities or to their outskirts were most often driven there by need. Usually the reason for the move was not the benevolent advice of wealthier village neighbors or the imaginary charity of certain townspeople providing jobs to those who wanted to earn a living. As a rule, the immediate motivation for the move was rumors about poor people who saved themselves by moving to expanding cities, from which information came about the availability of well-paid work there.

In 1800, 29.3 million people lived in the world’s cities (3% of the world’s population), by 1900 – 224.4 million (13.6%), and by 1950 – 706.4 million (38.6%). In industrialized Western societies, the process of urbanization was particularly rapid during the 19th century: for example, in Great Britain, the birthplace of the industrial revolution, about 24% of the population was urban in 1800, and by 1900 77% of English people lived in cities.

If we assume that urbanization is not just an increase in the share of the urban population, but the population of super-large cities, those called megacities, then we could turn to data on the rate of urbanization that Alvin Toffler cites in his work “Futuroshock”: “In 1850 In 1970, only 4 cities had a population of more than 1 million people, in 1900 – 19, in 1960 – 141... In 1970, the urban population growth was 6.5%.”

When we talk about a specific urban lifestyle, we mean by it, first of all, a complex of cultural and educational institutions, as well as everyday amenities, which the vast majority of rural residents are deprived of. In fact, it is in cities that theaters, libraries, museums, universities and colleges are concentrated. There is a network of catering establishments here. Urban housing is equipped with running water, external heat sources, and sewerage. Good roads and smoothly operating urban transport ensure quick travel to any desired point in the city. The telephone provides reliable communication at any time of the day. A city resident, as a rule, has greater access to various government agencies to solve their current problems.

At the same time, one cannot help but notice some specific aspects of the existence of the inhabitants of urban settlements, which are, if not negative, then by no means undeniably positive. City dwellers extremely rarely have homes located in close proximity to their place of work. The share of the so-called “pendulum migration”, determined by the movement of people from home to work in the morning and back in the evening, ranges from 30 to 60% of the population of large cities. This dictates serious requirements for public transport and determines the importance of its place in urban infrastructure. And the massive transition to the use of personal vehicles almost everywhere reveals the unpreparedness of the infrastructure of large cities for this: hours-long traffic jams, smog and an increase in the number of road accidents are far from an exhaustive list of problems of this kind.

But what happens in an industrial society to a rural way of life? During the long period of the Industrial Revolution, even with the invasion of industrial methods into agricultural production, patriarchal customs and the general conservatism inherent in the countryside change very slowly. Perhaps this is due to the sparse population of rural settlements, as well as the homogeneity of occupation, and the fact that here the field of labor activity is still located in close proximity to homes. In other words, with the fact that the village will never experience those three factors that L. Wirth considered determining for the urban way of life - number, density and heterogeneity of the population. One way or another, the rural way of life is perceived by most members of society (including the rural residents themselves) as a second-rate, “backward” lifestyle. Perhaps the concept of “hillbilly” appears in almost all societies that have embarked on the path of industrialization, and everywhere it has approximately the same normative and evaluative meaning.

However, it should be noted that, oddly enough, in the value system of a city dweller, this contempt for the rural way of life most often coexists with envy of it. Clean air, fresh natural food, a measured rhythm of life, silence - all this cannot but attract a city dweller, tormented by the constant bustle and haste, the roar of transport passing under the windows, the stench and soot of factory smoke, canned food, the anonymity of relationships, when the majority of urban residents blocks are unfamiliar even with neighbors in the entrance. In fact, experiments repeatedly conducted by sociologists and psychologists demonstrate the amazing callousness and indifference of city residents towards others. While staging a fainting episode or a girl being molested by hooligans on busy streets, the researchers filmed the reactions of numerous passers-by with a hidden camera. More precisely, the complete absence of such a reaction. The vast majority continue to rush about their business as usual, calmly moving away from the scene of the incident. This, of course, would be impossible on any village street.

Level and scope of education. One of the most characteristic features of industrial society is mass literacy. This is influenced by a number of factors.

Firstly, the increasing complexity of equipment and technology creates an increase in incentives for education for both workers and the employers who hire them - in full accordance with the law of labor change. Advanced training as a condition for obtaining higher income and social status increasingly depends on the level of education received. Although in real practice, at least at the micro level, this connection is not so clear and straightforward. However, completion of primary and then secondary education is increasingly becoming a permanent and necessary requirement even for unskilled workers.

Secondly, publishing, like all other industries that have reached the level of industrial production, is experiencing the impact of the law of saving time: the market is increasingly filled with huge volumes of relatively inexpensive printed books.

As a result of the emerging social need for mass literacy, a corresponding proposal is born - in all developed societies the institution of education is radically transformed. Extensive and ramified education systems are being created, a huge number of schools, colleges, and universities are being established. Their founders and founders are both the state and private individuals. Many industrialists establish schools to train specialists for their enterprises. The number of members of society who have received a formal education and continue it throughout almost their entire professional lives, as well as schoolchildren and students, has increased many times over a very short historical period and continues to grow. According to Randall Collins, in the United States, the number of high school graduates, adjusted to the total population under the age of 17, increased 38 times between 1869 and 1963, and the same ratio for graduates of community colleges (which, like our technical schools, largely take over the functions of training mid-level technical specialists) – more than 22 times. The number of bachelors, masters and doctors of science has also increased significantly, although not to the same extent.

The nature of the development of scientific knowledge. Changes in economic, organizational and technological conditions transform the introduction of innovations into the production process into a powerful weapon of competition that has intensified with the beginning of industrialization. If previously, in traditional societies, laboratory experiments of researchers had difficulty finding sponsors - mainly from among enlightened monarchs and representatives of the aristocracy (although their interest may not have been completely disinterested - as was the case with alchemy), now the main source of funding for research work is become the most far-sighted entrepreneurs. Often a researcher and a successful entrepreneur are united, so to speak, in one person. A whole galaxy of outstanding inventors who worked at the dawn of the industrial revolution founded (and not without success!) their own enterprises. Among them we can include the great social experimenter Robert Owen, who, being a talented and successful entrepreneur, concentrated a substantial fortune in his hands, although he spent the lion's share of it on the founding of several utopian colonies, including New Harmony. An outstanding businessman and manager was also one of the first heroes of the industrial revolution, James Watt, who, together with his companion R. Bolton, founded the first enterprise for the mass production of steam engines (of which he himself was the inventor).

Within no more than a century, applied research, i.e., the search for specific practical application and use for direct production purposes of certain laws and patterns discovered by fundamental science, becomes almost the predominant form of scientific research. In any case, investments in this industry in total terms at the initial, and especially at subsequent stages, noticeably exceed the funds allocated for fundamental research. At the same time, the development of applied research technology, and the industry itself as a whole, simultaneously with the general growth of gross national income, leads to an unprecedented expansion of the possibilities of basic research. Over the course of just two hundred years, science has made a giant leap, completely incomparable with the increase in scientific and technical knowledge that has taken place over the previous millennia. It is becoming a truly productive force and an almost independent branch of the national economy. Science, as well as the development and implementation of technological innovations, are turning into a professional field, attracting more and more people capable of this. This, in turn, increases the “gross” volume of intellectual products produced by society.

§ 4. Post-industrial society

The consistent development of the system of ideas of industrial society was the theory of post-industrial society. This concept was formulated in 1962 by American sociologist Daniel Bell, who later developed and summarized this concept in his 1974 work The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. The most brief description of this type of civilization could be the idea of ​​an information society, because its core is the extremely rapid development of information technology. If industrial society is the result of the industrial revolution, then post-industrial society is a product of the information revolution.

D. Bell proceeds from the fact that if in pre-industrial and industrial societies the axial principle around which all social relations are built is ownership of the means of production, then in modern societies dominant in the last quarter of the twentieth century, the place of such an axial principle is increasingly beginning to be occupied by information, or more precisely, its totality - the knowledge accumulated up to this moment. This knowledge acts as a source of technical and economic innovation and at the same time becomes the starting point for policy formation. In economics, this is reflected in the fact that the share and importance of industrial production itself as the main form of economic activity is significantly reduced. It is being replaced by service and information production.

The service sector in the most advanced societies includes more than half of the employed population. The information sector, which “includes all those who produce, process and disseminate information as their main occupation, as well as those who create and maintain the functioning of information infrastructure,” is also growing rapidly - both in size and in the growth of social influence.

Of course, the sphere of material production - neither in the agricultural nor in the industrial sectors - cannot lose its importance in the life of society. Ultimately, scientific and information activities in general require an ever-increasing amount of equipment, and the people involved in them must eat every day. We are talking only about the ratio of the number of employees in a particular sector, as well as the ratio of the share of cost in the total volume of the gross national product.

Thus, in a post-industrial civilization, the main wealth is not land (as in a traditional, agrarian society), or even capital (as in an industrial civilization), but information. Moreover, its features, unlike land and capital, are such that it is not limited, in principle it becomes more and more accessible to everyone and does not decrease in the process of its consumption. In addition, it is relatively inexpensive (because it is immaterial), and the means of storing and processing it are becoming increasingly cheaper to produce, which increases its efficiency.

