In the modern world, there are different types of societies that differ from each other in many ways, both explicit (language of communication, culture, geographical location, size, etc.) and hidden (degree of social integration, level of stability, etc.). Scientific classification involves identifying the most significant, typical features that distinguish one feature from another and unite societies of the same group. The complexity of social systems called societies determines both the diversity of their specific manifestations and the absence of a single universal criterion on the basis of which they could be classified.
In the mid-19th century, K. Marx proposed a typology of societies, which was based on the method of production of material goods and production relations - primarily property relations. He divided all societies into 5 main types (according to the type of socio-economic formations): primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and communist (the initial phase is socialist society).
Another typology divides all societies into simple and complex. The criterion is the number of levels of management and the degree of social differentiation (stratification). Simple society - this is a society in which the constituent parts are homogeneous, there are no rich and poor, no leaders and subordinates, the structure and functions here are poorly differentiated and can be easily interchanged. These are the primitive tribes that still survive in some places.
Complex society - a society with highly differentiated structures and functions, interconnected and interdependent on each other, which necessitates their coordination.
TO. Popper distinguishes two types of societies: closed and open. The differences between them are based on a number of factors, and, above all, the relationship of social control and individual freedom. For closed society characterized by a static social structure, limited mobility, immunity to innovation, traditionalism, dogmatic authoritarian ideology, collectivism. K. Popper included Sparta, Prussia, Tsarist Russia, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union of the Stalin era to this type of society. Open Society characterized by a dynamic social structure, high mobility, the ability to innovate, criticism, individualism and a democratic pluralistic ideology. K. Popper considered ancient Athens and modern Western democracies to be examples of open societies.
A stable and widespread division of societies into traditional, industrial and post-industrial, proposed by the American sociologist D. Bell on the basis of changes in the technological basis - improvement of the means of production and knowledge.
Traditional (pre-industrial) society – a society with an agrarian structure, with a predominance of subsistence farming, a class hierarchy, sedentary structures and a tradition-based method of sociocultural regulation. It is characterized by manual labor and extremely low rates of development of production, which can satisfy people's needs only at a minimum level. It is extremely inertial, therefore it is not very susceptible to innovation. The behavior of individuals in such a society is regulated by customs, norms, and social institutions. Customs, norms, institutions, sanctified by traditions, are considered unshakable, not allowing even the thought of changing them. Carrying out their integrative function, culture and social institutions suppress any manifestation of individual freedom, which is a necessary condition for the gradual renewal of society.
The term industrial society was introduced by A. Saint-Simon, emphasizing its new technical basis. Industrial society –(in modern terms) this is a complex society, with an industry-based way of managing, with flexible, dynamic and modifying structures, a way of socio-cultural regulation based on a combination of individual freedom and the interests of society. These societies are characterized by a developed division of labor, the development of mass communications, urbanization, etc.
Post-industrial society(sometimes called information) - a society developed on an information basis: extraction (in traditional societies) and processing (in industrial societies) of natural products are replaced by the acquisition and processing of information, as well as preferential development (instead of agriculture in traditional societies and industry in industrial societies) ) service sector. As a result, the employment structure and the ratio of various professional and qualification groups are also changing. According to forecasts, already at the beginning of the 21st century in advanced countries, half of the workforce will be employed in the field of information, a quarter in the field of material production and a quarter in the production of services, including information.
A change in the technological basis also affects the organization of the entire system of social connections and relationships. If in an industrial society the mass class was made up of workers, then in a post-industrial society it was employees and managers. At the same time, the importance of class differentiation weakens; instead of a status (“granular”) social structure, a functional (“ready-made”) one is formed. Instead of leadership, coordination becomes the principle of management, and representative democracy is replaced by direct democracy and self-government. As a result, instead of a hierarchy of structures, a new type of network organization is created, focused on rapid change depending on the situation.
True, at the same time, some sociologists draw attention to the contradictory possibilities of, on the one hand, ensuring a higher level of individual freedom in the information society, and on the other, the emergence of new, more hidden and therefore more dangerous forms of social control over it.
In conclusion, we note that, in addition to those discussed, in modern sociology there are other classifications of societies. It all depends on what criterion will be used as the basis for this classification.
Social structure of society"
Completed by: 3rd year student
evening department
Zakhvatova G.I.
Teacher: Vukolova T.S.
1. Introduction……………………………………………………3
2. The concept of the social structure of society………………. 4
3. Social stratification……………………………..6
4. Social mobility: ……………………………11
4.1. Group mobility……………………………….11
4.2. Individual mobility………………………..13
5. Features of social stratification in Russia……..15
5.1. Prospects for the formation of the middle class………15
6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………19
7. List of references used………………………..21
1. Introduction.
In the study of social phenomena and processes, sociology is based on the principles of historicism. This means that, firstly, all social phenomena and processes are considered as systems with a certain internal structure; secondly, the process of their functioning and development is studied; thirdly, specific changes and patterns of their transition from one qualitative state to another are identified. The most general and complex social system is society. Society is a relatively stable system of connections and relationships between people, formed in the process of historical development of mankind, supported by customs, traditions and laws, based on a certain method of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material and spiritual goods. The elements of such a complex social system are people whose social activity is determined by a certain social status that they occupy, social functions (roles) that they perform, social norms and values accepted in this system, as well as individual qualities (social qualities of the individual, motives , value orientations, interests, etc.).
Social structure means the objective division of society into separate layers, groups, different in their social status.
Any society strives to maintain inequality, seeing in it an ordering principle, without which the reproduction of social ties and the integration of new things is impossible. The same property is inherent in society as a whole. Stratification theories are designed to identify the basic principles of the hierarchical structure of society.
The inviolability of the hierarchical structure of society does not mean that changes do not occur within it. At different stages, growth of one layer and contraction of another layer is possible. These changes cannot be explained by natural population growth. Significant groups either rise or fall. And even the relative stability of social strata does not exclude vertical migration of individuals. We will consider these vertical movements, while maintaining the stratification structure itself, as social mobility.
2. The concept of the social structure of society
Interaction in society usually leads to the formation of new social relationships. The latter can be represented as relatively stable and independent connections between individuals and social groups.
In sociology, the concepts of “social structure” and “social system” are closely related. A social system is a set of social phenomena and processes that are in relationships and connections with each other and form some integral social object. Individual phenomena and processes act as elements of the system. The concept of “social structure of society” is part of the concept of a social system and combines two components – social composition and social connections. Social composition is the set of elements that make up a given structure. The second component is a set of connections between these elements. Thus, the concept of social structure includes, on the one hand, the social composition, or the totality of various types of social communities as system-forming social elements of society, on the other hand, the social connections of the constituent elements that differ in the breadth of their action, in their significance in the characteristics of social structure of society at a certain stage of development.
The social structure of society means the objective division of society into separate layers, groups, different in their social status, in their relation to the method of production. This is a stable connection of elements in a social system. The main elements of the social structure are such social communities as classes and class-like groups, ethnic, professional, socio-demographic groups, socio-territorial communities (city, village, region). Each of these elements, in turn, is a complex social system with its own subsystems and connections. The social structure of society reflects the characteristics of social relations of classes, professional, cultural, national-ethnic and demographic groups, which are determined by the place and role of each of them in the system of economic relations. The social aspect of any community is concentrated in its connections and mediations with production and class relations in society.
Social structure as a kind of framework of the entire system of social relations, that is, as a set of economic, social and political institutions that organize public life. On the one hand, these institutions define a certain network of role positions and normative requirements in relation to specific members of society. On the other hand, they represent certain fairly stable ways of socialization of individuals.
The main principle of determining the social structure of society should be the search for real subjects of social processes.
Subjects can be both individuals and social groups of various sizes, identified on different grounds: youth, the working class, a religious sect, and so on.
From this point of view, the social structure of society can be represented as a more or less stable relationship between social layers and groups. The theory of social stratification is designed to study the diversity of hierarchically located social strata.
Initially, the idea of a stratified representation of social structure had a pronounced ideological connotation and was intended to neutralize Marx’s idea of a class idea of society and the dominance of class contradictions in the history. But gradually the idea of identifying social strata as constituent elements of society took hold in social science, because it truly reflected the objective differences between different groups of the population within a particular class.
Theories of Social stratification arose in opposition to the Marxist-Leninist theory of classes and class struggle.
3.Social stratification
The term “stratification” comes from the Latin stratum - layer, layer and facere - to do. Thus, social stratification is the determination of the vertical sequence of the position of social layers, layers in society, their hierarchy. Social stratification is “the differential ranking of individuals in a given social system”, it is “a way of viewing individuals as occupying a lower or higher social position relative to each other in some socially important aspects.” Thus, social structure arises from the social division of labor, and social stratification arises from the social distribution of the results of labor, i.e., social benefits.
Sociologists are unanimous in the opinion that the basis of the stratification structure is the natural and social inequality of people. However, the way inequalities were organized could be different. It was necessary to isolate the foundations that would determine the appearance of the vertical structure of society.
For example, K. Marx introduced the only basis for the vertical stratification of society - ownership of property. Therefore, its stratification structure was actually reduced to two levels: the class of owners (slave owners, feudal lords, bourgeoisie) and the class deprived of ownership of the means of production (slaves, proletarians) or having very limited rights (peasants). Attempts to present the intelligentsia and some other social groups as intermediate layers between the main classes left the impression that the general scheme of the social hierarchy of the population was ill-conceived.
M. Weber increases the number of criteria that determine belonging to a particular stratum. In addition to the economic - attitude towards property and income level - he introduces criteria such as social prestige and membership in certain political circles (parties). Prestige was understood as the acquisition by an individual from birth or due to personal qualities of such a social status that allowed him to occupy a certain place in the social hierarchy.
The role of status in the hierarchical structure of society is determined by such an important feature of social life as its normative and value regulation. Thanks to the latter, only those whose status corresponds to the ideas rooted in the mass consciousness about the significance of their title, profession, as well as the norms and laws functioning in society always rise to the “upper steps” of the social ladder.
M. Weber’s identification of political criteria for stratification still seems insufficiently reasoned. P. Sorokin speaks about this more clearly. He clearly points out the impossibility of giving a single set of criteria for belonging to any stratum and notes the presence in society of three stratification structures: economic, professional and political.
In the 30s and 40s in American sociology, an attempt was made to overcome the multidimensionality of stratification by inviting individuals to determine their place in the social structure. But this kind of research gave a different result: they showed that people consciously or intuitively feel, are aware of the hierarchical nature of society, feel the basic parameters, principles that determine a person’s position in society.
So, society reproduces and organizes inequality according to several criteria: by the level of wealth and income, by the level of social prestige, by the level of political power, and also by some other criteria. It can be argued that all these types of hierarchy are significant for society, since they allow regulating both the reproduction of social connections and directing personal aspirations and ambitions of people to acquire statuses that are significant for society.
The introduction of such a criterion as income level led to the fact that, in accordance with it, it was possible to distinguish a formally infinite number of segments of the population with different levels of well-being. And addressing the problem of socio-professional prestige gave grounds to make the stratification structure very similar to the socio-professional one. This is how a division appeared into: 1) the upper class - professionals, administrators; 2) mid-level technical specialists; 3) commercial class; 4) petty bourgeoisie; 5) technicians and workers performing management functions; 6) skilled workers; 7) unskilled workers. And this is not the longest list of the main social strata of society. There was a danger of losing a holistic vision of the stratification structure, which was increasingly replaced by the desire of researchers to distribute individuals into “floors” of the social hierarchy.
In our opinion, when developing the most general idea of the social hierarchy of society, it is sufficient to distinguish three main levels: higher, middle, lower. Distribution of the population among these levels is possible based on all stratification grounds, and the significance of each of them will be determined by the prevailing values and norms in society, social institutions and ideological attitudes. In modern Western society, which values freedom, the degree of which is determined, alas, not only by political and legal acts, but also by the thickness of the wallet, which provides wider access, for example, to education and, therefore, to a prestigious status group, criteria are brought to the fore, ensuring this freedom: financial independence, high income, etc.
As noted above, the root cause of the hierarchical structure of society is social inequality generated by the objective living conditions of individuals. But every society strives to organize its inequality, otherwise people, driven by a sense of injustice, will destroy in righteous anger everything that in their minds is associated with infringement of their interests.
The hierarchical system of modern society is devoid of its former rigidity. Formally, all citizens have equal rights, including the right to occupy any place in the social structure, to rise to the upper rungs of the social ladder or to be “at the bottom.” The sharply increased social mobility, however, did not lead to the “erosion” of the hierarchical system. Society still maintains and protects its hierarchy.
It has been observed that the vertical profile of society is not constant. K. Marx at one time suggested that its configuration would gradually change due to the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the significant impoverishment of the bulk of the population. The result of this trend will be the emergence of serious tension between the upper and lower layers of the social hierarchy, which will inevitably result in a struggle for the redistribution of national income. But the growth of wealth and power at the top is unlimited. There is a “saturation point” beyond which society cannot move without the risk of a major catastrophe. As we approach this point in society, processes begin to curb the harmful trend, either reforms are carried out to redistribute wealth through the taxation system, or deep revolutionary processes begin, in which broad social strata are involved.
The stability of society is related to the profile of social stratification. Excessive “stretching” of the latter is fraught with serious social cataclysms, uprisings that bring chaos, violence, and hamper the development of society. The thickening of the stratification profile, primarily due to the “truncation” of the apex of the cone, is a recurring phenomenon in the history of all societies. And it is important that it is carried out not through uncontrolled spontaneous processes, but through consciously pursued state policy.
The described process also has a downside. The compaction of the stratification profile should not be excessive. Inequality is not only an objective fact of social life, but also an important source of social development. Equalization of income in relation to property. The authorities deprive individuals of an important internal incentive to action, to self-realization, self-affirmation, and society - the only energy source of development.
The idea that the stability of the hierarchical structure of society depends on the relative weight and role of the middle layer or class seems fruitful. Occupying an intermediate position, the middle class plays a kind of connecting role between the two poles of the social hierarchy, reducing their opposition. The larger (in quantitative terms) the middle class, the more chances it has to influence state policy, the process of forming the fundamental values of society, the worldview of citizens, while avoiding the extremes inherent in opposing forces.
4.Social mobility
Social mobility is a mechanism of social stratification, which is associated with a change in a person’s position in the system of social statuses. If a person’s status is changed to a more prestigious, better one, then we can say that upward mobility has taken place. However, a person as a result of job loss, illness, etc. can move to a lower status group - this triggers downward mobility. In addition to vertical movements (downward and upward mobility), there are horizontal movements, which consist of natural mobility (moving from one job to another without changing status) and territorial mobility (moving from city to city).
