Multivariance of social development (types of societies). Types of society and their characteristics Types of societies and their characteristics

Before going into details and understanding what types of society there are, it is necessary to define the concept itself. So, the totality of people, which was formed under the influence of purposeful and rationally organized activity, is called society. At the same time, individuals are united not because of deep principles, but because of a convention, the same areas of interest and an agreement. Often, society refers to the relationship established between individuals and in the state as a whole. Of course, thanks to such sciences as philosophy and sociology, the interpretation of the desired concept can occur from different angles and points of view, therefore, a more general definition is most often used, which reads as follows. Society is an independent group of people, which has a special way and structure, is characterized by specific political relations and the choice of the form of state power.

The centuries-old history of human development has provided a fairly broad classification that affects not only all aspects of life, but also characterizes them from different points of view. Currently, scientists distinguish the following main types of industrial and post-industrial. Consider each of these types in more detail to identify their differences and features.

1. Traditional

So, the first type of relationship between individuals combines all the "early civilizations" that did not have a sufficient industrial complex. At the same time, the determining factor, due to which it is difficult to confuse such types of society with any other, is the development and widespread use of agriculture. Nevertheless, such a definition is quite general, which allows us to include here also forms of human relationships that differ significantly from each other, such as feudal, agrarian or tribal. In this regard, many modern scholars do not use the concept of "traditional society", but replace it with more specialized definitions.

2. Industrial

Like other types of society, this type has a number of characteristic features. This includes, for example, a complex and fairly developed system of division of labor activity, a high degree of specialization and automation of production, mass production of goods, as well as a high level of innovation and technology in the production process and people's livelihoods. It implies the creation of an integral state with a certain language and culture. The main direction of development is industry.

3. Post-industrial

It is emerging at the present time and characterizes the types of society that differ significantly from the first two types. Improvement of technology, accumulation of knowledge and information play an important role. is the development of the service sector.

As mentioned earlier, the considered 3 types of society have features and distinctive features that allow one or another human relationship to be fairly accurately attributed to one of them.

Society(in the broad sense of the word) is a part of the material world isolated from nature, which is a form of unification of people and ways of their interconnection.

In a narrow sense, society is:

1. A group of people united by the same interest and activity (chess circle, fitness club clients)
2. A separate, specific society of any country (Russian society, English, Spanish)
3. Stage in the development of mankind (primitive society, feudal)

In any society, there are four areas:

1. Economic (production of material and spiritual goods, exchange, trade, monetary relations)
2. Social (relations between groups of people, care for the population - education, medicine, social protection services)
3. Political (management of society)
4. Spiritual (art, religion, morality, science)

Society always consists of people, and people always form bonds or social relations.

Public relations- these are the diverse forms of interaction and interrelationships that arise in the process of joint activities between social groups, as well as within them.

In addition, in any society there are social institutions that ensure its functioning.

social institution- a historically established form of organizing people, on the basis of special norms, regulating their activities and providing fundamental human needs.

Human society is not static. It is constantly changing. Once upon a time, for example, there was slavery and it was not condemned, while now it is exactly the opposite. Once upon a time, the majority of people were rural people engaged in agriculture, while now urban residents outnumber the rural ones.

In other words, society is developing, changing, scientists are trying to identify the causes of changes and give names to old and new societies.

In the 20th century, the American sociologist Daniel Bell proposed to divide all known human societies into three types: pre-industrial (= traditional, agrarian), industrial and post-industrial (= informational).

The traditional society existed in the slave-owning era and the feudal era that replaced it. The main occupation of the people was agriculture. At the next historical stage - in the era of capitalism - the traditional society is replaced by an agrarian one. People are still engaged in agriculture, but it is no longer the main sphere of the economy, the main one is industry. Post-industrial society arose quite recently - in the 1970s. 20th century It develops in economically strong countries, in backward states the society is still industrial or even traditional. The main sphere of post-industrial society is the service sector (displaced agriculture and industry).