The technical basis of the information society is the development of computer technologies and means of communication. Modern means of storing, processing and transmitting information allow a person to almost instantly receive the required information at any time from anywhere in the world. A huge volume of information, accumulated by humanity and continuing to grow like an avalanche, circulates in modern society and for the first time in history begins to act not just as social memory (for example, in books), but already as an active tool, as a means of decision-making, and more and more often without direct human participation.

Now let’s look at what social changes the information revolution is causing according to the parameters we have chosen in those societies where it has manifested itself most clearly. At the same time, we should not forget that none of the societies existing today, including the most advanced ones, can be considered completely post-industrial. We are talking only about trends that in some general society of the “third wave” will be built on the basis of three key principles.

1. The minority principle, which is intended to replace the previous majority principle. Instead of the previous political stratification, in which several large blocs formed the majority, there emerges “a configurative society in which thousands of minorities, the existence of many of which is temporary, are in a continuous cycle, forming completely new transitional forms.”

2. The principle of “semi-direct” democracy, which essentially means a rejection of representative democracy. Today, parliamentarians actually proceed, first of all, from their own views; at best, they listen to the opinions of a few experts. Raising the educational level and improving communication technologies will enable citizens to independently develop their own options for many political decisions. In other words, opinions formed outside the legislative bodies will increasingly acquire legal force.

3. The principle of “sharing responsibility in decision making,” which will help eliminate the overload that often blocks the activities of government institutions. Until now, too many decisions are made at the national level and too few at the local (municipal) and international levels. It is necessary to delegate decision-making rights on the problems of the functioning of international corporations, the trade in arms and drugs, the fight against international terrorism, etc. to the transnational level. This kind of decentralization of management will ensure the transfer of part of the competence, on the one hand, to local authorities, and on the other, to supranational entities.

The dominant nature of economic relations. In a post-industrial society, the dominant role is increasingly played not so much by private as by corporate and institutional ownership of the means of production. The corporatization of the majority of any large enterprises, a trend towards which began in the time of Marx, in a mature industrial society acquires decisive importance. Shares, symbolizing property relations, becoming securities, significantly intensify the general process of circulation of capital.

However, its theorists consider the main feature of a post-industrial society to be a shift in the center of gravity from property relations as the core around which all social relations were formed in previous eras, to knowledge and information.

For example, Alvin Toffler sees here the main difference from the economic system that dominated industrial society in the method of creating social wealth. “The new method is fundamentally different from all previous ones and in this sense is a turning point in social life.” At the same time, a super-symbolic system of creating social wealth is emerging, based on the use of information technology, that is, on the use of a person’s intellectual abilities, and not his physical strength. It is obvious that in such an economic system the mode of production must be based primarily on knowledge.

As the service and information sectors of the economy develop, wealth loses the material embodiment that land gave it in an agrarian civilization, and capital in an industrial civilization. It is interesting that, according to the same Toffler, the emergence in post-industrial civilization of a new – symbolic – form of capital “confirms the ideas of Marx and classical political economy, which foreshadowed the end of traditional capital.”

The main unit of exchange is becoming not only and not so much money - metal or paper, cash or non-cash - but information. “Paper money,” says Toffler, “this artifact of the industrial era, is becoming obsolete, and credit cards are taking its place. Once the symbol of the emerging middle class, credit cards are now ubiquitous. Today (early 90s - V.A., A.K.) there are about 187 million of their owners in the world.” If you think about it, electronic money expressed by a credit card is information (about the degree of solvency of the owner of this card) almost in its pure form. The expansion of electronic money in the global economy is beginning to have a serious impact on long-established relationships. In a competitive environment, private financial companies providing credit services are beginning to squeeze the previously unshakable power of banks.

General nature of the organizational and technological level. Most theorists of post-industrial society - D. Bell, Z. Brzezinski and others - consider a sharp reduction in the number of blue collar workers and an increase in the number of white collar workers to be a sign of the new system. However, Toffler argues that the expansion of office activity is nothing more than a direct continuation of the same industrialism. “Offices function like factories, with a significant division of labor that is monotonous, stultifying and degrading.” In post-industrial society, on the contrary, there is an increase in the number and variety of organizational forms of production management. Cumbersome and ponderous bureaucratic structures are increasingly being replaced by small, mobile and temporary hierarchical unions. Information technologies destroy the previous principles of division of labor and contribute to the emergence of new unions of owners of common information.

One example of such flexible forms is the return to a new round of the “spiral” of progress of a small family business. “Decentralization and de-urbanization of production, the change in the nature of work make it possible to return to home industry based on modern electronic technology.” Toffler believes, for example, that the “electronic cottage” - by which he means home-based work using computer technology, multimedia and telecommunication systems - will play a leading role in the labor process of post-industrial society. He also argues that domestic work in modern conditions has the following advantages.

¦ Economic: stimulating the development of some industries (electronics, communications) and reducing others (oil, paper); savings in transportation costs, the cost of which today exceeds the cost of installing telecommunications at home.

¦ Socio-political: strengthening stability in society; reducing forced geographic mobility; strengthening families and neighborhoods; revitalizing people's participation in public life.

¦ Environmental: creating incentives to save energy and use cheap alternative sources.

¦ Psychological: overcoming monotonous, overly specialized work; increasing personal aspects in the work process.

Employment structure. Today, in the most advanced countries - where the trends of post-industrial society are most clearly manifested - one worker employed directly in agriculture is able to provide food for up to 50 or more people employed in other sectors. (Although, of course, such efficiency cannot be achieved through the efforts of farmers alone, for each of whom, in fact, several people work in other sectors of the economy, providing him with machines, energy, fertilizers, advanced agronomic technologies, receiving raw agricultural products from him and processing it into a ready-to-use product.)

We presented the general trends in the restructuring of the employment system in three types of societies in the diagram (Fig. 22). If you try to track the trends of changes along the Z axis, which reflect in this diagram the consistent increase in the levels of development of society, then it is not difficult to verify the following. During the transition from one civilization to another, there is a consistent and very significant outflow of workers from the agricultural sector, who, of course, are redistributed among other sectors. (In developing societies today, these processes are probably still less dramatic and painful than in Europe at the dawn of the industrial revolution.) In addition, there is no less consistent and sustainable growth in sectors such as service and information. And only the industrial sector, which reached its maximum size in developed countries by the 50s of the twentieth century, is noticeably declining in post-industrial society.

The nature of the settlements. The trend of urbanization, so characteristic of industrial societies, undergoes major changes during the transition to a post-industrial society. In almost all advanced societies, the development of urbanization followed an S-shaped curve, starting very slowly, spreading very quickly, then slowing down, and then smoothly moving (sometimes even more intensely than the previous period of urbanization) back.

Rice. 22. Restructuring of employment in societies of various types. A hypothetical diagram constructed by the authors based on data gleaned from various sources (including those presented in lectures by some experts)

new direction - suburban (i.e. suburban) development (Suburban way of life - “suburban lifestyle” (...).

Computerization and the development of telecommunications, as well as the widespread introduction of computer networks, make it possible for an increasing number of people employed in industries related to the production and processing of information to “go to work without leaving home.” They can communicate with their employers (receiving tasks, reporting on their completion, and even making payments for work performed) and clients over computer networks. The American textbook “The Office: Procedures and Technology” describes a situation quite typical for a post-industrial society: “A young man is hired to work for a large company located in a large city, but he would like to live in a rural area 45 miles from the city. He is hired as a word processing specialist and is able to complete work assignments from the comfort of his home. The company provides him with the equipment necessary for his work, including that required for the electronic transfer of finished products to the company’s office. Now this young worker carries out his official duties in his home office, admiring the view from the window of the herds grazing peacefully in a picturesque valley. Letters and reports prepared by him in this secluded village are immediately received by those to whom they are intended, no matter where they are on the globe.”

Let us note that such a way of life is probably available only to those members of society whose professional activities are of an intellectual nature. However, we have repeatedly noted above that the proportion of this category of the population in post-industrial societies is steadily increasing.

Level and scope of education. In most advanced societies, obtaining a fairly high level of education is beginning to be increasingly valued. Thus, the share of American men who studied at least four years in college increased from 20% in 1980 to 25% in 1994, the share of women - from 13% to 20%. Competition among applicants for admission to universities and institutes considered the best (prestigious) has sharply increased. Thus, in 1995, Harvard University received 18 thousand 190 applications for admission to 2 thousand places, which indicates a competition of 11 people for each place. Five years earlier the ratio was 8 people per position.