4.1. Group mobility
Group mobility introduces great changes into the stratification structure, often affects the relationship between the main social strata and, as a rule, is associated with the emergence of new groups whose status no longer corresponds to the existing hierarchy system. For example: by the middle of the twentieth century, managers of large enterprises became such a group. It is no coincidence that, on the basis of a generalization of the changed role of managers in Western sociology, the concept of a “revolution of managers” is emerging, according to which the administrative stratum begins to play a decisive role not only in the economy, but also in social life, complementing and even somewhere displacing the class of owners.
Group vertical movements are especially intense during times of structural restructuring of the economy. The emergence of new prestigious, highly paid professional groups contributes to mass movement up the hierarchical ladder. The decline in the social status of a profession, the disappearance of some of them, provokes not only a downward movement, but also the emergence of marginal strata, uniting people who are losing their usual position in society, losing the achieved level of consumption. There is a “erosion” of sociocultural values and norms that previously united them and predetermined their stable place in the social hierarchy. During periods of acute social cataclysms and radical changes in socio-political structures, an almost complete renewal of the upper echelons of society can occur.
Economic crises, accompanied by a massive drop in the level of material well-being, rising unemployment, and a sharp increase in the income gap, become the root cause of the numerical growth of the most disadvantaged part of the population, which always forms the base of the pyramid of the social hierarchy. Under such conditions, downward movement involves not individuals, but entire groups. The decline of a social group may be temporary, or it may become permanent. In the first case, the position of the social group “straightens out”; it returns to its usual place as economic difficulties are overcome. In the second, the descent is final. The group changes its social status and a difficult period of adaptation to a new place in the social hierarchy begins.
So, mass vertical group movements are associated, firstly, with profound, serious changes in the socio-economic structure of society, causing the emergence of new classes and social groups striving to gain a place in the social hierarchy that corresponds to their strength and influence. Secondly, with a change in ideological guidelines, systems of values and norms, and political priorities. In this case, there is a movement “upward” of those political forces that were able to perceive changes in the mentality, orientations and ideals of the population.
4.2 Individual social mobility.
In a steadily developing society, vertical movements are not of a group nature, but of an individual nature. That is, it is not economic, political or professional groups that rise and fall along the steps of the social ladder, but their individual representatives, more or less successful, striving to overcome the gravity of the usual socio-cultural environment. The fact is that an individual who has set out on a difficult path “to the top” goes on his own. And if successful, he will change not only his position in the vertical hierarchy, but also change his social professional group. A range of professions that have a vertical structure, such as, for example, in the artistic world - stars with millions of dollars and artists who earn odd jobs; limited and not of fundamental importance for society as a whole. A worker who has successfully demonstrated himself in the political field and has made a career, rising to a ministerial portfolio, breaks with his place in the social hierarchy and with his professional group. A bankrupt entrepreneur falls “down”, losing not only a prestigious place in society, but also the opportunity to do his usual business.
In society, social institutions regulate vertical movement, the uniqueness of the culture and way of life of each layer, and allow each candidate to be tested “for strength”, for compliance with the norms and principles of the stratum in which he falls. Thus, the education system provides not only the socialization of the individual, his training, but also serves as a kind of “social elevator”, which allows the most capable and gifted to rise to the “highest floors” of the social hierarchy. Political parties and organizations form the political elite, the institution of property and inheritance strengthens the owner class, the institution of marriage allows for movement even in the absence of outstanding intellectual abilities.
However, using the driving force of any social institution to rise “to the top” is not always enough. To gain a foothold in a new stratum, it is necessary to accept its way of life, organically fit into its sociocultural environment, and build your behavior in accordance with accepted norms and rules. A person is often forced to say goodbye to old habits, reconsider his entire value system, and at first control his every action. Adaptation to a new sociocultural environment requires high psychological stress, which is fraught with loss of connection with one’s previous social environment. A person may forever find himself an outcast in the social stratum to which he aspired, or in which he found himself by the will of fate, if we are talking about a downward movement.
The phenomenon of a person being, as it were, between two cultures, associated with his movement in social space, is called marginality in sociology.
A marginal person is an individual who has lost his previous social status, is deprived of the opportunity to engage in usual activities, and, moreover, has found himself unable to adapt to the new sociocultural environment of the stratum within which he formally exists. His individual system of values, formed in a different cultural environment, turned out to be so stable that it cannot be replaced by new norms, principles, and rules.
In the minds of many people, success in life is associated with reaching the heights of the social hierarchy.
5.Features of social stratification in Russia.
The “erosion” of the middle layer, which is possible during periods of economic crises, is fraught with serious shocks for society. Impoverishment in the context of price liberalization and a decline in production of the bulk of the Russian population sharply disrupted the social balance in society, led to the advancement of the demands of the lumpen part of the population, which, as experience shows, carries a great destructive charge, aimed mainly at redistribution, and not for the creation of national wealth.
5.1Prospects for the formation of the middle class.
What are the prospects for the formation of a middle class in our country today? In many ways, they depend on the successful adaptation of the population, the formation of productive models of socio-economic behavior that are adequate to the current economic situation. The characteristics of the adaptation process are now obvious. First of all, the previously dominant hopes for the state are being replaced by a significantly greater orientation of the population toward their own strengths and capabilities. Rigidly defined and organic types of socio-economic behavior give way to a variety of types of social action. Direct and immediate government economic and ideological control is being replaced by such universal regulators as money and legal standards. New methods and standards of behavior are determined by various sources of formation, although often they are not corrected by either stable moral norms or legal sanctions.
The lack of demand for qualified personnel or the demand only if the necessary connections are available deforms the chain: education - qualifications - income - long-term savings - level of consumption, ensuring the formation and development of the middle class. Education does not guarantee a job with growth prospects. Work does not guarantee income: salaries for representatives of the same profession in the private and public sectors differ by an order of magnitude. Income does not guarantee status, as many sources of high income are illegal. And the inconsistency of legislation and the imperfection of the tax system turn almost any enterprise into a lawbreaker and force business owners, when hiring workers, to pay attention not only to their professional and business qualities, but to factors confirming their unconditional “reliability.” Interestingly, the factor of having savings did not gain an advantage in any group. Today, only one third of the population answered positively to the question: “Do you have a certain margin of safety that will allow you to hold out if the economic situation worsens?” Twice as many respondents answered this question in the negative.
Studies have shown that as the volume of savings increases, their share in cash increases. In the responses received during focused interviews, instability in the country and the unreliability of banks are indicated as the main reasons reducing private investment potential. Respondents believe that society has not emerged from the period of instability, and a sharp change in the principles of financial policy is possible. Lack of trust in the authorities and its financial institutions deprives the potential middle class of the opportunity to build long-term strategies for increasing well-being and transfers a significant part of possible savings to the sphere of consumption. In general, the data presented in the literature indicate the limited scope of adaptation processes and crisis phenomena in the adaptation process, and in a subjective sense The worst position was found in the generation of 40-50 year olds, i.e. people who are of active working age and, thanks to experience and qualifications, have fairly high social ambitions. In this group of respondents, either disappointment in the reforms is growing or their rejection is becoming stronger. This generation, which usually forms the core of the middle class - a layer of social stability - has not become so, but, on the contrary, has turned into a large destabilizing group.
Poorly adapted strata in half of the cases consider their social status as average, which primarily indicates the unrealization of educational and professional-qualification potential in the process of adaptation: status positions formed in the past are not confirmed by the practice of adaptation, but are preserved in the minds of respondents. The “success group” is rather characterized by an underestimation of social status (about 10% of respondents consider their social status as below average). In our opinion, the main reason for low social self-esteem here is the fact that the methods of adaptation (for example, sources of income that form a “decent financial situation”) are not prestigious by the standards previously accepted in society.
Thus, the crisis nature of adaptation is also indicated by the imbalance in the relationship between status-role positions and social identity, which “results” in unstable forms of social behavior. The inability of the majority of the population to realize their socio-economic aspirations, improve or at least maintain social status will block progress in all other areas of transformation and create social tension.
We cannot ignore the political self-identification of the potential middle class, which in principle should reflect its orientation towards the stability of the political situation. Political self-identification lies, first of all, in the delegation of power in the form of electoral behavior. Finding himself in the sphere of interaction between various political parties and movements, the individual must make a “conscious choice” in favor of the political organization that best expresses his interests. In conditions when the traditional political scale of the Western European type does not “work”, and rational pragmatism is not supported institutionally, the task arises of finding a “working” indicator of political identification.
The results of our research clearly indicate the presence of a social base that supports pragmatic reformers who have the levers of real power. For this part of the electorate, what is important is not so much the ideological context and populist rhetoric as the guarantee of stability and continuity of power, ensuring the preservation of the rules by which a significant part of the population has already learned to live.
This is an extremely important issue, because the success of reforms and the creation of a new democratic society with a market mechanism largely depends on the possibilities of forming a middle class. According to some data, today about 15% of the population employed in the national economy can be classified in this social category, but it is likely that its social maturation to a “critical mass” will require a lot of time. There is already a tendency to form separate social strata classified as the middle class - businessmen, entrepreneurs, managers, certain categories of scientific and technical intelligentsia, highly qualified workers who are interested in implementing reforms. However, this trend is very contradictory, because the common socio-political interests of various social strata, potentially forming the middle class, are not supported by processes of bringing them closer together according to such important criteria as income level and the prestige of professions.
6. Conclusion.
Based on all of the above, we can say that the middle class in Russian society is not large enough and its boundaries are very “blurred”.
The emergence of the middle class is accompanied by a change in the entire social structure of society. Traditional classes and layers are losing their clear outlines and are blurred. A highly skilled worker can be both a member of the working class and the middle class. According to some signs, spheres of life, his belonging to his class, to his stratum in it may turn out to be “stronger”, and according to other signs - to the middle class. A second social structure, as it were, appears, despite the fact that the first (traditional class) has also not yet lost its significance. Leaving aside the question of the functions of the middle class, let us dwell on the obstacles that the process of formation of the middle class in Russia is now encountering. Such obstacles are:
The insufficiency of the layer of modern highly qualified workers, specialists, managers, etc., there are relatively few of them in Russia, the qualities of a worker cannot significantly exceed the quality of the material and technical base on which he works;
The lack of demand by society for what exists, due to the deep economic crisis accompanying the transition of the economy to market relations;
Low standard of living and income of those groups that could eventually form the middle class;
The instability of the statuses of most social groups, including new ones, is due not only to crisis and transition, but also to the fact that property is not yet secured by a system of social institutions that ensure its protection and normal functioning.
The formation of the middle class is apparently a necessary stage in the development of a socially oriented market economy. However, the period of its fairly definite existence in the social structure of post-industrial society may turn out to be quite short. If the tendency to equalize the position of various classes, groups, and strata is strong enough, then the boundaries of the middle class will gradually become less clear.
Thus, the structural formation of the middle class is possible in the presence of a consistent and complementary set of internal and external factors. Internal ones include the development of autonomous activity, a clear delineation of the range of social interests, group identification, the formation of a system of sociocultural values, norms and sanctions, and external ones include the stabilization of socio-economic and political institutions and the ability of society to reproduce this stability, which should be understand not the conservation of the existing order, but the predictability and openness of government actions.
Social inequality and stratification
Completed by a student
2nd year student at the Faculty of Economics
Kulkova Oksana Aleksandrovna
Checked: ______________
Ryazan
Introduction
1. The essence of social inequality and its causes.
2. System of social stratification. Basic class systems in industrial society.
3. Dynamics of social stratification in Russia
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
The history of all sociology as a science, as well as the history of its most important particular discipline - the sociology of inequality, goes back one and a half centuries.
In all centuries, many scientists have thought about the nature of relations between people, about the plight of most people, about the problem of the oppressed and the oppressors, about the justice or injustice of inequality.
Even the ancient philosopher Plato reflected on the stratification of people into rich and poor. He believed that the state was, as it were, two states. One is made up of the poor, the other is made up of the rich, and they all live together, plotting all sorts of intrigues against each other. Plato was “the first political ideologist to think in terms of classes,” says Karl Popper. In such a society, people are haunted by fear and uncertainty. A healthy society should be different.
The essence of social inequality and its causes.
The variety of relationships between roles and positions lead to differences between people in each specific society. The problem comes down to somehow ordering these relationships between categories of people that differ in many aspects.
What is inequality? In its most general form, inequality means that people live in conditions in which they have unequal access to limited resources for material and spiritual consumption. To describe the system of inequality between groups of people in sociology, the concept of “social stratification” is widely used.
When considering the problem of social inequality, it is quite justified to proceed from the theory of socio-economic heterogeneity of labor. Performing qualitatively unequal types of labor, satisfying social needs to varying degrees, people sometimes find themselves engaged in economically heterogeneous labor, because such types of labor have different assessments of their social usefulness.
It is the socio-economic heterogeneity of labor that is not only a consequence but also the reason for the appropriation of power, property, prestige by some people and the lack of all these signs of advancement in the social hierarchy by others. Each of the groups develops its own values and norms and relies on them; if they are located according to a hierarchical principle, then they are social layers.
In social stratification there is a tendency to inherit positions. The principle of inheritance of positions leads to the fact that not all capable and educated individuals have equal chances to occupy positions of power, high principles and well-paid positions. There are two selection mechanisms at work here: unequal access to truly high-quality education; unequal opportunities for equally qualified individuals to obtain positions.
Social stratification has a traditional character. Because with the historical mobility of a form, its essence, that is, the inequality of position of different groups of people, is preserved throughout the entire history of civilization. Even in primitive societies, age and sex, combined with physical strength, were important criteria for stratification.
Considering the dissatisfaction of members of society with the existing system of distribution of power, property and conditions for individual development, it is still necessary to keep in mind the universality of human inequality.
Stratification, like any other science, has its own forms. Until now we have talked about inequality without taking into account its form. Meanwhile, the intensity of stratification depends on the form. The theoretical possibilities here range from such an extreme, when the same amount of both is attributed to any status. There were no extreme forms of stratification in any historical object.
Let us compare the situation when there are numerous social strata in society, the social distance between which is small, the level of mobility is high, the lower strata constitute a minority of members of society, rapid technological growth constantly raises the “bar” of meaningful work at the lower tiers of production positions, social protection of the weak, among other things, guarantees the strong and advanced peace of mind and the realization of potentialities. It is difficult to deny that such a society, such interlayer interaction, is more of an ideal model than an everyday reality.
Most modern societies are far from this model. Or there is a concentration of power and resources among a numerically small elite. The concentration of such status attributes as power, property and education among the elite impedes social interaction between the elite and other strata, leading to excessive social distance between it and the majority. This means that the middle class is small and the upper class is deprived of communication with other groups. It is obvious that such a social order contributes to destructive conflicts.
System of social stratification. Basic class systems in industrial society.