In questions on the topic of types of society in the USE, knowledge of the features of all three societies is checked. They should be learned and not confused.

characteristic features of the traditional(agrarian, pre-industrial) societies:

1. Manual labor and primitive technologies
2. Dominance of agriculture
3. estate system
4. Low social mobility
5. The predominance of the values ​​of collectivism
6. The influence of the church on public life
7. patriarchal family

Characteristic features of an industrial society:

1. Predominant development of industry
2. Serial machine production and automation
3. The transformation of science into a public institution
4. The birth of popular culture
5. class system
6. Giving rights and freedoms to people

Characteristic features of the post-industrial (information) society:

1. Development of the service sector
2. The unit of goods becomes information (=knowledge)
3. Development of information technologies
4. Professional division of society
5. Widespread use of computer technology
6. Economic globalization
7. Implementation of the scientific and technological revolution
8. Dominance of the family of partner type

** Definitions on the topic are given according to the manual of Baranov, Vorontsov, Shevchenko "A complete guide to preparing for the exam"

is a dynamic system. Therefore, the most important issue of social cognition is connected with determining the nature and direction of changes in society. In social science, four main types of social dynamics are proposed: (1) cyclic, (2) linear, (3) spiral, (4) rhizome (Fig. 1.3, respectively). a,b,in,G).

Rice. 1.3. Types of social dynamics

cyclic the idea of ​​the development of society is the most ancient. For primitive man, time is closed in a circle of eternally repeating cycles - the seasons, the rising of the Sun, the phases of the Moon. Everything is repeated in social life: the laws of traditional society are aimed at maintaining stability, and the way of life of an ancient person has hardly changed over the centuries.

Theories about linear nature of the development of society first appear in the Middle Ages. It is then that ideas arise about the past, which will no longer be repeated (the creation of the world) and the future, which has not yet been (the Last Judgment). Development acquires a direction and receives a goal (the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth) - the circle straightens into a straight line. There are ideas about the purpose of the story, it makes sense.

Spiral development model proposed by the German philosopher Georg Hegel (1770-1831). A spiral combines the properties of a line and a circle. In history, everything repeats itself, but each time at a qualitatively new, more perfect level. As with the linear model, history has a purpose. As a goal, various researchers suggested: building an ideal state, achieving social justice, organizing society on a reasonable basis, establishing a "kingdom of freedom", etc.

rhizome the concept of the development of society is proposed by the philosophy of postmodernism. In botany, a rhizome (from the French rhizome - rhizome) is a rhizome of perennial plants in which there is no tap root. The rhizome consists of shoots intertwined, growing in unpredictable directions, constantly dying off and growing again. When applied to society, the rhizome symbolizes the complete chaos and meaninglessness of social processes.

Direction and nature of social development

Direction and nature of social development are also important to understand. Development in itself is a regular, directed, qualitative change. According to the direction, such forms of development as progress (from lat. progrcssus - forward movement) and regression (from lat. regressus - backward movement) are distinguished. Progress is perfection, progressive movement from the lowest to the highest, from the simple to the complex, and regression represents the opposite type of change. Starting from the 17th century. European thinkers, speaking about the development of reason, personal and social freedom, productive forces (these parameters were perceived as criteria for progress), believed that society was improving. However, there are theories that claim that the development of society is regressive, since it is unlikely that a person, with all the changes in science and technology, improves spiritually. For example, the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) believed that a person did not become kinder during the development of civilization, on the contrary, civilization corrupted him.

• primitive society,
• slave society,
• feudalism,
• capitalism,
• communism.

The movement from formation to formation is a progressive development, the goal of which is a classless communist society.

The change of formations is characterized by an intensification of the struggle between the oppressed and oppressing classes—slaves and slave-owners, feudal lords and dependent peasants, workers and capitalists. Just as feudalism was abolished by the revolution, capitalism must give way to communism. According to Marxists, the oppressed working class will destroy the moribund bourgeoisie with the help of the revolution.

Usually formations are opposed to civilization. Civilization is a multi-valued concept that can be considered in three main senses: as a temporary stage in the development of society, as a local socio-cultural type, and as a stage in the development of culture that opposes barbarism and savagery. When describing the stage-civilizational and local-civilizational models, this concept is used in the first two meanings.

Stage-civilizational The model considers the foundation for change not the economy, but technology. Changes in the technique of cultivating the land, the production of goods, and communications lead to a consistent change in the stages of civilizational development.

The American sociologist Alvin Toffler (b. 1928) believes that the first technological revolution - the agrarian one - formed a traditional civilization with a number of its characteristic features. The second civilization - industrial - is based on a machine economy and mass culture (Table 1).