However, as paradoxical as it may sound, at the turn of the millennium a fundamentally new problem arose in full force: the fight against functional illiteracy. Moreover, it arises primarily in the most advanced societies, where, it would seem, the level of basic literacy is much higher than anywhere else in the world. According to UNESCO definition, functional illiteracy is, firstly, the practical loss of skills and abilities in reading, writing and basic calculations; secondly, a level of general educational knowledge that does not allow one to fully “function” in a modern, continually becoming more complex society. Information, unlike material goods, cannot be appropriated, but must be mastered (that is, understood, comprehended from the standpoint of the general system of information already available in a person’s thesaurus; placed in the right place in the storeroom of his memory; in addition, it must be ready to be removed and used at the right time and in the right place). What can we say about the “reader” who, after reading a small and completely uncomplicated text, is unable to answer a single question about its content? Only one thing: he cannot read (despite all his certificates and diplomas). This is one of the most important manifestations of functional illiteracy.

Russia has not yet fully realized the enormity of this problem, probably due to the fact that we have not yet really reached the boundaries of highly developed societies. Perhaps it is for this reason that research into the level of functional illiteracy in Russia has not been carried out either on a national or even on a regional scale.

It should be noted that in most developed countries, information about the total increase in functional illiteracy caused not only discouragement, but also an adequate reaction in political circles. Based on the data and conclusions of the above-mentioned National Commission report, then US President Ronald Reagan demanded that Congress allocate substantial funds for the campaign to combat functional illiteracy. His successor, George W. Bush, committed himself during his election campaign to become the “education president.” At the third meeting in US history with all state governors (September 1989), a statement was made calling for educational goals that would “make us competitive.”

The nature of the development of scientific knowledge. The most important driving force of change in post-industrial society is automation and computerization of production processes and the so-called “high technologies”. The acceleration of change in the second half of the twentieth century is generally closely related to the rapid improvement of technological processes. The time interval between three cycles of technological renewal has been significantly reduced: 1) the emergence of a creative idea, 2) its practical implementation and 3) its introduction into social production. In the third cycle, the first cycle of the next circle arises: “new machines and equipment become not only products, but also a source of fresh ideas.”

New technology also implies new solutions to social, philosophical and even personal problems. “It affects the entire intellectual environment of a person - his way of thinking and his view of the world,” says Alvin Toffler. The core of technology improvement is knowledge. Paraphrasing F. Bacon’s saying “knowledge is power,” Toffler argues that in the modern world “knowledge is change,” in other words, the accelerated acquisition of knowledge that fuels the development of technology also means the acceleration of change.

In social development as a whole, a similar chain can be traced: discovery - application - impact - discovery. The speed of transition from one link to another also increases significantly. Psychologically, people find it difficult to adapt to the many changes that occur in a short period of time. Toffler characterizes the acceleration of change as a social and psychological force - “external acceleration is transformed into internal.” The provision about accelerating changes and their social and psychological role serves as a justification for the transition to a kind of “super-industrial” society. It seems to us that the most appropriate name for such a society should be “information society.”

1. It is advisable to carry out a comparative analysis of various types of human societies that differ in their level of development by comparing standard parameters that are similar for different countries and peoples at the same level of social development, and differ in their content for societies at different levels development. There are eight such parameters: 1) the nature of the social structure; 2) the nature of the participation of members of the company in the management of its affairs; 3) the dominant nature of economic relations; 4) the general nature of the organizational and technological level; 5) employment structure; 6) the nature of the settlements; (7) level and scope of education; (8) the nature and level of development of scientific knowledge.

2. Primitive society, in accordance with the eight parameters indicated, can be described as follows. The dominant type of social construction here is tribalism - a tribal structure. Most members of society are directly involved in management, but in a chaotic, disorderly manner. “Economy” (for a primitive society this concept is very conditional) is based on subsistence farming; communal ownership of the means of production prevails; the random nature of commodity exchange relations is observed. These societies are characterized by primitive processing of fishing tools (gathering, hunting, fishing), as well as an elementary gender and age division of labor, since the majority of community members are engaged in the same craft. The habitats of members of primitive societies are small temporary settlements (parking lots, encampments). There is no systematization of accumulated knowledge, and its transfer to subsequent generations is carried out orally and individually.

3. Traditional society, in comparison with primitive society, is undergoing serious social changes. The main type of social construction here becomes in the initial stages a weakly centralized state, which, as it develops, acquires more and more clearly expressed tendencies towards absolutism. Politics here is a matter of a narrow layer of the elite, and the absolute majority of members of society are excluded from participation in governance. The foundation of economic life lies in private ownership of the means of production. In traditional societies there is a predominance of the subsistence economy. Here the variety of tools is increasing more and more consistently, but mainly based on the muscular energy of humans and animals. The main organizational and economic unit is the family. In urban settlements, there is an increasing development of the craft and service sectors, but the vast majority of the population is employed in the agricultural sector. This majority lives in rural areas. Cities are gaining increasing influence as centers of political, industrial and spiritual life. Education, like politics, is the preserve of a thin layer of elite. Science and production are autonomous, loosely connected spheres of society.

4. Industrial society, during the process of industrialization, acquires, according to R. Aron’s characterization, the following typical features. National states with clearly defined territorial boundaries become the main type of social structure; these states are formed around common forms of economy, language and culture. Universal suffrage is granted to the population, as a result of which there is a consistent institutionalization of political activity around mass parties. The economy is becoming more and more clearly defined by market relations, which means almost complete commercialization of production and the disappearance of the subsistence economy. Private ownership of capital becomes the core basis of the economy. The technological dominant is the dominance of machine production. It should be noted that the share of workers employed in agricultural production has fallen and the share of the industrial proletariat has increased. Production is reorganized on a factory basis. An important sign of industrialization is the urbanization of society. The strengthening of the law of labor change leads to an increase in mass literacy. From the very beginning of the industrial revolution, science has been applied at an increasing pace to all spheres of life, especially to industrial production, as well as a consistent rationalization of all social life.

5. The development of the information revolution leads to the gradual formation of a post-industrial society. Judging by the trends observed today in the most advanced societies, it will have the following characteristics. The most important social change in the system of social construction should be considered the increased transparency of national borders and the influence of supranational communities. Economic life is increasingly characterized by the increasing role of information and its possession, the increasing importance of intellectual property, the emergence of electronic money and the transformation of information into the main means of exchange. In the technological sphere, the development of “high technologies”, as well as automation and computerization of production processes, is becoming increasingly important. It should be noted that there is a clearly expressed tendency for the share of workers employed in industry to fall, with a simultaneous increase in the share of workers employed in the information and especially in the service sectors. Industrial urbanization is being replaced by a trend toward suburbanization. A manifestation of the crisis in social institutions of education is the awareness of the problem of functional illiteracy. Science becomes a directly productive sphere.

In fact, this summary is compiled into a single matrix called “Types of societies and criteria for their distinction.” This matrix can be analyzed in two directions:

¦ line by line: then we see exactly what social changes are taking place in a given sphere of social life, or (which is the same thing) what changes in this sphere are caused by this or that global revolution;

¦ by columns: as a result, we obtain a comprehensive description of each of the four types of societies (which is reflected in the summary for Chapter 12).

Control questions

1. List eight defining parameters that can be used to compare social change in different types of societies.

2. What does the term “tribalism” mean?

3. What should be understood by “demos”?

4. What is the essence of the “subsistence economy”?

5. What are the main reasons for the lack of mass literacy in traditional society?

6. What is the main reason for the limit (“ceiling”) of labor productivity growth in a traditional society?

Table 12

Types of societies and criteria for their differences

7. What is the essence of the convergence thesis?

8. What does such a characteristic feature of industrial society, noted by R. Aron, as “institutionalization of political life around mass parties” mean?

9. What is the essence of commercialization of production in an industrial society?

10. What are the main trends in employment restructuring in different types of societies?

1. Bendix R. Modern society // American sociology. – M., 1972

2. Gauzner N. Theory of the “information society” and the reality of capitalism // World Economy and International Relations. – 1985. No. 10.

3. Guseinov A. The Golden Rule of Morality. – M., 1988.

4. Galbraith D. New industrial society. – M., 1969.

5. Drucker P. Post-capitalist society // New post-industrial wave in the West. – M., 1999.

6. Inozemtsev V.L. Post-industrial economy and “post-industrial” society // Social sciences and modernity. – 2001. No. 3.

7. Lukin V. M. Models of industrial and post-industrial civilization in Western futurology // Bulletin of St. Petersburg University. Ser. 6. – 1993, Issue. 1 (No. 6).

8. Otunbaeva R., Tangyan S. In the world of the illiterate // New time. – 1991. No. 17.

9. Sorokin P. A. Social and cultural mobility // Man. Civilization. Society. M., 1992.

10. Tangyan S. A. The priority of education today is the priority of the XXI century // Soviet pedagogy. – 1991. No. 6.

11. Chudinova V.P. Functional illiteracy - a problem in developed countries // Sociological studies. – 1994. No. 3.

12. Engels F. The origin of the family, private property and the state // Marx K, Engels F. Sobr. op., 2nd ed. T. 21.

Traditional society is a society that is regulated by tradition. Preservation of traditions is a higher value in it than development. The social structure in it is characterized by a rigid class hierarchy, the existence of stable social communities (especially in Eastern countries), and a special way of regulating the life of society, based on traditions and customs. This organization of society strives to preserve the socio-cultural foundations of life unchanged. Traditional society is an agrarian society.

general characteristics

A traditional society is usually characterized by:

traditional economics

the predominance of the agricultural way of life;

structural stability;

class organization;

low mobility;

high mortality;

low life expectancy.