In his work “The State,” Plato argued that the correct state can be scientifically substantiated, and not searched for gropingly, fearing, believing and improvising.
Plato envisioned that this new, scientifically designed society would not only implement the principles of justice, but also ensure social stability and internal discipline. This is exactly how he imagined a society led by rulers (guardians).
Aristotle in “Politics” also considered the issue of social inequality. He wrote that now in all states there are three elements: one class - very rich; the other is very poor; the third is average. This third is the best, since its members, according to their living conditions, are most ready to follow the rational principle. It is from the poor and the rich that some grow up to be criminals, and others to become swindlers.
Thinking realistically about the stability of the state, Aristotle noted that it is necessary to think about the poor, because a state where many poor people are excluded from government will inevitably have many enemies. After all, poverty gives rise to rebellion and crime, where there is no middle class and the poor are a huge majority, complications arise, and the state is doomed to destruction. Aristotle opposed both the rule of the propertyless poor and the selfish rule of a wealthy plutocracy. The best society is formed from the middle class, and a state where this class is more numerous and stronger than both others combined is governed best, because social balance is ensured.
According to sociologists of all ideological trends, no one in the history of social thought emphasized as clearly as K. Marx that the source of social development is the struggle between antagonistic social classes. According to Marx, classes arise and contend on the basis of the different positions and different roles performed by individuals in the productive structure of society.
But K. Marx himself rightly noted that the merit of discovering the existence of classes and their struggle among themselves does not belong to him. And indeed, since the time of Plato, but, of course, especially since the bourgeoisie powerfully entered the stage of history in the 18th century, many economists, philosophers, and historians have firmly introduced the concept of social class into the social sciences of Europe (Adam Smith, Etienne Condillac, Claude Saint - Simon, François Guizot, Auguste Minier, etc.).
However, no one before Marx gave such a deep justification for the class structure of society, deriving it from a fundamental analysis of the entire system of economic relations. No one before him had given such a comprehensive disclosure of class relations, the mechanism of exploitation in the capitalist society that existed in his time. Therefore, in most modern works on the problems of social inequality, stratification and class differentiation, both supporters of Marxism and authors far from the positions of Karl Marx give an analysis of his theory of classes.
Of decisive importance for the formation of modern ideas about the essence, forms and functions of social inequality, along with Marx, was Max Weber (1864 - 1920), a classic of world sociological theory. The ideological basis of Weber's views is that the individual is the subject of social action.
In contrast to Marx, Weber, in addition to the economic aspect of stratification, took into account such aspects as power and prestige. Weber viewed property, power, and prestige as three separate, interacting factors that underlie hierarchies in any society. Differences in ownership give rise to economic classes; differences related to power give rise to political parties, and differences of prestige give rise to status groupings, or strata. From here he formulated his idea of “three autonomous dimensions of stratification.” He emphasized that “classes”, “status groups” and “parties” are phenomena related to the distribution of power within a community.
Weber's main contradiction with Marx is that, according to Weber, a class cannot be a subject of action, since it is not a community. In contrast to Marx, Weber associated the concept of class only with capitalist society, where the most important regulator of relations is the market. Through it, people satisfy their needs for material goods and services.
However, in the market people occupy different positions or are in different “class situations”. Everything is bought and sold here. Some sell goods and services; others - labor. The difference here is that some people own property while others do not.
Weber does not have a clear class structure of capitalist society, so different interpreters of his works give different lists of classes.
Taking into account his methodological principles and summarizing his historical, economic and sociological works, we can reconstruct Weber's typology of classes under capitalism as follows:
1. The working class, deprived of property. It offers its services on the market and differentiates itself by level of qualifications.
2. Petty bourgeoisie - a class of small businessmen and traders.
3. Dispossessed white collar workers: technical specialists and intellectuals.
4. Administrators and managers.
5. Owners who also strive through education for the advantages that intellectuals have.
5.1 Class of owners, i.e. those who receive rent from owning land, mines, etc.
5.2 “Commercial class”, i.e. entrepreneurs.
Weber argued that property owners are a “positively privileged class.” At the other extreme is the “negatively privileged class,” here he included those who have neither property nor qualifications that can be offered on the market.
There are many stratification criteria by which any society can be divided. Each of them is associated with special ways of determining and reproducing social inequality. The nature of social stratification and the way it is asserted in its unity form what we call a stratification system.
When it comes to the main types of stratification systems, a description of caste, slave, class and class differentiation is usually given. At the same time, it is customary to identify them with historical types of social structure, observed in the modern world or already irretrievably a thing of the past. We take a slightly different approach, believing that any specific society consists of combinations of various stratification systems and many of their transitional forms.
Therefore, we prefer to talk about “ideal types” even when we use elements of traditional terminology.
Below are nine types of stratification systems, which, in our opinion, can be used to describe any social organism, namely:
Physico-genetic;
Slaveholding;
Caste;
Estate;
Ectaratic;
Social - professional;
Class;
Cultural - symbolic;
Cultural - normative;
The basis of the first type of physical-genetic stratification system is the differentiation of social groups according to “natural” socio-demographic characteristics. Here, the attitude towards a person or group is determined by gender, age and the presence of certain physical qualities - strength, beauty, dexterity. Accordingly, the weaker, those with physical disabilities are considered defective and occupy a degraded social position.
Inequality in this case is asserted by the existence of the threat of physical violence or its actual use, and then reinforced in customs and rituals.
This “natural” stratification system dominated the primitive community, but continues to be reproduced to this day. It manifests itself especially strongly in communities struggling for physical survival or expansion of their living space. The greatest prestige here belongs to the one who is able to carry out violence against nature and people or resist such violence: a healthy young man is the breadwinner in a peasant community living on the fruits of primitive manual labor; courageous warrior of the Spartan state; a true Aryan of the national socialist army, capable of producing healthy offspring.
The system that ranks people according to their ability to commit physical violence is largely a product of the militarism of ancient and modern societies. Currently, although deprived of its former meaning, it is still supported by military, sports and sexually erotic propaganda. The second stratification system - the slave system - is also based on direct violence. But the inequality of people here is determined not by physical, but by military-physical coercion. Social groups differ in the presence or absence of civil rights and property rights. Certain social groups are completely deprived of these rights and, moreover, along with things, they are turned into an object of private property. Moreover, this position is most often inherited and thus consolidated through generations. Examples of slave systems are very diverse. This is ancient slavery, where the number of slaves sometimes exceeded the number of free citizens, and servility in Rus' during the times of the “Russian Truth”, this is plantation slavery in the south of the North American United States before the Civil War of 1861 - 1865, and finally, the work of prisoners of war and deportees persons on German private farms during the Second World War.
The methods of reproducing the slave system are also characterized by significant diversity. Ancient slavery was maintained mainly through conquest. For early feudal Rus', debt and bonded slavery were more common. The practice of selling one's own children when there was no way to feed them existed, for example, in medieval China. There, various types of criminals (including political ones) were turned into slaves. This practice was practically reproduced much later in the Soviet Gulag (although private slavery was carried out here in hidden extra-legal forms).
The third type of stratification system is caste. It is based on ethnic differences, which, in turn, are reinforced by religious order and religious rituals. Each caste is a closed, as far as possible, endogamous group, which is assigned a strictly defined place in the social hierarchy. This place appears as a result of the isolation of the special functions of each caste in the system of division of labor. There is a clear list of occupations that members of this caste can engage in: priestly, military, agricultural. Because position in the caste system is hereditary, opportunities for social mobility are extremely limited.
And the more pronounced casteism is, the more closed a given society turns out to be. India is rightfully considered a classic example of a society dominated by a caste system (legally, this system was abolished only in 1950). Today, although in a more smoothed form, the caste system is reproduced not only in India, but, for example, in the clan system of Central Asian states. Obvious features of caste were established in the mid-twentieth century by the policies of fascist states (Aryans were given the position of the highest ethnic caste, called upon to dominate the Slavs, Jews, etc.). The role of binding theological doctrines in this case is taken on by nationalist ideology.
The fourth type is represented by the class stratification system. In this system, groups are distinguished by legal rights, which, in turn, are tightly linked to their responsibilities and are directly dependent on these responsibilities. Moreover, the latter imply obligations to the state, enshrined in law. Some classes are required to perform military or bureaucratic service, others are required to carry out “taxes” in the form of taxes or labor obligations.
Examples of developed class systems are feudal Western European societies or feudal Russia. An estate is, first of all, a legal, and not, say, ethnic, religious or economic division. that is also important. that belonging to a class is inherited, contributing to the relative closedness of this system.
Some similarities with the class system are observed in the ektaratic system, which represents the fifth type (from French and Greek - “state power”). In it, differentiation between groups occurs, first of all, according to their position in power-state hierarchies (political, military, economic), according to the possibilities of mobilization and distribution of resources, as well as the prestige they feel, are associated here with the formal ranks that these groups occupy corresponding power hierarchies.
All other differences - demographic and religious-ethnic, economic and cultural - play a derivative role. The scale and nature of differentiation (the scope of power) in the ektaratic system are under the control of the state bureaucracy. At the same time, hierarchies can be formally - legally - through bureaucratic tables of ranks, military regulations, assigning categories to state institutions, or they can remain outside the scope of state legislation (a clear example is the system of the Soviet party nomenclature, the principles of which are not prescribed in any laws). The formal freedom of members of society (with the exception of dependence on the state) and the absence of automatic inheritance of positions of power also distinguish the ethacratic system from the system of estates.
The etacracy system is revealed with greater force, the more authoritarian the state government takes on. In ancient times, a striking example of an ethacratic system were the societies of Asian despotism (China, India, Cambodia), located, however, not only in Asia (but, for example, in Peru and Egypt). In the twentieth century, it is actively establishing itself in so-called socialist societies and, perhaps, even plays a decisive role in them. It must be said that the identification of a special ektaratic system is not yet traditional for work on stratification typologies.
We would therefore like to draw attention to both the historical significance and the analytical role of this type of social differentiation.
Next comes the sixth, social and professional stratification system. Here the groups are divided according to the content and conditions of their work. A special role is played by the qualification requirements for a particular professional role - the possession of relevant experience, skills and abilities. The approval and maintenance of hierarchical orders in this system is carried out with the help of certificates (diplomas, ranks, licenses, patents), fixing the level of qualifications and the ability to perform certain types of activities. The validity of qualification certificates is supported by the power of the state or some other fairly powerful corporation (professional workshop). Moreover, these certificates are most often not inherited, although there are exceptions in history.
Social and professional division is one of the basic stratification systems, various examples of which can be found in any society with any developed division of labor. This is the structure of craft workshops of a medieval city and the rank grid in modern state industry, the system of certificates and diplomas of education, the system of scientific degrees and titles that open the way to more prestigious jobs.
The seventh type is represented by the popular class system. The class approach is often contrasted with the stratification approach. But for us, class division is only a special case of social stratification. Of the many interpretations of the concept of “class”, in this case we will focus on the more traditional - socio-economic. In this interpretation, classes represent social groups of politically and legally free citizens. Differences between groups primarily lie in the nature and extent of ownership of the means of production and the product produced, as well as in the level of income received and personal material well-being. Unlike many previous types, belonging to classes - bourgeois, proletarians, independent farmers, etc. - is not regulated by higher authorities, is not established by law and is not inherited. In its pure form, the class system does not contain any internal formal barriers at all (economic success automatically transfers you to a higher group).
Economically egalitarian communities, where there is absolutely no class differentiation, are a rather rare and unstable phenomenon. But throughout most of human history, class divisions have remained subordinate. They come to the fore, perhaps, only in bourgeois Western societies. And the class system reaches its greatest heights in the liberal-spirited United States of America.
The eighth type is cultural - symbolic. Differentiation arises here from differences in access to socially significant information, unequal opportunities to filter and interpret this information, and the ability to be a bearer of sacred knowledge (mystical or scientific). In ancient times, this role was assigned to priests, magicians and shamans, in the Middle Ages - to church ministers, who made up the bulk of the literate population, interpreters of sacred texts, in modern times - to scientists, technocrats and party ideologists. Claims to communicate with divine forces, to possess scientific truth on expressions of state interest have always existed everywhere. And a higher position in this regard is occupied by those who have better opportunities to manipulate the consciousness and actions of other members of society, who can better prove their rights to true understanding and own the best symbolic capital.
To simplify the picture somewhat, we can say that pre-industrial societies are more characterized by theocratic manipulation; for industrial - partocratic; and for post-industrial - technocratic.
The ninth type of stratification system should be called cultural-normative. Here, differentiation is built on differences in respect and prestige that arise from comparisons of lifestyles and norms of behavior followed by a given person or group. Attitudes towards physical and mental work, consumer tastes and habits, communication manners and etiquette, a special language (professional terminology, local dialect, criminal jargon) - all this forms the basis of social division. Moreover, there is not only a distinction between “us” and “outsiders”, but also a ranking of groups (“noble - not noble”, “decent - not decent”, “elite - ordinary people - bottom”). The concept of elites is surrounded by a certain mysterious flair. They talk a lot about it, but often they do not outline any clear boundaries.
The elite is not a category of politics only. In modern society there are many elites - political, military, economic, professional. Somewhere these elites intertwine, somewhere they compete with each other. We can say that there are as many elites as there are areas of social life. But no matter what sphere we take, the elite are a minority opposed to the rest of society. its middle and lower layers as a kind of “mass”. At the same time, the position of the elite as a higher class or caste can be secured by formal law or religious code, or it can be achieved in a completely informal way.
Elitist theories arose and were formed to a large extent as a reaction to radical and socialist teachings and were directed against different trends of socialism: Marxist, anarcho-syndicalist. Therefore, Marxists, in fact, were very skeptical about these theories, did not want to recognize them and apply them to the material of Western societies. For this would mean, firstly, the recognition that the lower strata are a weak or not at all organized mass that needs to be controlled, a mass incapable of self-organization and revolutionary action, and secondly, a recognition to some extent of the inevitability and the “naturalness” of such sharp inequality. As a result, it would be necessary to radically revise views on the role and nature of the class struggle.
But the elitist approach is directed against democratic parliamentarism. In general, it is anti-democratic by nature. Democracy and accessories presupposes majority rule and the general equality of people as independent citizens, sufficiently organized to realize their own goals and interests. And because of this, advocates of democracy treat any attempts at elitist rule rather coldly.
Numerous approaches to the concept can be divided into two main groups - authoritative and meritocratic. According to the first, the elite are those who have decisive power in a given society, and according to the second, those who have certain special merits and personal qualities, regardless of whether they have power or not.
In the latter case, the elite is distinguished by talent and merit. Sometimes authoritative and meritocratic approaches are conventionally referred to as the “Lassuel line” and the “Pareto line”. (Although the first approach could just as well be called the “Mosca Line” or the “Mills Line.”)