The process of transition to an industrial culture is called modernization(more rarely, modernization is called the transition to a post-industrial culture). Post-industrial Toffler called the third wave, which is already sweeping modern society. Other researchers call it informational. This civilization has been shaped by advances in computer technology, precision electronics, mass communications, genetic engineering and biotechnology. Muscular strength and machine labor are being replaced by mental labor and informatization. It is information that becomes the main value, transforming the system of education, upbringing, the nature of work. In the economy, the information sector prevails over all the others and begins to determine the political, spiritual processes. Finally, a worldwide network of communications is developing, primarily the Internet.

Table 1. Comparison of traditional and industrial civilizations

traditional civilization	industrial civilization
Cyclical development, stability	Linear development, progress
Slow development topics	High development topics
Evolutionary, gradual development	Revolutionary, spasmodic development
Harmony with nature	Conquest of nature
traditional	Innovation
Priority of community property over private property	Priority of private property over communal property
Low social mobility	High social mobility
State control over society	Developed civil society
The high role of the team	The high role of the individual

Canadian philosopher Herbert Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) believed that social organization depends on the mode and type of communication. Tribal civilization is based on a "culture of oral communication" that defines locality, tradition, and belief in authority. The second type of civilization - the "culture of sight" - was generated by the invention of the alphabet and the printing press. It sanctions mass character, standardization, mechanism. The coming "electronic civilization" eliminates barriers to communication: time and space are shrinking, people are getting closer to each other. The book culture is being replaced by an audiovisual computer culture close to the tribal culture of the past. McLuhan sees the future as a "global village" devoid of territorial and national boundaries.

Local civilizational the model assumes that there is no single world history, but there are local cycles of development of closed civilizations that are born, flourish, decline and die.

Table 2. Characteristics of traditional, industrial and post-industrial civilizations

Phase	Traditional	Industrial	post-industrial
Principle Governing Development	Traditionalism	The economic growth	Central place of knowledge
Main production sector	Procurement of raw materials	Treatment
The main contingent of the labor force	Peasant engaged in the development of the natural environment	Materials processing worker	information clerk
Management group connecting resources	Owner, owner	Entrepreneur, professional leader	Researcher, Specialist, Lead Administrator
Main production unit		enterprise, plant, factory	Research institute, service office
The highest level of needs	Basic household needs	Social needs	Self-realization, the need for knowledge
Time perspective	Direction to the past	Adaptation to date	Orientation to the future. forecasts, scenarios
Members of social communication	Man is nature	Man is a machine	Man is man
Driving force	Natural resources, physical strength	Created Energy	Information, knowledge processing
Strategic resource	Food Raw Materials	Real capital, "set of rules", know-how	Education, mental capital
Technology	Manual labor	mechanized technology	mental technology
Decision-Driven Method	Common sense, "trial and error", experience	Empiricism, experiential research	Model, theoretical basis for decision-making, systems analysis, etc.

Russian philosopher and sociologist Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822-1885) identifies ten such civilizations, or historical and cultural types: Egyptian, Chinese, Assyro-Babylonian-Phoenician, Indian, Iranian, Jewish, Greek, Roman, Arabian, European. Each type is like a biological organism: its life goes on in struggle with other types and the environment. Like other organisms, in the course of its life, it goes through a series of obligatory and unchanging stages of development - birth, maturation, decrepitude and death.

Danilevsky in many respects anticipated the ideas of the German philosopher Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), who also denied the possibility of the existence of a universal culture, speaking of history as a field for the struggle of civilizations. Each of them has its own term (about 1000 years); any era of prosperity sooner or later ends with stagnation and crisis. Creativity dries up, giving way to sterility, soullessness and mechanism; rich content is lost behind a dead formality. In world history, eight cultures have reached maturity: Egyptian, Indian, Babylonian, Chinese, Arab-Byzantine, Greco-Roman, Western European and Mayan culture.

Spengler's ideas are further developed in the "theory of civilizations" by the English historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975). Toynbee's civilizational period is represented by five cultural types: Western, Orthodox-Christian, Islamic, Hindu and Far Eastern. The formation of each type is associated with the "life impulse" of people who respond to the challenges of history. When the energy of the impulse dries up, a breakdown and final death awaits civilization. The crisis of civilization can be overcome by an attempt to break through from local values ​​to world values. Toynbee considered religion to be the spokesman for world values.