A traditional person perceives the world and the established order of life as something inextricably integral, sacred and not subject to change. A person's place in society and his status are determined by tradition and social origin.

In a traditional society, collectivist attitudes predominate, individualism is not encouraged (since freedom of individual action can lead to a violation of the established order, time-tested). In general, traditional societies are characterized by the predominance of collective interests over private ones. What is valued is not so much individual capacity as the place in the hierarchy (official, class, clan, etc.) that a person occupies.

In a traditional society, as a rule, relations of redistribution rather than market exchange predominate, and elements of a market economy are strictly regulated. This is due to the fact that free market relations increase social mobility and change the social structure of society (in particular, they destroy class); the redistribution system can be regulated by tradition, but market prices cannot; forced redistribution prevents “unauthorized” enrichment/impoverishment of both individuals and classes. The pursuit of economic gain in traditional society is often morally condemned and opposed to selfless help.

In a traditional society, most people live their whole lives in a local community (for example, a village), and connections with the “big society” are rather weak. At the same time, family ties, on the contrary, are very strong. The worldview (ideology) of a traditional society is determined by tradition and authority.

The culture of primitive society was characterized by the fact that human activities associated with gathering and hunting were intertwined with natural processes, man did not separate himself from nature, and therefore no spiritual production existed. Cultural and creative processes were organically woven into the processes of obtaining a means of subsistence. Connected with this is the peculiarity of this culture - primitive syncretism, that is, its indivisibility into separate forms. Man's complete dependence on nature, extremely meager knowledge, fear of the unknown - all this inevitably led to the fact that the consciousness of primitive man from his first steps was not strictly logical, but emotional-associative, fantastic.

In the field of social relations, the clan system dominates. Exogamy played a special role in the development of primitive culture. The prohibition of sexual intercourse between members of the same clan promoted the physical survival of humanity, as well as cultural interaction between clans. Inter-clan relations are regulated according to the principle “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”, but within the clan the principle of taboo reigns - a system of prohibitions on committing a certain type of action, the violation of which is punishable by supernatural forces.

The universal form of spiritual life of primitive people is mythology, and the first pre-religious beliefs existed in the form of animism, totemism, fetishism and magic. Primitive art is distinguished by the facelessness of the human image, the highlighting of special distinctive generic features (signs, decorations, etc.), as well as parts of the body important for the continuation of life. Along with the complication of production

activities, the development of agriculture, cattle breeding in the process of the “Neolithic revolution”, stocks of knowledge are growing, experience is accumulating,

develop different ideas about the surrounding reality,

the arts are being improved. Primitive forms of belief

are replaced by various kinds of cults: the cult of leaders, ancestors, etc.

The development of productive forces leads to the emergence of a surplus product, which is concentrated in the hands of priests, leaders, and elders. Thus, the “elite” and slaves are formed, private property appears, and the state is formed.

Modern societies differ in many ways, but they also have the same parameters according to which they can be typologized.

One of the main directions in the typology is choice of political relations, forms of government as grounds for distinguishing different types of society. For example, U and I societies differ in type of government: monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy. Modern versions of this approach highlight totalitarian(the state determines all the main directions of social life); democratic(the population can influence government structures) and authoritarian(combining elements of totalitarianism and democracy) societies.

The basis typology of society it's supposed to Marxism difference between societies type of industrial relations in various socio-economic formations: primitive communal society (primitively appropriating mode of production); societies with the Asian mode of production (the presence of a special type of collective ownership of land); slave societies (ownership of people and use of slave labor); feudal (exploitation of peasants attached to the land); communist or socialist societies (equal treatment of all towards ownership of the means of production through the elimination of private property relations).

Traditional, industrial and post-industrial societies

Most stable in modern sociology is considered a typology based on the selection traditional, industrial and post-industrial society

Traditional society(it is also called simple and agrarian) is a society with an agricultural structure, sedentary structures and a method of sociocultural regulation based on traditions (traditional society). The behavior of individuals in it is strictly controlled, regulated by customs and norms of traditional behavior, established social institutions, among which the most important will be the family. Attempts at any social transformations and innovations are rejected. For him characterized by low rates of development, production. Important for this type of society is an established social solidarity, which Durkheim established while studying the society of the Australian aborigines.

Traditional society characterized by the natural division and specialization of labor (mainly by gender and age), personalization of interpersonal communication (directly of individuals, and not officials or persons of status), informal regulation of interactions (norms of unwritten laws of religion and morality), connection of members by kinship relations (family type of community organization) , a primitive system of community management (hereditary power, rule of elders).

Modern societies differ in the following features: the role-based nature of interaction (people's expectations and behavior are determined by the social status and social functions of individuals); developing deep division of labor (on a professional qualification basis related to education and work experience); a formal system for regulating relations (based on written law: laws, regulations, contracts, etc.); a complex system of social management (separation of the institute of management, special government bodies: political, economic, territorial and self-government); secularization of religion (its separation from the system of government); highlighting a variety of social institutions (self-reproducing systems of special relations that allow for social control, inequality, protection of their members, distribution of goods, production, communication).

These include industrial and post-industrial societies.

Industrial society- this is a type of organization of social life that combines the freedom and interests of the individual with general principles governing their joint activities. It is characterized by flexibility of social structures, social mobility, and a developed system of communications.

In the 1960s concepts appear post-industrial (informational) societies (D. Bell, A. Touraine, J. Habermas), caused by drastic changes in the economy and culture of the most developed countries. The leading role in society is recognized as the role of knowledge and information, computer and automatic devices. An individual who has received the necessary education and has access to the latest information has an advantageous chance of moving up the social hierarchy. The main goal of a person in society becomes creative work.

The negative side of post-industrial society is the danger of strengthening on the part of the state, the ruling elite through access to information and electronic media and communication over people and society as a whole.

Lifeworld human society is becoming stronger is subject to the logic of efficiency and instrumentalism. Culture, including traditional values, is being destroyed under the influence administrative control gravitating towards standardization and unification of social relations and social behavior. Society is increasingly subject to the logic of economic life and bureaucratic thinking.

Distinctive features of post-industrial society:

• transition from the production of goods to an economy of services;
• the rise and dominance of highly educated technical vocational specialists;
• the main role of theoretical knowledge as a source of discoveries and political decisions in society;
• control over technology and the ability to assess the consequences of scientific and technical innovations;
• decision-making based on the creation of intellectual technology, as well as using the so-called information technology.

The latter is brought to life by the needs of the beginning to form information society. The emergence of such a phenomenon is by no means accidental. The basis of social dynamics in the information society is not traditional material resources, which are also largely exhausted, but information (intellectual) ones: knowledge, scientific, organizational factors, intellectual abilities of people, their initiative, creativity.

The concept of post-industrialism today has been developed in detail, has a lot of supporters and an ever-increasing number of opponents. The world has formed two main directions assessments of the future development of human society: eco-pessimism and techno-optimism. Ecopessimism predicts total global catastrophe due to increasing environmental pollution; destruction of the Earth's biosphere. Techno-optimism draws a rosier picture, assuming that scientific and technological progress will cope with all the difficulties on the path to the development of society.

Basic typologies of society

In the history of social thought, several typologies of society have been proposed.

Typologies of society during the formation of sociological science

Founder of sociology, French scientist O. Comte proposed a three-member stage typology, which included:

• stage of military dominance;
• stage of feudal rule;
• stage of industrial civilization.

The basis of the typology G. Spencer the principle of evolutionary development of societies from simple to complex is established, i.e. from an elementary society to an increasingly differentiated one. Spencer envisioned the development of societies as an integral part of a single evolutionary process for all of nature. The lowest pole of the evolution of society is formed by the so-called military societies, characterized by high homogeneity, the subordinate position of the individual and the dominance of coercion as a factor of integration. From this phase, through a series of intermediate ones, society develops to the highest pole - industrial society, in which democracy, the voluntary nature of integration, spiritual pluralism and diversity dominate.

Typologies of society in the classical period of development of sociology

These typologies differ from those described above. Sociologists of this period saw their task as explaining it based not on the general order of nature and the laws of its development, but on nature itself and its internal laws. So, E. Durkheim sought to find the “original cell” of the social as such and for this purpose looked for the “simplest,” most elementary society, the simplest form of organization of “collective consciousness.” Therefore, his typology of societies is built from simple to complex, and is based on the principle of complicating the form of social solidarity, i.e. consciousness by individuals of their unity. In simple societies, mechanical solidarity operates because the individuals composing them are very similar in consciousness and life situation - like particles of a mechanical whole. In complex societies, there is a complex system of division of labor, differentiated functions of individuals, therefore the individuals themselves differ from each other in lifestyle and consciousness. They are united by functional connections, and their solidarity is “organic”, functional. Both types of solidarity are represented in any society, but in archaic societies mechanical solidarity predominates, and in modern societies organic solidarity predominates.