One group of researchers understands the elite as layers that have the highest positions of power or the highest formal power in organizations and institutions. Another group classifies the elite as charismatic individuals, God-inspired individuals capable of leadership, and representatives of the creative minority.
In turn, power approaches are divided into structural and functional. Those who choose a structural approach that is simpler from an empirical point of view consider the elite to be the circle of people occupying senior positions in the institutions under consideration (ministers, directors, military commanders)
Those who choose the functional approach ask themselves a more difficult task: to identify groups that have real power in making socially important decisions (many representatives of these groups, of course, may not occupy any prominent public positions and remain in the “shadows”) .
Let us dwell briefly on the positions of the classics of the authoritative and meritocratic approaches.
4. Social mobility.
The study of social mobility was started by P. Sorokin, who published the book “Social Mobility, Its Forms and Fluctuation” in 1927.
He wrote: “Social mobility is understood as any transition of an individual or a social object (value), i.e. everything that is created or modified by human activity, from one social position to another. There are two main types of social mobility: horizontal and vertical. Horizontal social mobility, or movement, means the transition of an individual or social object from one social group to another, located at the same level. The movement of an individual from a Baptist to a Methodist religious group, from one citizenship to another, from one family (both husband and wife) to another during divorce or remarriage, from one factory to another, while maintaining his professional status - these are all examples of horizontal social mobility. They are also the movements of social objects (radio, car, fashion, the idea of communism, Darwin's theory) within one social layer, like moving from Iowa to California or from a certain place to any other. In all these cases, “movement” can occur without any noticeable changes in the social position of the individual or social object in the vertical direction.
Vertical social mobility refers to those relationships that arise when an individual or social object moves from one social layer to another. Depending on the directions of movement, there are two types of vertical mobility: upward and downward, i.e. social ascent and social descent. According to the nature of stratification, there are downward and upward currents of economic, political and professional mobility, not to mention other less important types. Upward currents exist in two main forms: the penetration of an individual from a lower layer into an existing higher layer; the creation by such individuals of a new group and the penetration of the entire group into a higher layer to the level with already existing groups of this layer. accordingly, downward currents also have two forms: the first consists in the fall of the individual from a higher initial group to which he previously belonged; another form is manifested in the degradation of the social group as a whole, in the lowering of its rank against the background of other groups or the destruction of its social unity. In the first case, the fall reminds us of a person falling from a ship, in the second - the immersion of the ship itself with all the passengers on board or the wreck of a ship when it breaks into pieces.
Social mobility can be of two types: mobility as the voluntary movement or circulation of individuals within the social hierarchy; and mobility dictated by structural changes (eg industrialization and demographic factors). With urbanization and industrialization, there is a quantitative increase in professions and corresponding changes in the requirements for qualifications and professional training. As a consequence of industrialization, there is a relative increase in the labor force, employment in the white-collar category, and a decrease in the absolute number of agricultural workers. The degree of industrialization actually correlates with the level of mobility, as it leads to an increase in the number of high-status professions and a fall in employment in lower-ranking occupational categories.
It should be noted that many comparative studies have shown that changes in stratification systems are influenced by forces. First of all, social differentiation is increasing. Advanced technology is giving rise to a large number of new professions. Industrialization brings greater consistency between professionalism, training and reward. In other words, a tendency towards relatively stable positions in a ranked stratification hierarchy becomes characteristic of individuals and groups. As a result, social mobility increases. The level of mobility increases mainly as a result of the quantitative growth of professions in the middle of the stratification hierarchy, i.e. due to forced mobility, although voluntary mobility is also activated, since the orientation towards achievement gains great weight.
The level and nature of mobility is equally, if not to a greater extent, influenced by the system of social structure. Scientists have long drawn attention to the qualitative differences in this regard between open and closed societies. In an open society there are no formal restrictions on mobility and almost no abnormal ones.
A closed society, with a rigid structure that prevents increased mobility, thereby resists instability.
It would be more correct to call social mobility the reverse side of the same problem of inequality, because, as M. Butle noted, “social inequality is strengthened and legitimized in the process of social mobility, the function of which is to divert into safe channels and contain discontent.
In a closed society, upward mobility is limited not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively, therefore, individuals who have reached the top, but do not receive the share of social benefits that they expected, begin to view the existing order as an obstacle to achieving their legitimate goals and strive for radical changes. Among those whose mobility is directed downwards, in a closed society there are often those who, by education and abilities, are more prepared for leadership than the bulk of the population - from them the leaders of the revolutionary movement are formed at a time when the contradictions of society lead to a conflict of classes in it .
In an open society where few barriers to upward mobility remain, those who rise tend to move away from the political orientation of the class into which they moved. The behavior of those who reduce their position looks similar. Thus, those who rise to the higher stratum are less conservative than the permanent members of the upper stratum. On the other hand, the “thrown down” are more to the left than the stable members of the lower stratum. Consequently, the movement as a whole contributes to the stability and at the same time the dynamism of an open society.
Dynamics of social stratification in Russia
The 90s of the twentieth century, most likely, will go down in the history of Russia as an era of three revolutions, or, possibly, three stages of one revolution, strictly predetermining each other. The first, political, ended in August 1991; the second, economic, gives the first tangible results. However, in parallel with it and overtaking it, the third will gain momentum - a social revolution, which will become a reality very soon, but will finally change the face of Russia only at the end of the millennium.
Such a prioritization is quite natural: politics and economics are topical topics, and the topic of the day today is the task of “feeding the people.” There is nothing more obvious from the point of view of common sense. According to the assurances of some politicians, the government can quickly implement its declarations: stabilize the market, strengthen the financial system and balance the state budget. The dream of the reformers will come true: the people will be “fed” (that is, satisfy the critical minimum of their needs), without ever rebelling.
It is obvious, however, that in all likelihood the country will have to pay a long and painful price for this idyll. The blows of the ax used to build a bright market tomorrow will inevitably have something to do with our fate: the future has a habit of cruelly taking revenge for the frivolity with which the problems of the present are solved.
The most terrible result of the reforms will be a crushing blow to the social structure inherited from the Soviet era. This structure turned out to be so stable and shock-resistant that it withstood the fall of “real socialism.” The fall of the ruling elite did not lead to any serious social conflicts or disasters (as some sociologists warned about), not least because the sharpest stratification took place in the Soviet Union. society precisely on the basis of possession of power. The fall of the partocratic elite was relatively mild, since other signs that stratify an industrial-type society (income, ownership of property, education, profession, social prestige, etc.) in Soviet society were not significant to the extent that inevitably leads to severely conflictual relations social strata.
The strong cohesion of heterogeneous strata in Soviet conditions took place not only due to the short social distance between them, but also due to such a phenomenon as a certain mutual balance of statuses: low wages and the absolute anarchy of the intellectual devalued his high educational rank and relative freedom in the eyes of the worker, who had, according to at least a more substantial income - which did not allow latent ill will to develop into open hatred. On the contrary, the representative of intellectual work compensated for his humiliation by the consciousness of the prestige of higher education and the intellectual profession, career prospects and greater freedom to manage his working time.
In other words: financial situation was not the dominant factor of stratification; it was counterbalanced by no less significant - non-economic - parameters.
It is these very foundations of social integration that are rapidly coming to an end before our eyes. The transfer of control over property from the state to citizens threatens to take the worst possible course: a gigantic part of the national product uncontrollably becomes not even at the disposal, but the legal property of new and old economic elites, and a disproportionately small part flows through the fingers of the majority of the population. The level of income becomes the main parameter of stratification, not balanced by any counterweight. There is an equalization of statuses by income level, which means that the highly integrated, stable social structure is threatening to be replaced by the most unstable type of class society.
A society of this type is doomed to constantly balance on the brink of social war. The sharper and more one-dimensional the social stratification, the higher the charge of negative social sentiments (hatred, envy, fear) experienced by different layers towards each other, the deeper their mutual rejection. In this sense, the future of social peace in the country depends on whether the government can prevent the monstrous imbalances in the distribution of former state property between various socio-economic groups that are growing like an avalanche in the process of spontaneous privatization.
In Western societies, the tendency to reduce social distance occurs precisely due to the strong position and long-term growth of the middle class, which thereby smoothes out the sharpness of social stratification and is the main guarantor of stability. On the contrary, in the countries of the “third world” the colossal gap in income, in the level and style of consumption, in the very way of life between the upper and poorest strata of the population is enormous, and the share of the middle strata is incomparably low (with the West).
The new stratification may turn out to be social dynamite that will explode society, since if it is not possible to ensure the minimum required level of income, the volume and influence of the middle class, the most dangerous type of social identification from the point of view of stability - class - will inevitably prevail in society. The beginning of this disintegration of society into class identifications will most likely occur not before, but after the stabilization of the market (and, let’s not forget, stabilization at a very low level). By this moment, a huge number of people, having lost hopes of changing their personal situation, which were glimmering during the period of economic chaos and uncertainty, will understand that power outages are not yet the worst tragedy in this life - and with the sobriety of disappointment they will realize the rigid limits of their social rank .
In this situation, each of the main three classes will in its own way pose a potential threat to stability. The upper class (large entrepreneurs and owners, shareholders of monopolistic enterprises, the bureaucracy associated with the public sector and the comprador bourgeoisie serving connections with the world market), having concentrated enormous wealth in their hands, will turn out to be a red rag for almost the entire society. Conspicuous consumption, oriented towards Western consumer standards, which our nouveau riche cannot refuse today, will fuel the unquenchable rage of the lower strata.
On the other hand, the gap that will lie between the rich and middle classes will not allow the former to count on parties that have a social base in the latter.
The most active part of the poor class (workers of bankrupt and unprofitable enterprises, former collective farmers who never became farmers, the unemployed, as well as the vast majority of people who failed to rationally use the opportunities of the privatization era) will become the supplier of “extras” for various kinds of revolutionary movements.
But even without all this, the large poor stratum itself will create an unbearable burden on the economy. High taxes and necessary assistance to the poor (not to help means rebellion and bloodshed) are unlikely to become an incentive for the development of business activity. A government forced to burden other classes with them will not earn gratitude from the lower classes and will become an enemy in the eyes of the upper and middle classes - which will bear the brunt of taxes.
The middle class - small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, the successful part of the intelligentsia, workers of profitable enterprises, new owners who benefited from privatization - in a situation of sharp stratification will experience double frustration: fear of the angry lower class and hatred of the unattainable upper class. The saddest possible result of privatization is the creation of a layer of “frustrated owners” - this potential base of fascism (which, according to Seymour Lipset, is middle-class extremism).
The fate of a society dominated by a one-dimensional perspective of assessment is sad. The more the distribution of wealth coincides with the distribution of social prestige, the greater the likelihood of mutual rejection of the layers - lower, middle and higher, the closer and more acute the danger of disintegration with its varieties from revolution to civil war.
Of course, there is no country in the world where the poor do not dislike the rich. But this natural hostility can be strengthened or weakened - depending on factors of a socio-cultural rather than economic order. If representatives of the poorer classes learn that they have no chance of society promoting their “non-commodity” merits, this will lead not only to frightening moral degradation, but also to an explosive exacerbation of class hatred. On the contrary, where society, along with the commercial scale of assessment, cultivates some other (for example, ethical, cultural...) - the social hatred of the poor towards the rich can be balanced by the desire of the former for moral (aesthetic, etc.) superiority over the latter. Having no chance of getting rich, he can achieve recognition and honor in a completely different field.
Conclusion
Social policy is a policy of regulation of the social sphere aimed at achieving well-being in society. The social sphere of public relations includes forms of regulation of labor relations, participation of workers in the management of the production process, collective agreements, the state system of social security and social services (unemployment benefits, pensions), participation of private capital in the creation of social funds, social infrastructure (education, healthcare, housing, etc.), as well as the implementation of the principle of social justice.
Thus, the subject of social policy (social groups that have power in the social sphere), ensuring the achievement of well-being in society - the totality of historically established forms of joint activity of people - implements the principle of social justice, which, as the most general, is the goal of the activities of the social sphere public relations.
SOCIAL-CLASS ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY- the entire set of social-class relations between individuals united in social classes, social-class groups and in elementary professional, property and legal groups and these individuals themselves. S.-K.O. covers a wider range of social relations than the social class structure. The first includes not only stable, essential, non-random, regularly repeated, but also unstable, random, irregular relationships.
For a long time, the complexity of studying social relations in Soviet society, in addition to epistemological reasons, was influenced by the party approach to the study of all phenomena of social life, which dominated until the Communist Party lost its leading position in society. At the same time, it should be noted that, to the credit of domestic social scientists in the 1960-1980s, despite the ideological circumstances that made it difficult to impartially analyze the social class structure, they made a significant contribution to the development of ideas about the nature of social relations and structures. At the same time, many scientific problems associated with social-class structuring in modern domestic (as well as foreign) literature have not been addressed at all. It should be especially noted that one cannot talk about any significant separation of Western sociology from domestic one. In modern foreign social science there is a huge variety of mutually exclusive ideas about social and social-class structures. Western authors traditionally attach very different meanings to this concept.
Some researchers consider social structure as a system of social inequality, others define it as a set of groups of associations and institutions, others consider it a system of statuses and roles, reducing the analysis to the functional interdependence between them, etc. As the leading French sociologist P. Ansar writes in his book “Modern Sociology”: “In general, from 1945 to the 1970s in France, Italy, as well as in Germany and the USA, many researchers in the field of social sciences, without dogmatically connecting themselves with individual details of Marx's positions, extracted from them the most essential with the intention of transcending the boundaries of narrow economism (Sartre, 1960) or in order to undermine the authority of functionalist conservative models (Mills, 1967; Habermas, 1968)." However, this author further notes, “the 1970-1980s were marked by a departure from this substantive side of Marxism in the social sciences, which was associated with various reasons in which historical events played an important role.” Today, domestic social scientists are ahead of Western ones on a number of substantive issues related to the study of social relations. Therefore, highlighting the specifics of social relations, it is logical to turn specifically to domestic developments.
Patriarch of Russian sociology Rutkevich M.N. in justifying the expediency of identifying a social-class structure in contemporary conditions (the work was published in 1979), he put forward the following main arguments: firstly, the social structure of society, while remaining class-based even under socialism, also includes other types of social structures of this type. At the same time, the social-class structure should in no case be confused with the national-ethical, socio-demographic, socio-territorial, professional and other types of social structure of this type. However, since the first is, in the opinion of this author, the most important of all the listed types of social structure and leaves its mark on any of them, in the literature it is often called simply social structure. Secondly, overcoming the significant differences between the two forms of socialist property - national and collective farm-cooperative - and at the same time between the working class and the collective farm peasantry does not exhaust the tasks of building a classless society. The term “social class structure” has the advantage, according to M.N. Rutkevich, which focuses on overcoming not only the differences between the two “friendly classes” of Soviet society, but also a whole series of social differences as necessary to “achieve a classless society.”