Society has existed since ancient times. In a broad sense, this concept includes the interaction of people with nature and among themselves, as well as ways to unite them. In a narrower definition, society is a collection of people who are endowed with their own consciousness and will and who manifest themselves in the light of certain interests, moods and motives. Each society can be characterized by the following features: a name, stable and holistic forms of human interaction, the presence of a history of creation and development, the presence of its own culture, self-sufficiency and self-regulation.

Historically, all the diversity of societies can be divided into three types: traditional, or agrarian, industrial, post-industrial. Each of them has certain features and characteristics that uniquely separate one form of social relations from another. Nevertheless, the types of society, although they differ from each other, perform the same functions, such as the production of goods, the distribution of the results of labor activity, the formation of a specific ideology, the socialization of a person, and much more.

This type includes a set of social ideas and ways of life that may be at different stages of development, but do not have a sufficient level of industrial complex. The main interaction is between nature and man, with an important role given to the survival of each individual. This category includes agrarian, feudal, tribal society and others. Each of them is characterized by low rates of production and development. Nevertheless, such types of society have a characteristic feature: the presence of an established social solidarity.

Characteristics of an industrial society

It has a complex and sufficiently developed structure, has a high degree of specialization and division of labor activity, and is also distinguished by the widespread introduction of innovations. Industrial types of society are formed in the presence of active processes of urbanization, the growth of automation of production, the mass production of various goods, the widespread use of scientific discoveries and achievements. The main interaction takes place between man and nature, in which there is the enslavement of the surrounding world by people.

Characteristics of a post-industrial society

This type of human relationship has the following features: the creation of highly intelligent technologies, the transition to a service economy, control over various mechanisms, the rise of highly educated specialists and the dominance of theoretical knowledge. The main interaction occurs between a person and a person. Nature acts as a victim of anthropogenic influence, therefore, programs are being developed to minimize production waste and environmental pollution, as well as to create highly efficient technologies that can ensure waste-free production.

Multivariance of social development. Typology of societies

The life of each individual and society as a whole is constantly changing. Not a single day and hour we live is like the previous ones. When do we say that there has been a change? Then, when it is clear to us that one state is not equal to another, and something new has appeared that was not there before. How are changes taking place and where are they directed?

At each individual moment of time, a person and his associations are influenced by many factors, sometimes mismatched and multidirectional. Therefore, it is difficult to speak of any clear, precise arrow-shaped line of development characteristic of society. The processes of change are complex, uneven, and sometimes it is difficult to grasp their logic. The paths of social change are varied and tortuous.

Often we come across such a concept as "social development". Let's think about how change will generally differ from development? Which of these concepts is broader, and which is more specific (it can be entered into another, considered as a special case of the other)? Obviously, not all change is development. But only that which involves complication, improvement and is associated with the manifestation of social progress.

What drives the development of society? What can be hidden behind each new stage? We should look for answers to these questions, first of all, in the very system of complex social relations, in internal contradictions, conflicts of different interests.

Development impulses can come both from the society itself, its internal contradictions, and from outside.

External impulses can be generated, in particular, by the natural environment, space. For example, climate change on our planet, the so-called "global warming", has become a serious problem for modern society. The answer to this "challenge" was the adoption by a number of countries of the world of the Kyoto Protocol, which prescribes to reduce emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere. In 2004, Russia also ratified this protocol, making commitments to protect the environment.

If changes in society occur gradually, then the new accumulates in the system quite slowly and sometimes imperceptibly to the observer. And the old, the previous, is the basis on which the new is grown, organically combining the traces of the previous one. We do not feel conflict and negation by the new of the old. And only after some time we exclaim with surprise: “How everything has changed around!”. Such gradual progressive changes we call evolution. The evolutionary path of development does not imply a sharp breakdown, destruction of previous social relations.

The external manifestation of evolution, the main way of its implementation is reform. Under reform we understand the power action aimed at changing certain areas, aspects of public life in order to give society greater stability, stability.

The evolutionary path of development is not the only one. Not all societies could solve urgent problems through organic gradual transformations. In conditions of an acute crisis affecting all spheres of society, when the accumulated contradictions literally blow up the established order, revolution. Any revolution taking place in society implies a qualitative transformation of social structures, the destruction of the old order and rapid innovation. The revolution releases significant social energy, which is not always possible to control the forces that initiated the revolutionary change. The ideologists and practitioners of the revolution seem to be letting the "genie out of the bottle." Subsequently, they try to drive this "genie" back, but this, as a rule, does not work. The revolutionary element begins to develop according to its own laws, often baffling its creators.