German classic of sociology M. Weber viewed the social as a system of domination and subordination. His approach was based on the idea of ​​society as the result of a struggle for power and to maintain dominance. Societies are classified according to the type of dominance that prevails in them. The charismatic type of dominance arises on the basis of the personal special power - charisma - of the ruler. Priests or leaders usually possess charisma, and such dominance is non-rational and does not require a special system of management. Modern society, according to Weber, is characterized by a legal type of domination based on law, characterized by the presence of a bureaucratic management system and the operation of the principle of rationality.

Typology of the French sociologist Zh. Gurvich features a complex multi-level system. He identifies four types of archaic societies that had a primary global structure:

• tribal (Australia, American Indians);
• tribal, which included heterogeneous and weakly hierarchized groups united around a leader endowed with magical powers (Polynesia, Melanesia);
• tribal with a military organization, consisting of family groups and clans (North America);
• tribal tribes united into monarchical states (“black” Africa).

• charismatic societies (Egypt, Ancient China, Persia, Japan);
• patriarchal societies (Homeric Greeks, Jews of the Old Testament era, Romans, Slavs, Franks);
• city-states (Greek city-states, Roman cities, Italian cities of the Renaissance);
• feudal hierarchical societies (European Middle Ages);
• societies that gave rise to enlightened absolutism and capitalism (Europe only).

In the modern world, Gurvich identifies: technical-bureaucratic society; a liberal democratic society built on the principles of collectivist statism; society of pluralistic collectivism, etc.

Typologies of society in modern sociology

The postclassical stage of development of sociology is characterized by typologies based on the principle of technical and technological development of societies. Nowadays, the most popular typology is one that distinguishes between traditional, industrial and post-industrial societies.

Traditional societies characterized by high development of agricultural labor. The main sector of production is the procurement of raw materials, which is carried out within peasant families; members of society strive to satisfy mainly domestic needs. The basis of the economy is the family farm, which is able to satisfy, if not all of its needs, then a significant part of them. Technical development is extremely weak. The main method in decision making is the “trial and error” method. Social relations are extremely poorly developed, as is social differentiation. Such societies are tradition-oriented, therefore, oriented towards the past.

Industrial society - a society characterized by high industrial development and rapid economic growth. Economic development is carried out mainly due to an extensive, consumer attitude towards nature: in order to satisfy its current needs, such a society strives for the most complete development of the natural resources at its disposal. The main sector of production is the processing and processing of materials, carried out by teams of workers in factories and factories. Such a society and its members strive for maximum adaptation to the present moment and satisfaction of social needs. The main method of decision-making is empirical research.

Another very important feature of industrial society is the so-called “modernization optimism”, i.e. absolute confidence that any problem, including social, can be solved based on scientific knowledge and technology.

Post-industrial society- this is a society that is emerging at the moment and has a number of significant differences from industrial society. If an industrial society is characterized by a desire for maximum industrial development, then in a post-industrial society a much more noticeable (and ideally primary) role is played by knowledge, technology and information. In addition, the service sector is developing rapidly, overtaking industry.

In post-industrial society there is no faith in the omnipotence of science. This is partly due to the fact that humanity is faced with the negative consequences of its own activities. For this reason, “environmental values” come to the fore, and this means not only a careful attitude towards nature, but also an attentive attitude to the balance and harmony necessary for the adequate development of society.

The basis of post-industrial society is information, which in turn gave rise to another type of society - informational. According to supporters of the theory of the information society, a completely new society is emerging, characterized by processes that are opposite to those that took place in the previous phases of the development of societies even in the 20th century. For example, instead of centralization there is regionalization, instead of hierarchization and bureaucratization - democratization, instead of concentration - disaggregation, instead of standardization - individualization. All these processes are driven by information technology.

People offering services either provide information or use it. For example, teachers transfer knowledge to students, repairmen use their knowledge to maintain equipment, lawyers, doctors, bankers, pilots, designers sell their specialized knowledge of laws, anatomy, finance, aerodynamics and color schemes to clients. They do not produce anything, unlike factory workers in an industrial society. Instead, they transfer or use knowledge to provide services for which others are willing to pay.

Researchers are already using the term " virtual society" to describe the modern type of society, formed and developing under the influence of information technologies, especially Internet technologies. The virtual, or possible, world has become a new reality due to the computer boom that has swept society. Virtualization (replacement of reality with a se simulation/image) of society, researchers note, is total, since all the elements that make up society are virtualized, significantly changing their appearance, their status and role.

Post-industrial society is also defined as a society " post-economic", "post-labor", i.e. a society in which the economic subsystem loses its decisive significance, and labor ceases to be the basis of all social relations. In a post-industrial society, a person loses his economic essence and is no longer considered an “economic man”; he focuses on new, “postmaterialist” values. The emphasis is shifting to social and humanitarian problems, and the priority issues are the quality and safety of life, the self-realization of the individual in various social spheres, and therefore new criteria for welfare and social well-being are being formed.

According to the concept of post-economic society, developed by the Russian scientist V.L. Inozemtsev, in a post-economic society, in contrast to an economic society focused on material enrichment, the main goal for most people is the development of their own personality.

The theory of post-economic society is associated with a new periodization of human history, in which three large-scale eras can be distinguished - pre-economic, economic and post-economic. This periodization is based on two criteria: the type of human activity and the nature of the relationship between the interests of the individual and society. The post-economic type of society is defined as a type of social structure where human economic activity becomes more intense and complex, but is no longer determined by its material interests, and is not set by traditionally understood economic feasibility. The economic basis of such a society is formed by the destruction of private property and a return to personal property, to the state of non-alienation of the worker from the tools of production. Post-economic society is characterized by a new type of social confrontation - the confrontation between the information-intellectual elite and all people who are not included in it, engaged in the sphere of mass production and, as a result, pushed out to the periphery of society. However, each member of such a society has the opportunity to enter the elite himself, since membership in the elite is determined by abilities and knowledge.

TOPIC: Traditional society

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………..3-4

1. Typology of societies in modern science…………………………….5-7

2. General characteristics of traditional society…………………….8-10

3. Development of traditional society……………………………………11-15

4.Transformation of traditional society……………………………16-17

CONCLUSION………………………………………………………..18-19

LITERATURE…………………………………………………………….20

Introduction.

The relevance of the problem of traditional society is dictated by global changes in the worldview of mankind. Civilization studies today are especially acute and problematic. The world oscillates between prosperity and poverty, the individual and the number, the infinite and the particular. Man is still looking for the authentic, the lost and the hidden. There is a “tired” generation of meanings, self-isolation and endless waiting: waiting for light from the West, good weather from the South, cheap goods from China and oil profits from the North. Modern society requires proactive young people who are able to find “themselves” and their place in life, restore Russian spiritual culture, morally stable, socially adapted, capable of self-development and continuous self-improvement. The basic structures of personality are formed in the first years of life. This means that the family has a special responsibility for instilling such qualities in the younger generation. And this problem is becoming especially relevant at this modern stage.

Emerging naturally, “evolutionary” human culture includes an important element - a system of social relations based on solidarity and mutual assistance. Many studies, and even everyday experience, show that people became human precisely because they overcame selfishness and showed altruism that goes far beyond short-term rational calculations. And that the main motives for such behavior are irrational in nature and associated with ideals and movements of the soul - we see this at every step.

The culture of a traditional society is based on the concept of “people” - as a transpersonal community with historical memory and collective consciousness. An individual person, an element of such people and society, is a “conciliar personality”, the focus of many human connections. He is always included in solidarity groups (families, village and church communities, work collectives, even gangs of thieves - operating on the principle “One for all, all for one”). Accordingly, the prevailing relationships in traditional society are those of service, duty, love, care and coercion. There are also acts of exchange, for the most part, which do not have the nature of free and equivalent purchase and sale (exchange of equal values) - the market regulates only a small part of traditional social relations. Therefore, the general, all-encompassing metaphor for social life in a traditional society is “family” and not, for example, “market”. Modern scientists believe that 2/3 of the world's population, to a greater or lesser extent, has features of traditional societies in their lifestyle. What are traditional societies, when did they arise and what characterizes their culture?

The purpose of this work: to give a general description and study the development of traditional society.

Based on the goal, the following tasks were set:

Consider different ways of typology of societies;

Describe traditional society;

Give an idea of ​​the development of traditional society;

Identify problems of transformation of traditional society.

1. Typology of societies in modern science.

In modern sociology, there are various ways of typifying societies, and all of them are legitimate from certain points of view.

There are, for example, two main types of society: firstly, pre-industrial society, or the so-called traditional one, which is based on the peasant community. This type of society still covers most of Africa, a significant part of Latin America, most of the East and dominated until the 19th century in Europe. Secondly, modern industrial-urban society. The so-called Euro-American society belongs to it; and the rest of the world is gradually catching up to it.