Close to this point of view is the understanding of social class differences set forth in the monograph “Problems of changing the social structure of Soviet society,” where they are understood as “a category that characterizes those phenomena in the system of social relations that are eliminated during the transition to communism, which are a rudiment class antagonistic society."
The work “The Social Structure of a Developed Socialist Society in the USSR” also states that “since there are often attempts to present the class structure of socialist society in the USSR only as a division of society into two friendly classes, without taking into account other differences inherited from the class antagonism of society , insofar as it seems justified to use the term “social class structure,” which focuses on isolating the structure in question from the social structure of society in the general sense.”
The above approach, which was quite typical at that time, is characterized by the following errors: 1) The authors do not provide a clear criterion for social and social-class structures, and do not show the relationship between these categories. Hence, social-class, professional, demographic, property and other types of social structures are considered as one-order, which is methodologically incorrect, since the social-class structure includes a number of structures (professional, property, etc.) that these researchers put with it in one row as single-order categories. Based on the principles of the systems approach, it should be recognized that it is obviously erroneous to recognize social phenomena as one-order, some of which are completely included in others. 2) The need to highlight the social class structure is associated with the ultimate goal of the development of socialism - the construction of a classless society. In this regard, the authors tried to consider the social class structure as a relic of capitalism (i.e., in any case, they try to appeal to the period either before or after socialism).
Today in the social sciences it has become axiomatic both the impossibility of building a Marxist model of communism and the recognition of the fact that the society built in the USSR was not socialist. Naturally, in the light of these new theoretical principles, appeals to the postulates of the theory of “scientific communism” are obviously absurd. To the credit of domestic social scientists, already at that time attempts were made (sometimes quite successful in methodological terms) to consider the real social structures of Soviet society. It was noted that our society developed on its own basis and its social structure was formed according to laws inherent exclusively to itself (Gerasimov N.V.). Accordingly, the conclusion was drawn that the social-class structure is also formed according to the laws inherent in Soviet society. “However, the predominant part of modern studies of the social structure of Soviet society,” notes M.Kh. Titma, “especially its social-class structure, is devoted to the study of ways to achieve social one-sidedness. At the same time, the fact of overcoming the socio-economic division of labor as the basis for movement in "in this direction. But in the near future it is difficult to expect the complete disappearance of even simple physical labor. It is even more unlawful to consider mental labor as socially homogeneous."
Thus, already within the framework of Marxist theory, Soviet social scientists realized the need to look for differences between the concepts of “social structure” and “social class structure” in phenomena inherent in real society. In the domestic literature, if we leave aside the actual identification by some authors of social relations with social relations in general (Selunskaya V.M.), we can distinguish three main points of view on the specifics of social relations.
A number of researchers share what M.N. Rutkevich’s understanding of social relations as “equality and inequality of different groups of people and, above all, social classes according to their position in society.” We have to agree with A.K. Belykh and V.M. Alekseeva, who believed that the specifics of social relations are not revealed in the above-mentioned point of view: “These types of relations cover all social relations. Indeed, economic, political and spiritual-ideological relations are all relations between people, their communities represented by nations, classes , social groups, labor collectives. And relations of equality and inequality also function in all social spheres - equality and inequality economic, social, political and spiritual-ideological." These authors believed that “the methodological criterion for isolating one or another type of social relations is the object about which relations between people develop.” The last remark in itself also does not raise objections today.
According to A.K. Belykh and V.M. Alekseeva, social relations are “relations between people, their teams as bearers of qualitatively different types of labor, different labor functions.” “And the social structure,” notes A.K. Belykh, “is the diversity of social and labor subjects.” R.I. takes a similar approach to this problem. Kosolapov, who writes that the social structure is based on the social division of labor. “Social structure is a natural reflection of the division of labor in the form of groups of people belonging to various specialized spheres of production and social life, in the relations of these groups to each other...” G.V. Mokronosov also concluded that “the social division of labor and the social structure of society essentially coincide, since we are talking about the same thing - the place of groups and classes in the system of production relations.”
With this approach, actual identification of social and labor relations is allowed; reducing the former to the social division of labor loses its meaning in highlighting the category “social relations” itself, because it can be completely replaced by the category of “social division of labor.” This leads to the fact that family, age, religious, political and many other relations drop out of social relations and only labor relations remain.
Other authors adhere to the views of V.P. Tugarinov, according to which the field of social relations includes classes, estates, nations, nationalities, professions and categories that reflect its various relationships between these human groups. The above point of view gives a fairly accurate idea of the specifics of social relations. At the same time, with this approach, relations between individuals are excluded from social relations, which leads to an artificial narrowing of their sphere of activity. Having supplemented the above list with relations between individuals, we will consider all subject-subject relations as social relations. This point of view corresponds to the views on the specifics of social relations by M. Weber ( cm.), who, considering all the diversity of these relationships, always meant “... only a certain type of behavior of individual people.” He also noted that “social” we call an action that, according to the meaning assumed by the actor or actors, correlates with the action of other people or is oriented toward it.”
It should be noted that in social science, two approaches to the study of social structures have coexisted for a long time. In one of them, exclusively social strata are considered as the main components of this structure, which does not allow the researcher to reveal real socio-economic, political, ethnic and other social contradictions, as well as to determine real, and not imaginary (abstract) trends in the development of society and factors their defining ones. In the second approach, classes are accepted as the main components of the social structure, and within this direction there are fundamentally different approaches.
First, when adherents of class theory emphasize that social structure is associated primarily with differentiation between individuals. In this case, first of all, it is not the occupation of people that is considered, but their professional position, not the income of people, but the distribution of income between subjects, which makes it possible to reveal social inequality. As a theoretical goal, the need to disclose and explain the historical forms and degrees of differentiation and the influence of the latter on social evolution is proclaimed. The obvious disadvantage of this narrow approach is the narrowing, which negates its methodological significance, of the content included in the concept of “social structure of society” only to differentiation between individuals. In fact, the named structure also includes demographic, moral and many other relationships.
Secondly, when researchers broadly interpret the concept of “class structure”, actually talking about “the same hierarchies of social groups as those of the representatives of the stratification approach itself” (Radaev V.V., Shkaratan O.I.).
Thirdly, when researchers recognize that the category of “social class structure” is narrower than the concept of “social structure” and that the first structure is completely included in the second (integration approach). At the same time, there is a real opportunity to both distinguish between these structures and give them clear, internally non-contradictory definitions.
Any society is a complex social aggregate, consisting of a set of interacting subjects that are divided not directly into individuals, but into two or more social communities, which, in turn, are divided into individuals. The basis for identifying a particular social structure is the functional or causal relationship of interacting individuals. Depending on the degree of intensity of this connection, the possibility arises of the existence of a number of structures in the same set of people.
The nature of such a connection will show the juxtaposition and overlapping coexistence of social groups. “The degree of intensity of a functional connection and its nature,” wrote Sorokin ( cm.), - this is the basis for the possibility of coexistence of a number of collective unities in the same population." He further points out that the social variety of interaction processes or the nature of connections "entails a variety of collective unities formed by differently combining individuals, on the one hand, on the other - the belonging of each individual not to one, but to a number of real aggregates." All social groups, depending on the number of their uniting characteristics, can be defined as elementary or cumulative (integral). "Under elementary or simple collective unity / social group. - S.S./,” writes Sorokin, “I understand a real, and not an imaginary, set of persons united into one interacting whole by one characteristic, sufficiently clear and definite, not reducible to other characteristics.” Such characteristics may include: profession, race , volume of rights, language, territorial affiliation, gender, etc. “By a cumulative group... we mean a set of interacting individuals connected into one organized whole by connections not of one, but of a number of elementary groupings” (Sorokin).
Accordingly, a social structure formed on the basis of social groups differentiated according to one characteristic (sufficiently clear and definite, not reducible to other characteristics) can be defined by us as an elementary social structure (for example, a professional structure). A structure that combines several elementary structures is a cumulative, or integral, structure. The elements of such a structure will be cumulative groups, which, in turn, break up into elementary groups. The cumulative group in particular is social class. Accordingly, when characterizing the social class structure, we can talk about it as a cumulative, or integral, social structure. In modern science, a class means a concept that expresses a set of objects that satisfy some similar conditions or characteristics. There is nothing supernatural in this category, and since in social structures there are significant (in terms of numbers and social status) subject groupings that unite individuals on the basis of some similar characteristics, it is legitimate to describe the most significant of them using the concept of “social class.”
Already in Medieval Western Europe, attempts were made by the Fathers of the Church to divide humanity into certain categories (or classes). Initially, by ranks they understood groups of people with homogeneous political, social and professional characteristics, charismatic and corporate community. This is “anthropological spiritualism,” according to which the division into categories occurred from top to bottom depending on the set of perfections predetermined by Augustine’s exegesis of the three characters of the Bible - Moses, Daniel and Job, embodying three types of human character: contemplative, religious and secular, caring only about earthly things. With this approach, even feudal overlords did not have to count on any prominent place in the hierarchy. Therefore, along with the aforementioned traditional approach in Art. 8. "sociological anthropology" arises, which proposed a three-member division of society into: free, warriors and slaves. This scheme, however, was not successful because, firstly, it ignored the activities of the clergy in society and, secondly, because the intermediate position of soldiers between freemen and slaves was characteristic only of the empire. French authors (Adalbert of Laon and others) proposed dividing society into “prayers” (clergy), “warriors” and “unarmed people” (workers). The latter sociological scheme then became generally accepted. In the 17th century science has established the presence of social classes (C. Fourier, A. Smith, physiocrats, O. Thierry, etc.). In the subsequent period, the role and significance of these social formations were described in the works of A. Smith, D. Ricardo, utopian socialists, K. Marx ( cm.), M. Weber, P.A. Sorokina. Interesting considerations on the contradictory nature of social-class interests were expressed by Lenin ( cm.).
For all the differences in the views of these thinkers on social classes, their points of view were similar with regard to the methodology of class differentiation of society. They were unanimous that the basis of social class stratification was the social division of labor ( cm.) and socio-economic inequality of individuals. This scientific approach itself has not lost its epistemological significance today. As already noted, in modern Western social science there are significant differences in the interpretation of social classes and social class structure. “The concept of classes,” pointed out R. Dahrendorf ( cm.), is one of the most clear illustrations of the inability of Western researchers to reach at least a minimum of agreement on this range of problems."
However, with all the diversity of views on the social class structure, there are a number of dominant directions. This is explained by the fact that all authors of Western concepts, to one degree or another, resorted to one of two sources - the works of M. Weber or P. Sorokin.
According to M. Weber, social classes are categories that differ in economic characteristics, in other words, they are groups of people who are in a similar economic situation or have the same “life chances.” This author proposes a three-part model of social structure, which includes classes, status groups and parties. The largest number of Western sociological works are devoted to Weber's status groups, although different authors interpret them differently. Thus, R. Dahrendorf distinguishes classes based on the proximity or distance of certain groups to the system of power. There is also a sociological differentiation of social subjects according to the volumetric legal criterion. This approach rightly emphasizes the importance of social differentiation depending on the volume of power prerogatives, but incorrectly ignores such fundamental criteria of social-class stratification as ownership of economic goods and other elements of economic relations.
In the period before the loss of the CPSU's leading position in society, almost all Soviet scientists emphasized the use of Lenin's definition of classes as a general methodological premise for defining the categories of “social class” and “social-class relations.” As is known, under the social classes of V.I. Lenin understood “large groups of people, differing in their place in a historically defined system of social production, in their relationship (mostly enshrined and formalized in laws) to the means of production, in their role in the social organization of labor, and therefore in the methods of obtaining and the amount of that the share of social wealth that they have. Classes are groups of people from which one can appropriate the labor of another due to the difference in their place in a certain structure of the social economy." However, when interpreting Lenin’s definition of classes, when interpreting its individual points, when assessing the place and role of class-forming characteristics, their subordination, and on the question of the degree of applicability of Lenin’s criterial apparatus to contemporary society of that time, a number of researchers managed to overcome the narrow framework of the tenets of Lenin’s theory of classes. Often the latter was replaced by interpretations of social classes based on the traditions of the Russian and American sociological schools.
So, T.I. Zaslavskaya ( cm.), considering as criteria for distinguishing classes: 1) attitude to the means of production; 2) role in the social organization of labor and 3) share of social wealth, notes that “the peculiarity of classes is that they differ simultaneously in all of the above criteria. But each of these criteria, considered independently of the others, also has considerable socially differentiating force and allows us to identify groups that, although not of a class nature, play an important role in the social functioning of society." The last statement, in fact, lies in the context of the views of P.A. Sorokina. These groups, identified according to one of the criteria (“united into one interacting whole by any single feature” - Sorokin) are elementary collective unities, and social classes act as cumulative (integral) groups.
To determine the essence of social class relations, it is necessary to consider social classes from two sides: 1) from the point of view of their place and functional role in society; 2) through the contradiction of social and class interests. The essence of one of the aspects of social-class relations lies in the contradiction of interests, first of all, of economic, certain social groups (which will stem mainly from the ability of some social groups to appropriate the work of others). The presence of a conflict of interests (primarily economic) as a criterion for identifying social classes does not in itself cause controversy in domestic social science (the presence of discrepancies in its application to real social systems is another matter). When considering social classes according to their place and functional role in society, there is still no consensus. In many ways, this was predetermined by the fundamental attitude that existed for a long time towards the direct application of Lenin’s criteria when considering social classes and groups in society.
This was due to: firstly, the absence of an unambiguous, established view in modern economic science (and in social science in general) on what should be understood by “relation to the means of production”, by “role in the social organization of labor” and “by the method of receipt and the size of the share of social wealth that they have." In other words, in political economy, in fact, one unknown (social class) was determined through other unknowns (that is, through categories about which there is no unambiguous and precise idea). Secondly, there was a mutual discrepancy between V.I.’s criteria for identifying social classes. Lenin. As a working definition of social classes according to their place and functional role in society, the definition given by P.A. Sorokin. In his opinion, a social class “is a cumulative, normal, solidary, semi-closed, but approaching open, group typical of our time, made up of the cumulation of three main groupings: 1) professional; 2) property; 3) volume-legal.”