That is why spontaneous, chaotic principles often prevail in the course of a social revolution. Sometimes revolutions bury those people who stood at their origins. Or else the results and consequences of the revolutionary explosion are so fundamentally different from the original tasks that the creators of the revolution cannot but admit their defeat. Revolutions give rise to a new quality, and it is important to be able to transfer further development processes in an evolutionary direction in time. Russia experienced two revolutions in the 20th century. Particularly severe shocks befell our country in 1917-1920.

As history shows, many revolutions were replaced by reaction, a rollback to the past. We can talk about different types of revolutions in the development of society: social, technical, scientific, cultural.

The significance of revolutions is assessed differently by thinkers. So, for example, the German philosopher K. Marx, the founder of scientific communism, considered revolutions to be "the locomotives of history." At the same time, many emphasized the destructive, destructive effect of revolutions on society. In particular, the Russian philosopher N. A. Berdyaev (1874–1948) wrote the following about the revolution: “All revolutions ended in reactions. This is inevitable. This is the law. And the more violent and furious the revolutions were, the stronger were the reactions. There is a kind of magic circle in the alternation of revolutions and reactions.

Comparing the ways of transforming society, the famous modern Russian historian P.V. Volobuev wrote: “The evolutionary form, firstly, made it possible to ensure the continuity of social development and, thanks to this, to preserve all the accumulated wealth. Secondly, evolution, contrary to our primitive ideas, was also accompanied by major qualitative changes in society, not only in productive forces and technology, but also in spiritual culture, in the way of life of people. Thirdly, in order to solve the new social tasks that arose in the course of evolution, it adopted such a method of social transformation as reforms, which turned out to be simply incomparable in their “costs” with the gigantic price of many revolutions. Ultimately, as historical experience has shown, evolution is able to ensure and maintain social progress, giving it, moreover, a civilized form.

Typology of societies

Singling out different types of societies, thinkers are based, on the one hand, on the chronological principle, noting the changes that occur over time in the organization of social life. On the other hand, certain signs of societies coexisting with each other at the same time are grouped. This allows you to create a kind of horizontal slice of civilizations. So, speaking of traditional society as the basis for the formation of modern civilization, one cannot fail to note the preservation of many of its features and signs in our days.

The most well-established in modern social science is the approach based on the allocation three types of societies: traditional (pre-industrial), industrial, post-industrial (sometimes called technological or informational). This approach is based to a greater extent on a vertical, chronological cut, i.e., it assumes the replacement of one society by another in the course of historical development. With the theory of K. Marx, this approach has in common that it is based primarily on the distinction of technical and technological features.

What are the characteristics and characteristics of each of these societies? Let's go to the description traditional society- the foundations of the formation of the modern world. First of all, ancient and medieval society is called traditional, although many of its features are preserved in later times. For example, the countries of the East, Asia, Africa retain signs of traditional civilization today.

So, what are the main features and characteristics of a traditional type of society?

In the very understanding of traditional society, it is necessary to note the focus on reproducing in an unchanged form the ways of human activity, interactions, forms of communication, organization of life, and culture samples. That is, in this society, relations that have developed between people, methods of work, family values, and a way of life are carefully observed.

A person in a traditional society is bound by a complex system of dependence on the community, the state. His behavior is strictly regulated by the norms adopted in the family, estate, society as a whole.

traditional society distinguishes the predominance of agriculture in the structure of the economy, the majority of the population is employed in the agricultural sector, works on the land, lives by its fruits. Land is considered the main wealth, and the basis for the reproduction of society is what is produced on it. Mainly hand tools (plow, plow) are used, the renewal of equipment and production technology is rather slow.

The main element of the structure of traditional societies is the agricultural community: the collective that manages the land. The personality in such a team is weakly singled out, its interests are not clearly identified. The community, on the one hand, will limit a person, on the other hand, provide him with protection and stability. The most severe punishment in such a society was often considered expulsion from the community, "deprivation of shelter and water." Society has a hierarchical structure, more often divided into estates according to the political and legal principle.