Another division of societies is possible. Societies can be divided along political lines - into totalitarian and democratic. In the first societies, society itself does not act as an independent subject of social life, but serves the interests of the state. The second societies are characterized by the fact that, on the contrary, the state serves the interests of civil society, individuals and public associations (at least ideally).

It is possible to distinguish types of societies according to the dominant religion: Christian society, Islamic, Orthodox, etc. Finally, societies are distinguished by the dominant language: English-speaking, Russian-speaking, French-speaking, etc. You can also distinguish societies based on ethnicity: single-national, binational, multinational.

One of the main types of typology of societies is the formational approach.

According to the formational approach, the most important relations in society are property and class relations. The following types of socio-economic formations can be distinguished: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and communist (includes two phases - socialism and communism).

None of the named main theoretical points underlying the theory of formations is now indisputable. The theory of socio-economic formations is not only based on the theoretical conclusions of the mid-19th century, but because of this it cannot explain many of the contradictions that have arisen:

· the existence, along with zones of progressive (ascending) development, of zones of backwardness, stagnation and dead ends;

· transformation of the state - in one form or another - into an important factor in social production relations; modification and modification of classes;

· the emergence of a new hierarchy of values ​​with the priority of universal values ​​over class ones.

The most modern is another division of society, which was put forward by the American sociologist Daniel Bell. He distinguishes three stages in the development of society. The first stage is a pre-industrial, agricultural, conservative society, closed to outside influences, based on natural production. The second stage is an industrial society, which is based on industrial production, developed market relations, democracy and openness. Finally, in the second half of the twentieth century, the third stage begins - post-industrial society, which is characterized by the use of the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution; sometimes it is called the information society, because the main thing is no longer the production of a specific material product, but the production and processing of information. An indicator of this stage is the spread of computer technology, the unification of the entire society into a single information system in which ideas and thoughts are freely distributed. The leading requirement in such a society is the requirement to respect so-called human rights.

From this point of view, different parts of modern humanity are at different stages of development. Until now, maybe half of humanity is at the first stage. And the other part is going through the second stage of development. And only a minority - Europe, the USA, Japan - entered the third stage of development. Russia is now in a state of transition from the second stage to the third.

2. General characteristics of traditional society

Traditional society is a concept that focuses in its content a set of ideas about the pre-industrial stage of human development, characteristic of traditional sociology and cultural studies. There is no single theory of traditional society. Ideas about traditional society are based, rather, on its understanding as a socio-cultural model that is asymmetrical to modern society, rather than on a generalization of the real facts of life of peoples not engaged in industrial production. The dominance of subsistence farming is considered characteristic of the economy of a traditional society. In this case, commodity relations are either absent altogether or are focused on meeting the needs of a small layer of the social elite. The basic principle of the organization of social relations is the rigid hierarchical stratification of society, as a rule, manifested in the division into endogamous castes. At the same time, the main form of organization of social relations for the vast majority of the population is a relatively closed, isolated community. The latter circumstance dictates the dominance of collectivist social ideas, focused on strict adherence to traditional norms of behavior and excluding individual freedom, as well as an understanding of its value. Together with caste division, this feature almost completely excludes the possibility of social mobility. Political power is monopolized within a separate group (caste, clan, family) and exists primarily in authoritarian forms. A characteristic feature of a traditional society is considered to be either the complete absence of writing, or its existence in the form of a privilege of certain groups (officials, priests). At the same time, writing quite often develops in a language different from the spoken language of the vast majority of the population (Latin in medieval Europe, Arabic in the Middle East, Chinese writing in the Far East). Therefore, intergenerational transmission of culture is carried out in verbal, folklore form, and the main institution of socialization is the family and community. The consequence of this was extreme variability in the culture of the same ethnic group, manifested in local and dialect differences.

Traditional societies include ethnic communities, which are characterized by communal settlements, the preservation of blood and family ties, and predominantly craft and agricultural forms of labor. The emergence of such societies dates back to the earliest stages of human development, to primitive culture.

Any society from the primitive community of hunters to the industrial revolution of the late 18th century can be called a traditional society.

Traditional society is a society that is regulated by tradition. Preservation of traditions is a higher value in it than development. The social structure in it is characterized (especially in Eastern countries) by a rigid class hierarchy and the existence of stable social communities, a special way of regulating the life of society, based on traditions and customs. This organization of society strives to preserve the socio-cultural foundations of life unchanged. Traditional society is an agrarian society.

A traditional society is usually characterized by:

· traditional economy - an economic system in which the use of natural resources is determined primarily by traditions. Traditional industries predominate - agriculture, resource extraction, trade, construction; non-traditional industries receive virtually no development;

· predominance of the agricultural way of life;

· structural stability;

· class organization;

· low mobility;

· high mortality rate;

· high birth rate;

· low life expectancy.

A traditional person perceives the world and the established order of life as something inextricably integral, sacred and not subject to change. A person’s place in society and his status are determined by tradition (usually by birthright).

In a traditional society, collectivist attitudes predominate, individualism is not welcomed (since freedom of individual action can lead to a violation of the established order). In general, traditional societies are characterized by the primacy of collective interests over private ones, including the primacy of the interests of existing hierarchical structures (state, clan, etc.). What is valued is not so much individual capacity as the place in the hierarchy (official, class, clan, etc.) that a person occupies.

In a traditional society, as a rule, relations of redistribution rather than market exchange predominate, and elements of a market economy are strictly regulated. This is due to the fact that free market relations increase social mobility and change the social structure of society (in particular, they destroy class); the redistribution system can be regulated by tradition, but market prices cannot; forced redistribution prevents “unauthorized” enrichment and impoverishment of both individuals and classes. The pursuit of economic gain in traditional society is often morally condemned and opposed to selfless help.

In a traditional society, most people live their entire lives in a local community (for example, a village), and connections with the “big society” are rather weak. At the same time, family ties, on the contrary, are very strong.

The worldview of a traditional society is determined by tradition and authority.

3.Development of traditional society

Economically, traditional society is based on agriculture. Moreover, such a society can be not only land-owning, like the society of ancient Egypt, China or medieval Rus', but also based on cattle breeding, like all the nomadic steppe powers of Eurasia (Turkic and Khazar Khaganates, the empire of Genghis Khan, etc.). And even when fishing in the exceptionally fish-rich coastal waters of Southern Peru (in pre-Columbian America).

Characteristic of a pre-industrial traditional society is the dominance of redistributive relations (i.e. distribution in accordance with the social position of each), which can be expressed in a variety of forms: the centralized state economy of ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia, medieval China; Russian peasant community, where redistribution is expressed in regular redistribution of land according to the number of eaters, etc. However, one should not think that redistribution is the only possible way of economic life in a traditional society. It dominates, but the market in one form or another always exists, and in exceptional cases it can even acquire a leading role (the most striking example is the economy of the ancient Mediterranean). But, as a rule, market relations are limited to a narrow range of goods, most often items of prestige: the medieval European aristocracy, receiving everything they needed on their estates, bought mainly jewelry, spices, expensive weapons, thoroughbred horses, etc.

Socially, traditional society is much more strikingly different from our modern one. The most characteristic feature of this society is the rigid attachment of each person to the system of redistributive relations, an attachment that is purely personal. This is manifested in the inclusion of everyone in any collective that carries out this redistribution, and in the dependence of each on the “elders” (by age, origin, social status) who stand “at the boiler”. Moreover, the transition from one team to another is extremely difficult; social mobility in this society is very low. At the same time, not only the position of the class in the social hierarchy is valuable, but also the very fact of belonging to it. Here we can give specific examples - caste and class systems of stratification.

Caste (as in traditional Indian society, for example) is a closed group of people occupying a strictly defined place in society. This place is delineated by many factors or signs, the main of which are:

· traditionally inherited profession, occupation;

· endogamy, i.e. the obligation to marry only within one’s caste;

· ritual purity (after contact with “lower” ones, it is necessary to undergo a whole purification procedure).

An estate is a social group with hereditary rights and responsibilities enshrined in customs and laws. The feudal society of medieval Europe, in particular, was divided into three main classes: the clergy (symbol - book), knighthood (symbol - sword) and peasantry (symbol - plough). In Russia before the revolution of 1917 there were six estates. These are nobles, clergy, merchants, townspeople, peasants, Cossacks.

The regulation of class life was extremely strict, down to small circumstances and insignificant details. Thus, according to the “Charter Granted to Cities” of 1785, Russian merchants of the first guild could travel around the city in a carriage drawn by a pair of horses, and merchants of the second guild - only in a carriage drawn by a pair. The class division of society, as well as the caste division, was sanctified and reinforced by religion: everyone has their own destiny, their own destiny, their own corner on this earth. Stay where God has placed you; exaltation is a manifestation of pride, one of the seven (according to medieval classification) deadly sins.