In other words, a social class can be defined as a solidary set of individuals who are similar in profession, property status, and scope of rights, and, therefore, have identical professional-property-social-legal interests. The professional structure determines the existence of professional groups, united by the type of work activity, possessing a complex of special theoretical knowledge and practical skills acquired as a result of special training and work experience. Division by profession deals with the formation in society of various groups, which are separated primarily not by the difference in mutual relations to each other, but by the difference in their relations to the object of activity. This kind of technical stratification can reach a huge number of species, subspecies, various small divisions, and among the infinite number of these divisions social inequality is already formed. A profession is an individual’s usual long-term occupation that provides him with a means of subsistence. This professional occupation, as a rule, is also the main activity. In other words, “... the source of income and the social function of the individual are connected with each other and together form a profession” (Sorokin). This qualification and professional differentiation will give rise to social inequality. It is different specialties and different qualifications in the labor process that lead to social differences between individuals.
The formation of social classes is based on enlarged professional groups (genetic aspect). At the same time, in a social-class-differentiated society, representatives of the same profession can be part of different social-class formations (functional aspect). The property structure (or grouping according to the degree of wealth and poverty), regardless of whether it in a given country approaches the type of more closed groups or less closed ones, causes the stratification of the entire society into groups of rich and poor. Moreover, the wealth and poverty of an individual do not entirely depend on his will. “Members of the same property group... fatally become united in many respects, members of different property groups become fatally antagonistic” (Sorokin). The similarity of property status leads to a spontaneous organization of individuals with similar property status. Persons belonging to the same profession, depending on the amount of their income, may belong to different groups with opposing interests. The volumetric legal structure (or grouping according to the scope of rights and obligations), not coinciding with the previous two structures, falls into two main groups: the privileged, who make up the highest social rank, and the disadvantaged, who give the lowest social rank. The privileged form a solidary collective unity; the same unity is formed by the “deprived” (Sorokin). At the same time, in any society with developed social structures, the real differentiation of individuals and groups depending on the scope of their rights and responsibilities is much more complex than the above.
Thus, the following are distinguished as signs of social classes: 1) professional; 2) property; 3) volumetric legal. As soon as stable professional, property and volume-legal groups are formed in society; as soon as they acquire some strength (as a social combination), interaction immediately begins between society, taken as a whole, and between individual social groups, with each side influencing the nature of the other. It was previously noted that profession, property status and the scope of rights have a huge impact on individuals. If membership in each of these groups very strongly determines people's behavior, then this conditioning will be much stronger when the influence of all these three structures merges. Individuals united by all three connections will have similar economic interests, which acts as a material condition for their unification into social classes in order to more successfully realize and protect their interests. Social groups that differ sharply from each other on three of these characteristics at once will be repelled and opposed much more strongly than groups that differ only on one attribute.
At the same time, when speaking about the unification of social groups into social classes, it is necessary to take into account the entire system of socio-economic relations as an exhaustive characteristic of a social class. So, Yu.S. Polyakov, emphasizing this, points out that “obviously, only the entire set of production relations that develop in the process of production, exchange, distribution and consumption of material goods provides a comprehensive political and economic characteristics of the class.” Since all social groups in society interact with each other and at the same time strive for the most optimal realization of their interests (primarily economic), then the whole society should objectively break down into certain large groups of people opposing each other depending on the degree of coincidence (opposition) of their interests (primarily economic). What will predetermine this coincidence (opposition)? In our opinion, this is still the same opportunity for some social groups to appropriate the work of others (which depends on their place and functional role). To protect their economic interests, there is a spontaneous unification of both into social classes. Such an association acts as an economic basis for the formation of social classes.
Dahrendorf, in his work “Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society” (1957), wrote in this regard that “class is a category that is used in the analysis of the dynamics of social conflict and its structural roots.” At the same time, social class is not only an economic, but also a social, political and spiritual-ideological formation. K. Marx in “The Poverty of Philosophy” writes: “Economic conditions first transformed the mass of the population into workers. The dominance of capital created for this mass an equal position and common interests. Thus, this mass is already a class in relation to capital, but not yet for itself itself. In the struggle... this mass unites, it is constituted as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests." From this quote it is clearly seen that in the process of the emergence and development of social classes, according to K. Marx, there is a form when people in a position defined by the above criteria (place and role in the system of functional labor relations, property relations, managerial relations and special economic interests), are not yet connected by an internal connection of conscious (ideological) relations, but only by a connection of subjective relations and objective dependencies that exist within the framework of production relations. Then we say that they form a “class in itself,” which, however, is not a simple aggregate, since it is connected by a system of objective relations, but also does not yet represent a class “for itself,” i.e. does not yet have a fully developed consciousness of its class economic and political interests. Moreover, objective class interests are not mirrored in subjective class consciousness. Awareness of one's essential, true interests, without which it is impossible to transform a “class in itself” into a “class for itself,” inevitably occurs through a system of psychological attitudes given by previous historical experience. A social class can become a “class for itself” only by developing its own ideology.
On the basis of all this, its organizational design takes place. We especially note that under the influence of this position of Marx about “a class for itself,” M. Weber proposed to distinguish between “class” and “social class” in the social class structure. By class, this author understood a social community connected only by the similarity of economic interests, the “economic status” of a given category of subjects. With the category “social class” M. Weber showed that the highest manifestation of class community is the awareness of one’s class economic and political interests and goals that mobilizes and encourages collective action.
Modern classic of French sociology P. Bourdieu ( cm.) also proposed to distinguish between possible (logical) and real social classes. This author writes that on the basis of knowledge of economic and other relations it is possible to “identify classes in the logical sense of the word, i.e. classes as a set of agents occupying a similar position, which, being placed in similar conditions and subject to similar conditions, have every chance for having similar dispositions and interests, and therefore developing similar practices and taking similar positions." P. Bourdieu rightly believes that this class “on paper” has a theoretical existence, “it allows one to explain and foresee the practices and properties of the classified and ... behavior leading to their unification into a group / into a real social class. - S.S./"... "...This is only a possible class, since it is a collection of agents who will objectively provide less resistance if it is necessary to “mobilize” them than any other collection of agents." Transformation of a logical class into a real social class, writes further, it is possible only through the development among its members of a sense of the position “occupied in social space” / social-class relations. - S.S./. I. Kraus also writes: “Classes ... are conflict groups that, uniting, challenge the existing distribution of power, advantages and other opportunities ... classes are formed when a collection of individuals defines their interests as similar to the interests of others from the same population and as different and opposing interests of another set of persons." This researcher emphasizes the important role in the process of formation of a social class that the latter has its own ideology.
Thus, objective class interests are reflected in subjective class consciousness by no means in a mirror manner. Awareness of one's essential, true interests, without which it is impossible to transform a “class in itself” into a “class for itself,” inevitably occurs through a system of psychological attitudes given by previous historical experience. A social class can become a “class for itself” only by developing its own ideology. On the basis of all this, its organizational design takes place. Due to the irreducibility of all components of the social-class structure of society only to social classes and elementary professional, property and volume-legal groups, it is epistemologically necessary, based on the goal of more or less adequate reflection in the theory of the diversity of corporate social subjects, to introduce for a meaningful description of the said structure a number of categories, as well as supplement the above definition of P.A.’s social class. Sorokina.
Social class in modern science is understood as a cumulative, normal, solidary, semi-closed, but approaching open, group connected by positive social-class complementarity, made up of the cumulation of three main groupings: 1) professional; 2) property; 3) volumetric legal. The concept of positive (negative) complementarity was introduced by L.N. Gumilyov to characterize the ethnosphere. It was understood as “a feeling of subconscious mutual sympathy (antipathy) of members of ethnic groups, which determines the division into “us” and “strangers.” Social-class complementarity is understood as a feeling of subconscious mutual sympathy (antipathy) of members of social classes, leading to the formation of a single ideology among them and the defining division into “us” and “strangers.” Positive social-class complementarity is what (in P. Bourdieu’s terminology) distinguishes “real social class” from “possible (logical) class.”
It seems epistemologically promising to introduce into social philosophy a number of concepts that capture a certain stage of development of a social class community - these are “class-stratum”, “class-estate”, “distracho-class”, “syncretistic class”. It is also advisable to highlight socio-economic categories that show intra-class differentiation of subjects: “social class group”, “marginal social class group” and “caste social class group”. Why is it promising to introduce the concept of “class-layer”? The fact is that in modern sociology there are not only no clear criteria for distinguishing the categories “class” and “stratum,” but also, as O.I. Shkaratan "for many authors they are generally synonymous."
Today in social science the typical idea is that any modern society consists of groups or many individuals who have or bear certain characteristics. At the same time, these characteristics are considered as classification criteria, which can be one- or, more often, multidimensional (in our terminology, these are elementary or cumulative structures). With this approach, the researcher’s attention is traditionally shifted from production to distribution, without understanding the objective relationships between them. This situation has led today to the fact that, as V.V. rightly notes. Radaev and O.I. Shkaratan: “in a significant part of the research, the same features are used to distinguish both classes and layers.” And from this follows the widespread opinion among social scientists that the category of class covers heterogeneous social subjects, depending on the epistemological context that various scientists put into this term. “The meaning is also different,” as O.I. Shkaratan notes, “that different authors put into the term “social stratum.” Most sociologists use this term to designate social differentiation within a hierarchically organized society. Often the content of the term is no different from the content put into the term "class". In the same cases when these concepts are distinguished, the term "stratum" denotes groups within the "classes", distinguished on the same grounds as the "classes" themselves. Therefore, it is scientifically promising to introduce into circulation instead of the category "layer" "the concept of "class-stratum", which allows us to emphasize that the named state of the social-class community is one of the stages of the life of a social class and at the same time allows us to clearly highlight the specifics of this stage. "Class-stratum" is a community that differs from the social class by the absence of positive complementarity, i.e. close in essence to Bourdieu’s “possible class.” The degree of community of individuals making up the class-stratum, the level of their awareness of their common needs and interests (primarily economic), the degree of their cohesion and organization is less, than those of representatives of social class. To characterize intraclass groups, the category “socio-class group” is used. The named groups are understood as intraclass groups that partially differ from each other in one (or two) main cumulations: either professional, or property, or legal scope; for the remaining two (or one) they completely coincide with other subjects of a given social class.
To analyze the process of evolution of the social class structure of society today, the category of social “distracho-class” (from the Latin word - distractor - torn into pieces) is often used. This class is understood as a cumulative, semi-closed, but approaching open, group, made up of the cumulation of three main groups: 1) professional; 2) property; 3) volume-legal, and characterized by an increased degree of dismemberment and looseness of internal structures. The dystracho class is a social class in the process of strengthening the autonomy of its intraclass (socio-class) groups, leading in the long term to its disintegration into several new social classes. As a rule, the above-mentioned social class community is characterized by even less opportunity for joint action than the class layer; there is no single ideological position among the subjects of its components.
Recognition of the expediency of using the category “social dystracho class” in modern social science required the introduction into scientific use of the concept of “embryonic (syncretic) social class” (or, for short, “syncretistic class”). The named social community is a social class group included in the dystracho class, in the process of its transformation into the social class itself. The syncretic class is characterized by unity and lack of division due to the initial underdevelopment of the state.
In recent years, much attention has been paid in philosophical and sociological literature to such a phenomenon as marginality, which acts as one of the characteristics of the state of social, including social-class, structures. This concept is usually used “...to denote relatively stable social phenomena that arise on the border/emphasis mine. - S.S./ interaction of different cultures, social communities, structures, as a result of which a certain part of social subjects finds themselves outside their borders" (Popova I.P.). Despite the apparent simplicity of the definition of this phenomenon and its more than seventy-year scientific history, it has not yet been applied category "marginality" there are a large number of epistemological difficulties. One should agree with I.P. Popova that the reason for this state of affairs is threefold: "Firstly, in the practice of using the term itself, several approaches have developed (in sociology, social psychology, cultural studies, political science, economics, etc.), which gives the concept a fairly general, interdisciplinary character. Secondly, in the process of clarification and evolution of the concept in sociology, several meanings associated with different types of marginality have been established. Thirdly, its fuzziness and uncertainty makes it difficult to measure the phenomenon itself, its analysis in the context of social processes." Thus, in modern social science it is advisable to talk not about any abstract marginality of some undesignated social phenomenon, but only about the marginality of certain types (or classes) of phenomena and relationships. The use of the concept of “marginality” when characterizing the components of the social-class structure puts in the first place such attributive features as “borderliness”, “intermediality”, “ambiguity” and “uncertainty” (which emphasizes the increased degree entropy of marginal social class subjects. In our opinion, it is impossible to describe the social class organization and structure of society in modern systemic language without introducing the category “marginal social class group” (or, for short, “marginal group”), which is a social a class group that is part of one social class, but in a number of ways is also close to another social class. This group occupies a specific “borderline” position in the social-class structure of society. The named group with a high degree of probability can be characterized as an entropy element at the group level.
A social class-estate (or, for short, a “class-estate”) is a semi-closed group, approaching a closed one; access to it is limited, including by customs and traditions, its representatives have inheritable rights and responsibilities. An example of such social-class communities is Japan in the second half of the 20th century. This country has a widely developed system of inheritance of political power, “where the sons, daughters and grandchildren of politicians of older generations almost automatically occupy seats in parliament from the same electoral districts ( Nisei or Sansei Giin). In the mid-1990s, these second- or third-generation parliamentarians occupied up to a quarter of the seats in the lower house and up to a fifth in the upper house of the Japanese Diet. If we add to them spouses, brothers-in-law, nephews and other relatives, as well as former secretaries of retired parliamentarians, then the scale of the phenomenon of inheritance of power will turn out to be even more impressive" (Kravtsevich A.I.) It should also be added to this that the Japanese cabinet of ministers ( the highest executive power) is formed from existing parliamentary politicians from the ruling or ruling parties. At the same time, the real governance of the country is not in the hands of ministers and their deputies (politicians elected by the people), who are traditionally replaced annually, but in the hands of a career bureaucracy. The latter is is also today a class-estate. The system of consultation meetings with government bodies, “combines the collective experience of bureaucrats, business and academic circles, trade unions and consumers and is designed to promote the achievement of public consensus regarding the adopted policy” (Kravtsevich A.I), in In a large number of cases, it is a screen for imparting the appropriate surroundings to decisions prepared by the bureaucracy.
Caste social-class groups (or, for short, “castes”) are social-class groups that occupy a certain (strictly ranked) place in the social hierarchy, associated with strictly fixed types of activities and limited in communication with each other.
Thus, social class is a real sociological category that allows us to identify, based on a number of (socio-economic) characteristics, a group of individuals who act in social and socio-economic relations as a large closed system with a certain dynamic algorithm of behavior and a specific internal structure that changes depending on on the stage of development of the class - on the degree of its “maturity” (class-stratum, social dystracho-class, etc.).