A feature of a traditional society is its closeness to innovation, the extremely slow nature of change. And these changes themselves are not considered as a value. More important - stability, stability, following the commandments of the ancestors. Any innovation is seen as a threat to the existing world order, and the attitude towards it is extremely wary. "The traditions of all the dead generations weigh like a nightmare over the minds of the living."

The Czech educator J. Korchak noticed the dogmatic way of life inherent in traditional society: “Prudence up to complete passivity, to the point of ignoring all rights and rules that have not become traditional, not consecrated by authorities, not rooted in repetition day after day ... Everything can become dogma - and the earth , and the church, and the fatherland, and virtue, and sin; science, social and political activity, wealth, any opposition can become ... "

A traditional society will diligently protect its behavioral norms, the standards of its culture from outside influences from other societies and cultures. An example of such "closedness" is the centuries-old development of China and Japan, which were characterized by a closed, self-sufficient existence and any contacts with strangers were practically excluded by the authorities. A significant role in the history of traditional societies is played by the state and religion.

Undoubtedly, as trade, economic, military, political, cultural and other contacts develop between different countries and peoples, such “closeness” will be violated, often in a very painful way for these countries. Traditional societies under the influence of the development of technology, technology, means of communication will enter a period of modernization.

Of course, this is a generalized picture of a traditional society. More precisely, one can speak of a traditional society as a kind of cumulative phenomenon that includes the features of the development of different peoples at a certain stage. There are many different traditional societies (Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Western European, Russian, etc.) that bear the imprint of their culture.

We are well aware that the society of ancient Greece and the Old Babylonian kingdom differ significantly in the dominant forms of ownership, the degree of influence of communal structures and the state. If in Greece, Rome, private property and the beginnings of civil rights and freedoms develop, then in societies of the Eastern type, traditions of despotic rule, the suppression of man by the agricultural community, and the collective nature of labor are strong. Nevertheless, both are different versions of a traditional society.

The long-term preservation of the agricultural community, the predominance of agriculture in the structure of the economy, the peasantry in the composition of the population, the joint labor and collective land use of communal peasants, and autocratic power allow us to characterize Russian society over many centuries of its development as traditional. Transition to a new type of society - industrial- will be carried out quite late - only in the second half of the XIX century.

It cannot be said that traditional society is a past stage, that everything connected with traditional structures, norms, and consciousness has remained in the distant past. Moreover, considering this, we make it difficult for ourselves to understand many problems and phenomena of the modern world. And today, a number of societies retain the features of traditionalism, primarily in culture, social consciousness, political system, and everyday life.

The transition from a traditional society, devoid of dynamism, to an industrial type society reflects such a concept as modernization.

industrial society is born as a result of the industrial revolution, leading to the development of large-scale industry, new modes of transport and communications, a decrease in the role of agriculture in the structure of the economy and the resettlement of people in cities.

The Modern Philosophical Dictionary, published in 1998 in London, contains the following definition of an industrial society:

An industrial society is characterized by the orientation of people towards ever-increasing volumes of production, consumption, knowledge, etc. The ideas of growth and progress are the "core" of the industrial myth, or ideology. An essential role in the social organization of industrial society is played by the concept of a machine. The consequence of the implementation of ideas about the machine is the extensive development of production, as well as the "mechanization" of social relations, the relationship of man with nature ... The boundaries of the development of an industrial society are revealed as the limits of extensively oriented production are discovered.

Earlier than others, the industrial revolution swept the countries of Western Europe. The UK was the first country to implement it. By the middle of the 19th century, the vast majority of its population was employed in industry. Industrial society is characterized by rapid dynamic change, the growth of social mobility, urbanization - the process of growth and development of cities. Contacts and ties between countries and peoples are expanding. These communications are carried out by telegraph and telephone. The structure of society is also changing: it is based not on estates, but on social groups that differ in their place in the economic system - classes. Along with changes in the economy and the social sphere, the political system of an industrial society is also changing - parliamentarism, a multi-party system are developing, and the rights and freedoms of citizens are expanding. Many researchers believe that the formation of a civil society that is aware of its interests and acts as a full partner of the state is also associated with the formation of an industrial society. To a certain extent, it is precisely such a society that has received the name capitalist. The early stages of its development were analyzed in the 19th century by the English scientists J. Mill, A. Smith, and the German philosopher K. Marx.