Another important criterion of social division can be called community in the broadest sense of the word. This refers not only to the neighboring peasant community, but also to a craft guild, a merchant guild in Europe or a merchant union in the East, a monastic or knightly order, a Russian cenobitic monastery, thieves' or beggar's corporations. The Hellenic polis can be considered not so much as a city-state, but as a civil community. A person outside the community is an outcast, rejected, suspicious, enemy. Therefore, expulsion from the community was one of the most terrible punishments in any agrarian society. A person was born, lived and died tied to his place of residence, occupation, environment, exactly repeating the lifestyle of his ancestors and being absolutely confident that his children and grandchildren would follow the same path.

Relationships and connections between people in traditional society were thoroughly permeated with personal devotion and dependence, which is quite understandable. At that level of technological development, only direct contacts, personal involvement, and individual involvement could ensure the movement of knowledge, skills, and abilities from teacher to student, from master to apprentice. This movement, we note, took the form of transferring secrets, secrets, and recipes. Thus, a certain social problem was solved. Thus, the oath, which in the Middle Ages symbolically ritually sealed the relationship between vassals and lords, in its own way equalized the parties involved, giving their relationship a shade of simple patronage of father to son.

The political structure of the vast majority of pre-industrial societies is determined more by tradition and custom than by written law. Power could be justified by its origin, the scale of controlled distribution (land, food, and finally water in the East) and supported by divine sanction (this is why the role of sacralization, and often direct deification of the figure of the ruler, is so high).

Most often, the political system of society was, of course, monarchical. And even in the republics of antiquity and the Middle Ages, real power, as a rule, belonged to representatives of a few noble families and was based on the above principles. As a rule, traditional societies are characterized by the merging of the phenomena of power and property with the determining role of power, that is, those with greater power also had real control over a significant part of the property at the aggregate disposal of society. For a typically pre-industrial society (with rare exceptions), power is property.

The cultural life of traditional societies was decisively influenced by the justification of power by tradition and the conditioning of all social relations by class, community and power structures. Traditional society is characterized by what could be called gerontocracy: the older, the smarter, the more ancient, the more perfect, the deeper, the true.

Traditional society is holistic. It is built or organized as a rigid whole. And not just as a whole, but as a clearly prevailing, dominant whole.

The collective represents a socio-ontological, rather than a value-normative, reality. It becomes the latter when it begins to be understood and accepted as a common good. Being also holistic in its essence, the common good hierarchically completes the value system of traditional society. Along with other values, it ensures a person’s unity with other people, gives meaning to his individual existence, and guarantees a certain psychological comfort.

In antiquity, the common good was identified with the needs and development trends of the polis. A polis is a city or society-state. The man and the citizen coincided in him. The polis horizon of ancient man was both political and ethical. Outside of it, nothing interesting was expected - just barbarism. The Greek, a citizen of the polis, perceived state goals as his own, saw his own good in the good of the state. He pinned his hopes for justice, freedom, peace and happiness on the polis and its existence.

In the Middle Ages, God appeared as the common and highest good. He is the source of everything good, valuable and worthy in this world. Man himself was created in his image and likeness. All power on earth comes from God. God is the ultimate goal of all human endeavors. The highest good that a sinful person is capable of on earth is love for God, service to Christ. Christian love is a special love: God-fearing, suffering, ascetic and humble. In her self-forgetfulness there is a lot of contempt for herself, for worldly joys and conveniences, achievements and successes. In itself, a person’s earthly life in its religious interpretation is devoid of any value and purpose.

In pre-revolutionary Russia, with its communal-collective way of life, the common good took on the form of a Russian idea. Its most popular formula included three values: Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality.

The historical existence of traditional society is characterized by its slowness. The boundaries between the historical stages of “traditional” development are barely distinguishable, there are no sharp shifts or radical shocks.

The productive forces of traditional society developed slowly, in the rhythm of cumulative evolutionism. There was no what economists call deferred demand, i.e. the ability to produce not for immediate needs, but for the sake of the future. Traditional society took from nature exactly as much as it needed, and nothing more. Its economy could be called environmentally friendly.

4. Transformation of traditional society

Traditional society is extremely stable. As the famous demographer and sociologist Anatoly Vishnevsky writes, “everything in it is interconnected and it is very difficult to remove or change any one element.”

In ancient times, changes in traditional society occurred extremely slowly - over generations, almost imperceptibly for an individual. Periods of accelerated development also occurred in traditional societies (a striking example is the changes in the territory of Eurasia in the 1st millennium BC), but even during such periods, changes were carried out slowly by modern standards, and upon their completion, society again returned to a relatively static state with a predominance of cyclic dynamics.

At the same time, since ancient times there have been societies that cannot be called completely traditional. The departure from traditional society was associated, as a rule, with the development of trade. This category includes Greek city-states, medieval self-governing trading cities, England and Holland of the 16th-17th centuries. Ancient Rome (before the 3rd century AD) with its civil society stands apart.

The rapid and irreversible transformation of traditional society began to occur only in the 18th century as a result of the industrial revolution. By now, this process has captured almost the entire world.

Rapid changes and departure from traditions can be experienced by a traditional person as a collapse of guidelines and values, loss of the meaning of life, etc. Since adaptation to new conditions and a change in the nature of activity are not included in the strategy of a traditional person, the transformation of society often leads to the marginalization of part of the population.

The most painful transformation of traditional society occurs in cases where the dismantled traditions have a religious justification. At the same time, resistance to change can take the form of religious fundamentalism.

During the period of transformation of a traditional society, authoritarianism may increase in it (either in order to preserve traditions, or in order to overcome resistance to change).

The transformation of traditional society ends with the demographic transition. The generation that grew up in small families has a psychology that differs from the psychology of a traditional person.

Opinions about the need to transform traditional society differ significantly. For example, the philosopher A. Dugin considers it necessary to abandon the principles of modern society and return to the “golden age” of traditionalism. Sociologist and demographer A. Vishnevsky argues that traditional society “has no chance,” although it “fiercely resists.” According to the calculations of Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Professor A. Nazaretyan, in order to completely abandon development and return society to a static state, the number of humanity must be reduced by several hundred times.

Based on the work carried out, the following conclusions were made.

Traditional societies are characterized by the following features:

· Predominantly agricultural mode of production, understanding land ownership not as property, but as land use. The type of relationship between society and nature is built not on the principle of victory over it, but on the idea of ​​merging with it;

· The basis of the economic system is communal-state forms of ownership with weak development of the institution of private property. Preservation of communal way of life and communal land use;

· Patronage system of distribution of the product of labor in the community (redistribution of land, mutual assistance in the form of gifts, marriage gifts, etc., regulation of consumption);

· The level of social mobility is low, the boundaries between social communities (castes, classes) are stable. Ethnic, clan, caste differentiation of societies in contrast to late industrial societies with class divisions;

· Preservation in everyday life of combinations of polytheistic and monotheistic ideas, the role of ancestors, orientation to the past;

· The main regulator of social life is tradition, custom, adherence to the norms of life of previous generations. The huge role of ritual and etiquette. Of course, “traditional society” significantly limits scientific and technological progress, has a pronounced tendency to stagnation, and does not consider the autonomous development of a free personality as the most important value. But Western civilization, having achieved impressive successes, is now faced with a number of very difficult problems: ideas about the possibilities of unlimited industrial and scientific and technological growth have turned out to be untenable; the balance of nature and society is disrupted; The pace of technological progress is unsustainable and threatens a global environmental catastrophe. Many scientists pay attention to the merits of traditional thinking with its emphasis on adaptation to nature, the perception of the human person as part of the natural and social whole.

Only a traditional way of life can be opposed to the aggressive influence of modern culture and the civilizational model exported from the West. For Russia there is no other way out of the crisis in the spiritual and moral sphere other than the revival of the original Russian civilization based on the traditional values ​​of national culture. And this is possible subject to the restoration of the spiritual, moral and intellectual potential of the bearer of Russian culture - the Russian people

LITERATURE.

1. Irkhin Yu.V. Textbook “Sociology of Culture” 2006.

2. Nazaretyan A.P. Demographic utopia of “sustainable development” Social sciences and modernity. 1996. No. 2.

3. Mathieu M.E. Selected works on the mythology and ideology of Ancient Egypt. -M., 1996.

4. Levikova S.I. West and East. Traditions and modernity. - M., 1993.

It should be recognized that in sociology the term “primitive society” itself is not used very often. This concept comes rather from evolutionary anthropology, where it is used to designate societies that represent a certain initial stage from which the development of more complex societies begins.

This concept implies that modern man is more intelligent than his wild, irrational ancestors. Beyond this implied meaning, primitive society is seen simply as small-scale communities, illiterate, technologically simple and based on extremely simplified social relations, although it is recognized that these relations have already gone beyond the limits of purely gregarious, i.e. herd. interactions based on instincts and conditioned reflexes developed by the conditions of herd existence of even higher animals.