In modern social science, social class is understood as a cumulative, normal, solidary, semi-closed, but approaching open, group connected by positive social-class complementarity, made up of the cumulation of three main groupings: 1) professional; 2) property; 3) volumetric legal. Social-class complementarity is understood as a feeling of subconscious mutual sympathy (antipathy) of members of social classes, leading to the formation of a single ideology among them and defining the division into “us” and “strangers”. In the course of their life, social classes and social-class groups can unite into social-class groupings (“social superclasses”) with the aim of jointly struggling to optimize the conditions for the realization of their socio-economic interests. At the same time, the main condition for this integration is the temporary coincidence of interests of the merging subjects and a clear contradiction of their socio-economic interests of other social classes. Such a unification of certain social-class subjects can occur over a certain, usually quite short, historical period. It should also be noted that the potential possibility of this association is largely determined by the moral relations of a particular society (customs, traditions, moral norms, ideals, etc.).
Based on the above, we can define social class relations in the narrow sense as relations between individuals included in specific cumulative (integral) groups - social classes. Accordingly, social-class relations in a broad sense are understood as relations between people united in elementary professional, property and volume-legal groups and cumulative (integral) groups - social class groups and social classes.
The social class structure of society is a set of: 1) the most stable, significant, regularly recurring social class relations that arise between individuals united in social classes, social class groups and in elementary professional, property and legal groups; 2) these individuals themselves, united in social classes and social-class elementary social groups. In any real society there exists, constantly reproducing or disappearing, a wide variety of social class relations. If we assume that in any society all the named relations will be stable, essential, regularly repeated, that is, that there will be no chaotic social-class processes or phenomena, then in the named society there will be no dynamism and it will be doomed to stagnation.
As already noted in the specialized literature (E.A. Sedov), for normal functioning and a more or less adequate response to changes in surrounding socio-economic realities (that is, for the perception of information), chaotic processes must not only be present, but also occupy a fairly significant share in the entirety of socio-economic relations. At the same time, if these chaotic processes exceed a certain limit, that is, if the presence of non-chaotic processes becomes insufficient to maintain certain structures in society, then this society dies. At the same time, degradation of the social class structure occurs. Therefore, to characterize real social-class relations, it is necessary to use the concept of “social-class organization of society,” which covers a broader aspect of social relations than the social-class structure. The first includes not only stable, essential, non-random, regularly repeated, but also unstable, random, irregular relationships. Some changes in the social-class organization of society will act as a specific social “embryo” of the evolution of the social-class structure.
Thus, S.-K.O. A dynamic society is always a continuously changing social phenomenon, the dynamics of which cannot be fully described in the language of modern mathematics, even using “mathematical chaos” as a means. At the same time, it seems theoretically possible to describe with a sufficient degree of probability the social-class organization of society for a certain period of time. To capture this state, it is legitimate to use the category “social class fractal”. This concept refers to a certain static social configuration, which acts as an instantaneous statistical (mathematical) “snapshot” of a social-class organization. Somewhat simplified, the real existence of the social-class organization of society can be represented as an infinite number of social-class fractals that continuously replace each other. The category “social class structure of society,” as noted above, does not describe the entire diversity of social class relations and does not carry evolutionary potential.
In other words, if we imagine that all the diversity of social-class relations in a certain socio-economic system has been reduced to only the most stable, significant, regularly recurring ones, i.e. to non-random deterministic relationships, then such a system could exist only under constant external conditions (stable natural and climatic conditions, constant sources of raw materials, lack of scientific and technological progress or regression, frozen demographic structure with a constant population size, etc.), i.e. .e. it is basically not viable. In order to respond to changes in external conditions in a socio-economic system, entropy (entropy is a measure of the uncertainty of stochastic processes) social-class relations must necessarily exist.
All real, and not imaginary, social-class relations are divided into two types: 1) stable, significant, regularly repeated - forming a social-class structure and being in this case an expression of structural information; 2) unstable, random, stochastic - being the embodiment of entropy processes leading to the transformation of the social-class structure and allowing the latter to adequately respond to changes in the socio-economic system. It is the totality of all these relations (stable and unstable, statistical and stochastic, etc.) that is described by the term “S.-K.O.”. In S.-K.O. of any real society there will be elements that are not part of the social class structure - individuals who can unite into certain, fairly stable groups. In turn, any social class will also contain entropic elements - providing the possibility of its change, and structural-informational elements - providing the possibility of its self-preservation. (The distracho class is the class with maximum entropy, and the social class-estate is the class with minimum entropy.) The actual level of diversity at the higher levels of the social class structure can be ensured by effectively limiting it at the lower levels.
Demographic processes in social context
1. Russia entered the third millennium not in the best demographic shape. Unjustifiably high mortality, low birth rate, population decline, dying migration. All this is happening against a background of broader, deeper and more painful economic and social changes, and it is not surprising that public opinion tends to view negative demographic trends as a direct consequence of these changes.
2. The understanding of not only the demographic present, but also the demographic future of Russia depends on whether this view is correct or incorrect. If we are really talking about a simple reaction to the economic and social crisis of the 90s, then we can hope that as this crisis is overcome, the demographic situation will improve. If the main demographic trends have deeper causes and more ancient origins, then there may be no reason for such optimism.
3. Although the author of the report is one of those demographers who views demographic processes as relatively autonomous in relation to other social processes, he, of course, does not consider them absolutely independent of the social, economic or political context. Moreover, he believes that demographic trends in Russia should be considered in two contexts: domestic and global. This applies to all major demographic processes: mortality, fertility and migration.
4. Mortality trends in Russia can most justifiably be characterized as crisis, although they cannot in any way be associated only with the events of the last 10-15 years; they have been clearly visible since at least the mid-60s. The main reason is the preservation of conservative statist-paternalistic attitudes, which greatly limit the scope of individual activity and responsibility, including when it comes to protecting one’s own health and life. This is especially noticeable in the later stages of modernization of mortality, when it depends more on individual behavior. Through its earlier and very important stages, the process of extinction of generations in Russia in the twentieth century was quite successful. Nevertheless, the entire system of values - both individual and public - still remains largely archaic, predetermining such a distribution of priorities in which both society and each individual sacrifices health and even life in the name of other, considered more important goals, protection health care is invariably financed on a “residual principle”; due freedom of choice of doctor, hospital, method of treatment, insurance, etc. is not ensured. All this led to the fact that several decades ago modernization changes were blocked and the mortality situation stopped improving. This, in fact, is the long-term mortality crisis in Russia; the last decade has not brought fundamental changes.
5. Oddly enough, but frankly crisis, long-term mortality trends worry Russian public opinion much less than fertility trends, which are much more difficult to give an unambiguous assessment. There is no doubt that, from the point of view of the domestic Russian context, the extremely low birth rate, the main reason for the decline in Russia's population, is extremely unfavorable for the country. However, unlike the very high mortality rate, it does not represent something exceptional; similar birth rates are observed in many developed countries with completely different socio-economic conditions. This could be interpreted as a general crisis of the entire modern “post-industrial” civilization, the causes of which cannot be found and eliminated in one country. However, even with this approach, one cannot help but see that a decrease in the birth rate in post-industrial societies is associated with many changes that are usually interpreted as positive attributes of modernization: the almost complete elimination of child mortality, the emancipation and self-realization of women, growing specific investments in children, growth in education, etc. Taking this into account, perhaps we should talk not about a crisis, but about the internal inconsistency of the modernization process, and perhaps about the fact that modernization objectively shifts the emphasis from quantitative to qualitative characteristics of social life.
However, the decline in fertility must also be viewed in a broader, global context. This decline can be seen as a systemic reaction to the global demographic crisis generated by the global population explosion and the growing burden on the planet’s limited resources. With this interpretation, a decrease in the birth rate on a global scale below the level of simple reproduction for a sufficiently long period is a good thing, and a decrease in the birth rate in Russia, as well as in the “West,” is only an episode of such a global turn. No matter how unpleasant this may be for all developed countries, and especially for Russia with its vast territory, nothing can be done about it, because the interests of preserving all humanity are higher than the interests of individual countries.
6. The connection between internal migrations and the social context, mainly domestic, is obvious. For most of the twentieth century, multimillion-dollar movements of the rural population to cities were one of the main instruments and, at the same time, results of modernization shifts that changed the face of the country. With these same shifts, in particular, with the industrial development of new areas, the creation of new cities, etc. Inter-district, in particular inter-republican, migrations of the Soviet period were also associated. At the same time, external migration was artificially blocked throughout most of this period.
The political changes at the end of the century, the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of a new Russia within borders that had never existed before greatly changed the general context and brought external migration to the forefront (especially since the potential of internal migration by that time had been largely exhausted).
The new internal Russian context, in which external migrations now have to be considered, is contradictory. On the one hand, the clear discrepancy between the declining Russian population and the country's vast territory (larger than during the USSR) makes immigration desirable, and this is a demographic process that is much easier to manage than mortality or fertility. On the other hand, any immigration gives rise to economic, social, and sometimes political tensions, problems of intercultural interaction, etc., which is inevitable in Russia, where anti-immigration and sometimes openly xenophobic sentiments still prevail. Therefore, one cannot count on Russians being too favorable towards immigration in the near future.
But there is also a global context, determined by the rapid increase in population in poor developing countries and the growing demographic pressure on developed countries. It manifests itself, in particular, in the growing legal and illegal migration to these countries, the search for political asylum in them, etc. The final result is formed under the influence of all components of both the domestic and global context, which makes this result difficult to predict.
7. Answering the question posed at the beginning of the report, it should be said that the main current demographic problems of Russia should hardly be associated with the economic and social development of the country in the last 10-15 years. This period may have highlighted and exacerbated some problems, but at their core they have long-standing historical and sociocultural roots. Moreover, most of these problems are inherent in the type of development that Russia chose decades and even centuries ago, when it embarked on the path of catch-up modernization. Any reasonable strategy for society must take into account the deep conditionality of current Russian demographic trends, and not proceed from the illusory possibilities of their easy and rapid change.
Youth as a socio-demographic group. The controversy between scientists regarding the definition of youth, the criteria for separating them into an independent group, and age boundaries have a long history. In this context, one cannot, like some researchers, consider youth only as a demographic group, thereby emphasizing only its biologically determined characteristics. After all, the category of age is biosocial. This is not just a biological “counter” of human life, an indicator of physiological and psychological changes in personality, it affects the social status of a person, his place and role in the system of social division of labor, his performance of certain social roles, the presence of rights and responsibilities etc. Age changes the characteristics of a person’s work activity, his performance, professional skills, creativity, and mobility. With age, the structure of needs for the satisfaction of material and spiritual benefits is transformed. From this we can conclude that the age factor is undoubtedly a social phenomenon. In addition, young people perform a specific social role in society, which is expressed in their social and innovative activities. It is not for nothing that sociologists introduced the concept of youthization, which denotes such social changes and innovations that are the result of the active activities of young people. This allows us to talk about young people not only as a demographic, but also as a social group. At the same time, the resource of socially innovative behavior and group-forming factor is “dispositional capital” - a specific type of “cultural capital” that young people possess and thanks to which they differ from other social groups. It is he who predetermines all the actual social functions of youth, determining their activities aimed at training and inclusion in various spheres of public life, in the social mechanism, as well as a specific youth subculture, internal differentiation, which does not always coincide with established forms of general social differentiation. Thus, we can talk about youth as a socio-demographic group, because. That the individuals belonging to it have a common social characteristic and perform the necessary function of youthizing society. And the main feature of a social group is precisely the implementation of a socially significant function.
Society: concept, signs.
Society- this is a certain group of people who have united to communicate and jointly perform some activity.
Society- this is a part of the material world, isolated from nature, but closely connected with it, which consists of individuals with will and consciousness and includes ways of interaction between people and forms of their unification.
Society- this is a dynamic, self-developing system that, although seriously changing, retains its essence and qualitative certainty.
Spheres of public life.
Economic sphere: material production and relationships between people that arise in the process of production of material goods, exchange (in markets (stock exchanges)), distribution.
Social sphere: layers of the population, classes, nations, peoples, taken in their relationships and interactions with each other.
Political sphere: it includes politics, states, law, their relationship and functioning.
Spiritual realm: forms and levels of social consciousness (morality, worldview, religion, education, science, art - everything that humanity has created and is called spiritual culture.)
All societies formed over thousands of years can belong to the following types of society:
- Society of primitive hunters and gatherers.
- Ordinary (agrarian) – traditional society.
- Industrial society.
- Post-industrial society.
Types of societies:
- Primitive society.
- Slave society.
- Feudal society.
- Capitalist society.
- Socialist society is transitional.
- Communist.
Typology of society.
Society as a complex entity is very diverse in its specific manifestations. Modern societies differ in language of communication (for example, English-speaking countries, Spanish-speaking countries, etc.), culture (societies of ancient, medieval, Arabic, etc. cultures), geographical location (northern, southern, Asian, etc. countries) , political system (countries with democratic rule, countries with dictatorial regimes, etc.). Societies also differ in the level of stability, degree of social integration, opportunities for personal self-realization, level of education of the population, etc.
Universal classifications of the most typical societies are based on identifying their main parameters. One of the main directions in the typology of society is the choice of political relations, forms of state power as the basis for identifying different types of society. For example, in Plato and Aristotle, societies differ in the type of government: monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy. Modern versions of this approach distinguish between totalitarian (the state determines all the main directions of social life), democratic (the population can influence government structures) and authoritarian societies (combining elements of totalitarianism and democracy).
The most stable typology in modern sociology is the one based on the identification of egalitarian and stratified societies, traditional, industrial and post-industrial. Traditional society is classified as egalitarian.
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, norms of traditional behavior, established social institutions, among which the most important are the family and community
Stratified society is represented by industrial and post-industrial societies.
The term “industrial society” was introduced by O. Comte. The basis of this society is production and industrial development, which are based on the scientific organization of labor. Industrial production involves the concentration of workers in places of work, which leads to the formation of a working mass that comes into conflict with employers
There are different typologies of societies.
According to one of them, societies are divided into two types - simple And complex. The criteria for such division are the number of levels of management and the degree of social stratification.
In simple societies, the division between leaders and subordinates, rich and poor, was limited and unstable. These were the primitive tribes.
In complex societies there are several levels of government, several social strata of the population, differing in income levels. The spontaneous social inequality that arose over time was consolidated legally and politically. Complex societies are large, ranging from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions of people.
In the middle of the 19th century, K. Marx proposed a typology of societies based on two criteria - the mode of production and the form of ownership. These two features make up a formation. Humanity, according to K. Marx, has gone through four formations - primitive, slaveholding, feudal and capitalist, and the fifth - communist must come in the future.
The strength of this approach was the recognition of the irreversibility of social changes, while the weaknesses were Eurocentrism and economic determinism, manifested in the absolutization of material and technical factors of social development.