At the same time, in the era of the industrial revolution, there is an increase in unevenness in the development of various regions of the world, which leads to colonial wars, seizures, and the enslavement of weak countries by strong ones.

Russian society is quite late, only by the 40s of the 19th century it enters the period of the industrial revolution, and the formation of the foundations of an industrial society in Russia is noted only by the beginning of the 20th century. Many historians believe that at the beginning of the 20th century our country was agrarian-industrial. Russia could not complete industrialization in the pre-revolutionary period. Although the reforms carried out on the initiative of S. Yu. Witte and P. A. Stolypin were aimed precisely at this.

By the end of industrialization, that is, to the creation of a powerful industry that would make the main contribution to the country's national wealth, the authorities returned already in the Soviet period of history.

We know the concept of "Stalin's industrialization", which took place in the 1930s and 1940s. In the shortest possible time, at an accelerated pace, using primarily the funds received from the robbery of the village, the mass collectivization of peasant farms, by the end of the 1930s, our country created the foundations of heavy and military industry, mechanical engineering and ceased to depend on the supply of equipment from abroad. But did this mean the end of the process of industrialization? Historians argue. Some researchers believe that even in the late 1930s, the main share of national wealth was still formed in the agricultural sector, that is, agriculture produced more product than industry.

Therefore, experts believe that industrialization in the Soviet Union was completed only after the Great Patriotic War, by the middle - second half of the 1950s. By this time, industry had taken a leading position in the production of gross domestic product. Also, most of the country's population was employed in the industrial sector.

The second half of the 20th century was marked by the rapid development of fundamental science, engineering and technology. Science is turning into a direct powerful economic force.

The rapid changes that have engulfed a number of spheres of the life of modern society have made it possible to talk about the entry of the world into post-industrial era. In the 1960s, this term was first proposed by the American sociologist D. Bell. He also formulated the main features of a post-industrial society: creating a vast service economy, increasing the layer of qualified scientific and technical specialists, the central role of scientific knowledge as a source of innovation, ensuring technological growth, creating a new generation of intelligent technology. Following Bell, the theory of post-industrial society was developed by American scientists J. Galbright and O. Toffler.

basis post-industrial society was the restructuring of the economy, carried out in Western countries at the turn of the 1960s - 1970s. Instead of heavy industry, the leading positions in the economy were taken by science-intensive industries, the “knowledge industry”. The symbol of this era, its basis is the microprocessor revolution, the mass distribution of personal computers, information technology, electronic communications. The rates of economic development, the speed of transmission of information and financial flows over a distance are multiplying. With the entry of the world into the post-industrial, information age, there is a decrease in the employment of people in industry, transport, industrial sectors, and vice versa, the number of people employed in the service sector, in the information sector is increasing. It is no coincidence that a number of scientists call the post-industrial society informational or technological.

Describing modern society, the American researcher P. Drucker notes: “Today, knowledge is already being applied to the sphere of knowledge itself, and this can be called a revolution in the field of management. Knowledge is rapidly becoming the determining factor of production, relegating both capital and labor to the background.”

Scientists who study the development of culture, spiritual life, in relation to the post-industrial world, introduce another name - postmodern era. (Scientists understand the era of modernism as an industrial society. - Note by the author.) If the concept of post-industrialism mainly emphasizes differences in the sphere of economy, production, methods of communication, then postmodernism primarily covers the sphere of consciousness, culture, patterns of behavior.

The new perception of the world, according to scientists, is based on three main features.

First, at the end of faith in the possibilities of the human mind, a skeptical questioning of everything that European culture traditionally considers rational. Secondly, on the collapse of the idea of ​​unity and universality of the world. The postmodern understanding of the world is based on multiplicity, pluralism, the absence of common models and canons for the development of various cultures. Thirdly: the era of postmodernism sees the individual differently, "the individual as responsible for shaping the world retires, he is outdated, he is recognized as connected with the prejudices of rationalism and is discarded." The sphere of communication between people, communications, collective agreements comes to the fore.

As the main features of a postmodern society, scientists call increasing pluralism, multivariance and diversity of forms of social development, changes in the system of values, motives and incentives of people.