However, some sociologists have paid rather close attention to primitive society, since it is in it that most of those social institutions arise that form the framework of the social system in later phases of evolutionary development. Let us recall that it was the study of the elementary forms of religious life in this type of society that allowed Durkheim to develop a generalized sociological concept of religion, applicable to higher levels of social development. We must not forget that at least nine-tenths of the entire period of time during which the evolution of society occurred occurred precisely in primitive societies, and in some remote corners of the planet such forms of societal organization are preserved to this day.

The poor development of sociological concepts of primitive societies is explained primarily by the lack of reliable information about the nature of social relations in them, since they lack writing. Let us recall that the intellectual and social life of all stages of primitive societies, described by G. Morgan as savagery and barbarism, is based on oral tradition - legends, myths, accounting and observance of kinship systems, the dominance of customs, rituals, etc. Some theorists (for example, L. Lévy-Bruhl) assumed that these societies are dominated (from the French prelogique - pre-logical) by “pre-logical” forms of primitive mentality, which are associated with similar forms of technological and social organization.

Nevertheless, we should not forget that even at this simplest (but already significantly superior to that characteristic of animals) level of development, we are dealing with human society. This means that primitive communities should also be the object of sociological analysis, and the eight parameters of social institutions that we defined above may well be applicable as a tool for such analysis.

The nature of the social structure. In primitive society the entire social organization is based on the tribal community. Let us recall that, due to the prevailing maternal law during this period, the concept of “clan” refers to the circle of relatives on the maternal line (having a common ancestor), who are prohibited from entering into marital relations with each other. Probably, it is the need to search for marriage partners outside one’s own clan that determines the need for constant interaction between several clans located in greater or lesser territorial proximity.

A system of such interactions forms a tribe

1. (Of course, this diagram is somewhat simplified, since between the clan and the tribe there is also an intermediate structural unit - the phratry.) The need to maintain constant contacts has an impact on the community of language. A certain level of economic ties is also gradually emerging. Nevertheless, the social organization of primitive societies does not rise above the level of tribal alliances, formed mainly to fight some common enemy and disintegrating after the danger has passed. There is simply no need for more complex types of social organization: neither the population size, nor the level of division of labor, nor the regulation of economic relations require this.

The nature of the participation of society members in the management of its affairs. This character is largely determined by the small size of the primitive community. Research by anthropologists and ethnographers shows that the participation315 of members of a primitive society in the management of its affairs is relatively direct, although poorly organized, disordered, and spontaneous. This is largely due to the fact that management functions fall into the hands of individual community members (leaders, elders, chiefs) on the basis of random factors and are performed unprofessionally, most often, so to speak, “on a voluntary basis.” Generally recognized and permanent mechanisms for selecting the “elite” have not yet developed. In some cases, everything depends on physical strength; in others, age and related life experience are the deciding factor; sometimes - external data, gender or psychological (for example, volitional) traits. Cases of physical destruction of a leader after a certain pre-agreed and custom-sanctioned period are also described. One thing is clear: members of the tribal community are, to a much greater extent than ever before, informed about the general state of affairs in the community - already due to its comparative small number, and each of them can make a more significant and real contribution to management decision-making compared to by their distant descendants.

It is clear that the power of the elders - that is, the most experienced and most respected members of the clan - could not be inherited. Engels, describing the system of power among the Iroquois, points to the following very characteristic point: “The son of the previous sachem was never elected as sachem316, since maternal law prevailed among the Iroquois, and the son, therefore, belonged to a different clan.”317 By the way, the election of the sachem was collegial an act not only because it was committed by all members of the clan, but also because it was subject to approval by the other seven clans that made up the Iroquois tribe, and the newly elected sachem was solemnly introduced into the general council of the tribe.

The status of elder was not ascriptive, but attainable by definition. To acquire this status, it was necessary not only to live to a certain age, but also to accumulate such experience, knowledge, skills and abilities that could be useful not only to their owner, but also to all other members of the community. With demographic growth, as well as the development and complexity of social relations, the stratification of society gradually increased, since at the same time the number of power strata increased and the concentration of power in them increased. “The political cone began to grow, but did not level off.”318

The dominant nature of economic relations. In primitive societies it is hardly possible to talk about any significant development of the economy as such. Until the agricultural revolution, the level to which tools and technology developed did not allow production to arise on a noticeable scale, that is, the processing of natural products into labor products suitable for further direct use. Production (except for the heat treatment of food) is limited here to the manufacture of simple mining and fishing tools, as well as clothing - almost exclusively for personal use. The absence of a surplus product, and as a result, the impossibility of the emergence of private property and commodity exchange, does not create the need for the development of more complex production relations, making them simply meaningless. The economy of this period is natural in the full sense of the word, when everything that is produced is consumed without reserve by the producer himself and his family members.

General nature of the organizational and technological level. The life of a primitive society right up to the agrarian revolution is a constant extraction of means of subsistence, directly from nature. The main occupations of the members of the society are gathering edible plants, fruits and roots, as well as hunting and fishing. Therefore, the main products of labor are the tools used in these trades. However, these tools, as well as the tools for their manufacture, are as primitive as the entire life of society.

Cooperation among members of society is manifested mainly in joint actions, most often in the form of a simple addition of physical forces, in extreme cases - in the elementary distribution of responsibilities (for example, during a driven hunt). In one of the footnotes in Capital there is a reference to the French historian and economist Simon Lenguet, who calls hunting the first form of cooperation, and the hunting of people (war) one of the first forms of hunting. At the same time, as Marx states, “that form of cooperation in the labor process, which we find at the initial stages of human culture, for example, among hunting peoples or in the agricultural communities of India, rests, on the one hand, on social ownership of the conditions of production, on the other On the other hand, the individual is still as tightly attached to the clan or community as an individual bee is to a beehive.”319

Employment structure. Primitive society is characterized by an elementary sex-age division of labor. Most of the men - members of primitive communities, depending on the natural conditions of their habitat, are engaged in one of the trades - either hunting, or fishing, or gathering. There is no need to talk about any deep specialization of community members by type of employment - both because of their small number and because of the low level of development of the productive forces. The practical absence of surplus product serves as the most serious barrier to the social division of labor. People of a primitive society are universal and comprehensive to the extent of the knowledge, skills and abilities accumulated in the community and due to the need to maintain the conditions of their existence, which takes almost all the time that is left for nothing else. At the boundary separating primitive society from traditional society, the first major social division of labor occurs - the separation of pastoral tribes from the rest of the barbarian masses. This means that the first employment sector appears - the agricultural one, which for a long time retains its leading position among the rest.

The nature of the settlements. The nature of the settlements. The nature of the settlements. The nature of the settlements. The nature of the settlements. During the vast period of existence of primitive society, most clans and tribes led a nomadic lifestyle, moving after migrating food sources - fish and game. The first beginnings of localized settlements, i.e. villages, are attributed by Morgan and then by Engels to an even higher stage of savagery.320 The first urban settlements arise only at the end of barbarism and at the dawn of civilization (in Morgan’s understanding), i.e. with the transition to traditional society.

Level and scope of education. In primitive society, the formation of social and individual intelligence (more precisely, its prerequisites) was accompanied by a number of important specific features. The accumulation of knowledge and its transfer to subsequent generations was carried out orally and individually. In this process, a special role belonged to the elderly, who in this society acted as guardians, guardians and even, in necessary cases, reformers of established morals, customs and the entire complex of knowledge that constituted the essence of material and spiritual life. Old people were the “accumulators” of social intelligence and, to some extent, were considered its embodiment. Thus, the respect that the rest of society had for them was not so much moral as largely rational. As A. Huseynov notes, they, “old people, acted as carriers of labor skills, the mastery of which required many years of exercise and therefore was accessible only to people of their age. The old people personified the collective will of the clan or tribe, as well as the learning of that time. During their lives, they mastered several dialects necessary to communicate with other consanguineous groups; knew those rituals and legends filled with mysterious meaning that were supposed to be kept in deep secret. They regulated the implementation of blood feud, they had the honorable duty of naming, etc... Therefore, the extraordinary honor and respect shown to old people in the primitive era cannot in any case be interpreted as a type of social philanthropy, charity.”321

If we take into account the average life expectancy, which in primitive society was two or even three times less than in modern societies, it becomes clear that the proportion of old people in populations was much lower at that time than it is now. Although it should be noted that even in today's primitive tribes (for example, among the Australian aborigines), as A. Huseynov notes, a distinction is made between simply decrepit old people and those old people (elders) who continue to take an active and creative part in the life of the community.

The nature of the development of scientific knowledge. As mentioned above, in primitive society, the accumulation of knowledge and its transmission to subsequent generations was carried out orally and individually. In such conditions, the accumulation and systematization of accumulated knowledge, which in fact constitutes a necessary condition for the development of science, does not occur. Of the four types of knowledge that we identified in the first chapter, the stock of information of a primitive society about the surrounding world is limited only by knowledge of common sense, mythology and ideology, and at the elementary level - to the extent that Durkheim’s mechanical solidarity manifests itself in oppositions of the “one’s own” type. -stranger".