According to the civilizational approach, societies are considered as a collection of various sociocultural formations. This approach was caused by a negative reaction to the unification of history according to European standards and the desire to understand the uniqueness of local and regional societies.
Thinkers such as N. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, J. Toynbee, L. Gumilev and others abandoned the understanding of history as a single linear process. From their point of view, humanity is a self-sufficient socio-cultural entity that does not have a single development code.
The most universal typology of societies was proposed by the American scientist D. Bell in the book “The Coming of Post-Industrial Society” (1973). The author divided world history into three stages - pre-industrial (agrarian), industrial and post-industrial. In a pre-industrial society the main goal is power, in an industrial society it is money, in a post-industrial society it is knowledge. In a pre-industrial society, priests dominate, in an industrial society - businessmen, in a post-industrial society - scientists and managers. The transition from one stage to another is associated with a change in technology, form of ownership, social institutions, culture, lifestyle and social structure.
Two global processes led to the emergence of an industrial society: industrialization - the creation of large-scale machine production and urbanization - the relocation of people to cities and the spread of urban values to all segments of the population. Industrial society emerged in the 18th century.
Post-industrial society began to take shape in the second half of the 20th century under the influence of the growing demand for specialists involved in the production of information and the latest technologies. These specialists (scientists, engineers, economists, programmers) are turning into a leading social force, replacing in this capacity the industrialists and entrepreneurs of industrial society.
The typology of societies developed by D. Bell is conceptually close to the scheme of the American scientist O. Toffler, outlined in the work “The Third Wave” (1980). By “third wave” society he understands the information society, in which the main type of property is information; in societies of the first and second waves, the main types of property were land and means of production. The transition to information ownership is a revolution because it is intangible and knows no boundaries.
O. Toffler sees the social basis of the information society in “cognitariat” (from English, cognition - cognition, cognitive ability), i.e. a social group that uses knowledge rather than brawn, as is the case with the peasantry and working class.
From these positions, O. Toffler in his book “Power Shift: Knowledge, Wealth and Power on the Threshold of the 21st Century” (1990) suggests a change in the nature of power under the influence of knowledge, information and new technologies. In a post-industrial society, in his opinion, power is increasingly determined not by wealth, as it was before, but by knowledge. If wealth belonged to a few people, then knowledge can belong to everyone. It seems that this approach reflects a very important trend in global development.
In the book by O. and X. Toffler “Revolutionary Wealth. How it will be created and how it will change our lives” (2006) the increase in current and long-term problems is associated with the transition from the “second” to the “third wave”. The authors note a systemic crisis in American society and its institutions that formed during the era of the “second wave” - family, mass education, healthcare, business ethics, etc. Pop culture, which causes irritation in many countries, the authors believe, is also a product of the “second wave.” waves."
Despite concerns about new phenomena and trends observed in the world today, futurists maintain a generally optimistic view of the present and future of humanity. They pin their hopes on the trends of the “third wave” and the qualitative changes occurring under their influence.
The above allows us to assert that the works of D. Bell, O. Toffler and other adherents of post-industrial concepts are based on the sociological approach of M. Weber, for whom the principle of rationality was the axial principle.
The movement towards a post-industrial (information) society is characterized by:
- - growth of the service sector at the expense of the material production sector;
- - dominance of information in all spheres of life;
- - increase in the number of people employed in the information industry;
- - increasing the level of education and qualifications of citizens;
- - democratization of public life, stimulating the transition to democracy on a global scale;
- - formation of a single information space and deepening the integration of countries and peoples.
Globalization is noticeably widening the gap between states that have entered the era of post-industrialism and third world countries. In the latter, there is an increase in poverty, misery and, as a consequence, protest consciousness. Such a background serves as a breeding ground for various forms of antisocial, marginal behavior, including extremism and terrorism.
In sociology, the transition from pre-industrial society to industrial, and then to post-industrial society is described using the term “modernization”. It involves a radical change in social institutions and lifestyles, covering all spheres of society.
There are two types of modernization - organic and inorganic. The first is prepared by the entire course of the previous evolution of the country. It usually begins with changes in culture and public consciousness. The second is a response to an external challenge from more developed countries. It is a method of “catch-up” development undertaken in order to overcome backwardness and avoid foreign dependence. In Russia, this was precisely the goal pursued by Peter’s reforms and industrialization in the 30s of the 20th century.
Inorganic modernization is accomplished through the purchase of foreign equipment and patents, borrowing foreign technologies, inviting specialists, training their own citizens abroad, and receiving investments. Corresponding changes are taking place in the social and political spheres.
Modernization often combines features of both types with a predominance of elements of one of them. In this regard, the question of what type of modernization the current reforms in Russia and the CIS can be classified as is quite complex and controversial.
Sociologists divide the entire diversity of societies that existed previously and exist now into certain types. Several societies united by similar characteristics or criteria constitute a typology.
Typology of society is a classification of societies based on determining the most important and essential features, typical features that distinguish one society from another.
In sociology, there are many typologies depending on the typologization criterion.
Typology of society according to K. Marx. The basis is the method of production and form of ownership. Humanity is capable of going through five formations - primitive, slave, feudal, capitalist and communist.
If writing is chosen as the main feature, then societies are divided into pre-literate and written.
Simple(pre-state entities) and complex(state entities). The criterion for typology is the features of the social structure of society - the number of levels of management and the degree of social stratification.
Traditional and modern in accordance with the characteristics of the prevailing social relations and interactions in them.
Depending on the forms of economic activity based on the method of obtaining means of subsistence, proto-society, agrarian society, industrial and post-industrial societies are distinguished.
American sociologists G. Lenski and J. Lenski distinguished societies depending on the method of obtaining their livelihood:
Society of hunters and gatherers. Its structure is simple, and social life is organized on the basis of family ties, everything is ruled by a leader.
Cattle breeding societies. They also lack any surplus product. The basis of its social structure is family ties. However, their system is more developed and more complex. Cattle breeding is a way of obtaining a livelihood based on the domestication of wild animals.
Agrarian society. At this stage, a surplus product already appears, trade and crafts develop. Agriculture is associated with the emergence of cities, states, intense social stratification, and the exploitation of man by man. The system of kinship ties ceases to be the basis of the social structure of society.
Industrial society. The term "industrial society" was first proposed by Saint-Simon. Appears at the end of the 18th century. due to the great industrial revolution (the birthplace of which was England) and the French Revolution of 1783-1794. The first feature of this society is industrialization- creation of large machine production.
Industrialization means not just the emergence of machine production, but also the use of the achievements of science and technology for production purposes, the discovery of new sources of energy that allow the machine to perform the work that was previously performed by people or draft animals. The emergence of technological machines and the use of natural forces in industry is accompanied by the standardization of parts and components of various mechanisms, which made mass production possible. Labor productivity has increased sharply.
The second distinguishing feature of an industrial society is urbanization - growth of the urban population and the spread of urban values of life to all segments of the population.
Other important features of this type of society are the flexibility of social structures, allowing them to be modified as people's needs change, social mobility, and a developed communication system.
Various authors use additional strokes when describing traditional and industrial societies and sometimes other names. K. Popper uses concepts open And closed societies, the main difference between them is the relationship between social control and individual freedom. “We will call a magical, tribal or collective society a closed society, and a society in which individuals are forced to make personal decisions an open society.”
In the 60-70s. sociologists A. Touraine, R. Aron, D. Bell developed a synthetic model of the typology of society and identified pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial(information) stage of development of society. When one stage replaces another, technology, mode of production, form of ownership, social institutions, political regime, culture, way of life, population, and social structure of society change.
The concepts of post-industrial society or postmodernity were actively developed in American (D. Bell) and Western European sociology (A. Touraine).
Daniel Bell was the first to coin the term “post-industrial society” to define modern society.
Post-industrial society- the stage of modern development, which replaces state-monopoly capitalism and industrial society.
Main characteristics of post-industrial society:
A sharp increase in the role of knowledge and information, the emergence and development of “smart technologies” that made it possible to transform human life and work;
A change in the dominant sectors of the economy: instead of the industrial sector, the main one becomes service, covering areas of activity not directly related to production - trade, finance, medicine, transport, science, education, recreation, etc.
Changing the social structure of society, increasing those layers and groups that are engaged in intellectual work. The class division is giving way to a professional one. Having the necessary education and access to information, an individual has a better chance of moving up the social hierarchy;
Changes in the sociocultural needs of the population, their value orientations;
Role-based nature of interaction (a person’s expectations and behavior are determined by their social status and social functions);
In-depth distribution of labor;
A formal system for regulating relations (based on written law, laws, regulations, contracts);
A complex system of social management (departments of the Institute of Management, social management bodies and self-government);
- secularization (acquisition of secular characteristics) of religion;
Identification of various social institutions.
Due to the fact that the technical basis of modern society is information, it is called the information society, in which intellectual technologies, information, and knowledge processing are becoming increasingly important. The term “information society” was introduced by the Japanese scientist I. Masuda.
Information society - characterized primarily by the development of information production, rather than material values. The driving force behind its evolution is the exploitation of computing technology. Not only is the economic importance of the information sector growing, but also its social and political significance.
Strategic resources and the main signs of its development are intellectual capital, concentration of theoretical knowledge, information processing, education, qualifications and retraining. A new infrastructure is emerging - information networks, banks, databases, mass production of information. The principle of management is agreement, and the ideology is humanism.
Depending on the political regime, societies are divided into democratic, authoritarian, totalitarian.
Thus, the typology of such a complex public entity as society cannot be unified and universal, but is determined by the methodological approach of the researcher. You should always understand what scientific, cognitive problem the author was trying to solve.
Literature
1. Volkov Yu.G. Sociology. 2nd edition. / Under the general editorship. V.I. Dobrenkova. Rostov-on-Don: “Phoenix”, 2005.
2. General sociology. Tutorial. Under the general editorship. A.G. Efendieva. - M., 2002. - 654 p.
3. Kravchenko A.I. General sociology - M., 2001.
4. Sorokin P. Man. Civilization. Society. M., 1992.
5. Radugin A.A., Radugin K.A. Sociology. Lecture course. - M., 2002.
6. Luhmann The concept of society / Problems of theoretical sociology. -SPb., 1994.
7. Skalatsky V.M. Information partnership: new trends in development // Bulletin of the Kiev National News. Un-tu im. Shevchenko. - 2004. - No. 68-69. - P.81-83.
8. Lukashevich M.P., Tulenkov M.V. Sociology. Kiev: “Karavela”, 2005.
9. Sociology. A handbook for students of higher initial knowledge / Edited by K. Gorodanyanko, 2002. - 560 p.
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Typology (from the Greek tupoc - imprint, form, sample and logoc - word, teaching) is a method of scientific knowledge, which is based on the division of systems of objects and their grouping using a generalized, idealized model or type. In sociology, several approaches to the typology of societies have developed.
One of the most famous is the typology based on the theory of “three waves” by A. Toffler. According to the researcher, humanity in its development has experienced three waves of radical transformations: 1) the agricultural revolution, which turned nomads into peasants; 2) the industrial revolution, which transformed an agrarian society into an industrial one; 3) technological revolution associated with the beginning of the computer era and the transition to the information society. The third wave of radical transformations should lead to the continuous renewal of social relations and the creation of a super-industrial civilization. In accordance with this theory, A. Tofler identified three types of societies: 1) traditional (agrarian); 2) capitalist (industrial); 3) modern (informational). Modern society is characterized by: 1) readiness and desire for development and change (14); 2) high level of social mobility (4.4); 3) the market mechanism for regulating individual behavior in society; 4) rational development based on scientific knowledge and information; 5) the dominance of criticism, rationalism and individualism in the public worldview; 6) lack of specific regulations and prohibitions, erosion of morality and law.
D. Bell proposed a typology based on the evolution of technology and knowledge. He distinguished pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial societies. The latter, in his opinion, is characterized by: 1) broad trade relations between countries; 2) a large surplus of goods available to the average person; 3) “information explosion” (a sharp increase in the role and importance of knowledge and information in society); 4) the emergence of a “global village” (the “bringing together” of countries and peoples thanks to instant worldwide communications) (16.1).
An original historical typology of societies based on the dominant type of productive activity was proposed by G. Lenski and J. Lenski. They identified societies that lived: 1) by hunting and gathering; 2) gardening; 3) agricultural; 4) industrial.
The German sociologist F. Tönnies contrasted modern and traditional societies depending on the type of will expressed in them. Traditional society (gemeinshaft - community) is characterized by a natural (instinctive) will that guides people’s behavior as if from behind (for example, maternal love); instincts, feelings, and organic relationships dominate in it. On the contrary, modern society (Gesellschaft) is based on rational will, which presupposes the possibility of choice and a consciously set goal of activity; it is dominated by calculating reason and mechanical relations. In the course of history, according to F. Tönnies, the first type of society increasingly gives way to a society of the second type.
The most well-known classifications are the division of society into:
I. Traditional and industrial (modern)
A) Traditional society is a society with an agricultural structure, sedentary social structures and based on a traditional method of sociocultural regulation (tradition, religion).
B) Industrial society (proposed by Saint-Simon) is characterized by the development of production, characterized by the flexibility of social structures (high mobility, a developed system of communications. Social integration is ensured not on the basis of strict control over individuals, but by the creation of mechanisms that allow a reasonable combination of freedoms and interests of the individual, with general principles governing joint activities.
II. Open and closed society (K. Popper)
The classification is based on the differences in traditional and industrial societies:
The relationship between social control and individual freedom.
Closed society - magical, tribal, collective.
Open society – individuals are forced to make personal decisions.
Sh. Postindustrial (A. Touraine, D. Bell)
a) The increasing role of knowledge and information associated with the development of intelligent technologies.
b) In the economy, priorities are shifting from the industrial sector to the service sector directly related to production: trade, transport, finance, science, education, etc.
c) Changes in the social structure of society - the number of groups engaged in intellectual work increases.
d) Changing sociocultural needs of individuals and groups.
IV. Differences in production relations (K. Marx) presuppose the existence of societies:
a) with a primitive - appropriating method of production
b) with the Asian mode of production (the presence of a special kind of collective ownership of land)
c) slave-owning societies (specific features: ownership of people, use of slave labor.
d) feudal societies with production, based on the exploitation of peasants attached to the land.
e) bourgeois societies (differing in the transition and economic dependence of formally free wage workers).
f) Communist societies (established: equal relations of all to the ownership of the means of production, through the elimination of private property relations.
V. Typologies based on systems of political relations
Aristotle: monarchies, tyrannies, aristocracies, oligarchies and democracies.
Today these typologies are complemented by:
Taking into account the relationship between the state and civil society, the following are distinguished:
1) Totalitarian, in which the state determines all directions of social life.
2) democratic, in which the population (society) can influence government structures.