The approach we have chosen in a generalized form represents the main milestones in the development of mankind, focusing primarily on the history of the countries of Western Europe. Thus, it significantly narrows the possibility of studying the specific features, features of the development of individual countries. He draws attention primarily to universal processes, and much remains outside the field of view of scientists. In addition, willy-nilly, we take for granted the point of view that there are countries that have pulled ahead, there are those that are successfully catching up with them, and those that are hopelessly behind, not having time to jump into the last carriage of the modernization machine rushing forward. The ideologists of the theory of modernization are convinced that it is the values ​​and models of development of Western society that are universal and are a guideline for development and a model for everyone to follow.

Society structure

Social institutions:

• organize human activity into a certain system of roles and statuses, setting patterns of people's behavior in various spheres of public life;
• include a system of sanctions - from legal to moral and ethical;
• streamline, coordinate many individual actions of people, give them an organized and predictable character;
• provide standard behavior of people in socially typical situations.

Society as a complex, self-developing system is characterized by the following specific features:

1. It is distinguished by a wide variety of different social structures and subsystems.
2. Society is not only people, but also social relations that arise between them, between spheres (subsystems) and their institutions. Public relations are the diverse forms of interaction between people, as well as the connections that arise between different social groups (or within them).
3. Society is capable of creating and reproducing the necessary conditions for its own existence.
4. Society is a dynamic system, it is characterized by the emergence and development of new phenomena, the obsolescence and death of old elements, as well as the incompleteness and alternative development. The choice of development options is carried out by a person.
5. Society is characterized by unpredictability, non-linearity of development.
6. Society functions:
   - reproduction and socialization of a person;
   – production of material goods and services;
   – distribution of products of labor (activity);
   – regulation and management of activities and behavior;
   - spiritual production.

The structure of the socio-economic formation

productive forces- these are the means of production and people with production experience, skills for work.
Relations of production- relations between people that develop in the process of production.
Type superstructures predominantly determined by the nature basis. It also represents the basis of the formation, determining the affiliation of a particular society.
The authors of the approach singled out five socio-economic formations:

1. primitive communal;
2. slaveholding;
3. feudal;
4. capitalist;
5. communist.

Selection criterion socio-economic formations is production activities of people, the nature of labor and ways of inclusion in the production process(natural necessity, non-economic coercion, economic coercion, labor becomes a need of the individual).
Driving force for development society is the class struggle. The transition from one socio-economic formation to another is carried out as a result of social revolutions.

Strengths of this approach:

– it is universal: practically all peoples went through the indicated stages in their development (in one volume or another);
- it allows you to compare the levels of development of different peoples in different historical periods;
- it allows you to track social progress.

Weak sides:

- does not take into account the specific conditions and characteristics of individual peoples;
- pays more attention to the economic sphere of society, subordinating all the rest to it.

Stage-civilizational approach (W. Rostow, Toffler)
This approach is based on the understanding of civilization as a stage in the process of progressive development of mankind, in its ascent up the stairs leading up to a single world civilization.
Proponents of this approach distinguish three types of civilizations: traditional, industrial, post-industrial (or information society).

Characteristics of the main types of civilizations

Criteria for comparison	Traditional (agrarian) society	Industrial (western) society	Post-industrial (information) society
Features of the historical process	Long, slow evolutionary development, lack of clear boundaries between eras	Sharp, spasmodic, revolutionary development, the boundaries between eras are obvious	Evolutionary development of society, revolutions only in the scientific and technical sphere, globalization of all spheres of public life
Relations between society and nature	Harmonious relationships without destructive impact, the desire to adapt to nature	The desire to dominate nature, active transformational activity, the emergence of a global environmental problem	Awareness of the essence of the global environmental problem, attempts to solve it, the desire to create the noosphere - the "sphere of reason"
Features of economic development	The leading sector is the agricultural sector, the main means of production is land, which is in communal ownership or incomplete private ownership, since the ruler is the supreme owner	Industry dominates, the main means of production is capital, which is privately owned.	The service sector and the production of information prevail, world economic integration, the creation of transnational corporations
The social structure of society	Rigid closed caste or class system, low or no social mobility	Open class social structure, high level of social mobility	Open social structure, stratification of society by income, education, occupational characteristics, high level of social mobility
Features of the political system, regulation of social relations	The predominance of monarchical forms of government, the main regulators of social relations are customs, traditions, religious norms	The predominance of republican forms of government, the creation of a rule of law state, the main regulator of public relations is law
The position of the individual in society	The individual is absorbed by the community and the state, the dominance of collectivist values	Individualism, individual freedom