Introduction 2

1. The concept of a social system 3

2. Social system and its structure 3

3. Functional problems of social systems 8

4. Hierarchy of social systems 12

5. Social connections and types of social systems 13

6. Types of social interactions between subsystems 17

7. Societies and social systems 21

8. Social and cultural systems 28

9. Social systems and the individual 30

10. Paradigm of the analysis of social systems 31

Conclusion 32

References 33

Introduction

The theoretical and methodological foundations for the development of the theory of social systems are associated with the names of G.V.F. Hegel as the founder of system analysis and worldview, as well as A.A. Bogdanov (pseudonym A.A. Malinovsky) and L. Bertalanffy. In methodological terms, the theory of social systems focuses on a functional methodology based on the principle of the primacy of identifying the whole (system) and its elements. Such identification should be carried out at the level of explaining the behavior and properties of the whole. Since the subsystem elements are connected by various cause-and-effect relationships, the problems existing in them can be generated by the system to one degree or another and affect the state of the system as a whole.

Each social system can be an element of a more global social formation. It is this fact that causes the greatest difficulty in constructing conceptual models of a problem situation and the subject of sociological analysis. A micromodel of a social system is a personality - a stable integrity (system) of socially significant features, characteristics of an individual as a member of society, group, community. special role in the process of conceptualization plays the problem of setting the boundaries of the studied social system.

1. The concept of a social system

A social system is defined as a set of elements (individuals, groups, communities) that are in interactions and relationships forming a single whole. Such a system, when interacting with the external environment, is able to change the relations of elements, i.e. its structure, which is a network of ordered and interdependent relationships between the elements of the system.

The most profound problem of social systems was developed by the American sociologist-theorist T. Parsons (1902 - 1979) in his work "The Social System". Despite the fact that in the works of T. Parsons, society as a whole is mainly considered, from the point of view of the social system, interactions of social sets at the micro level can be analyzed. As a social system, university students, an informal group, etc. can be analyzed.

Self-preservation is the mechanism of the social system, striving to maintain balance. Since every social system is interested in self-preservation, the problem of social control arises, which can be defined as a process that counteracts social deviations in the social system. Social control, along with the processes of socialization, ensures the integration of individuals into society. This happens through the individual's internalization of social norms, roles and patterns of behavior. The mechanisms of social control, according to T. Parsons, include: institutionalization; interpersonal sanctions and influences; ritual actions; structures that ensure the preservation of values; institutionalization of a system capable of exercising violence and coercion. A decisive role in the process of socialization and forms of social control is played by culture, which reflects the nature of the interactions of individuals and groups, as well as "ideas" that mediate cultural patterns of behavior. This means that the social system is a product and a special type of interaction between people, their feelings, emotions, moods.

Each of the main functions of the social system is differentiated into a large number of subfunctions (less common functions), which are implemented by people included in one or another normative and organizational social structure that more or less meets the functional requirements of society. The interaction of micro- and macro-subjective and objective elements included in a given organizational structure for the implementation of the functions (economic, political, etc.) of a social organism gives it the character of a social system.

Functioning within the framework of one or more basic structures of a social system, social systems act as structural elements of social reality, and, consequently, as the initial elements of sociological knowledge of its structures.

2. Social system and its structure

A system is an object, phenomenon or process consisting of a qualitatively defined set of elements that are in mutual connections and relationships, form a single whole and are capable of interacting with external conditions its existence to change its structure. The essential features of any system are integrity and integration.

The first concept (integrity) fixes the objective form of existence of the phenomenon, i.e. its existence as a whole, and the second (integration) is the process and mechanism of unification of its parts. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This means that each whole has new qualities that are not mechanically reducible to the sum of its elements, reveals a certain "integral effect". These new qualities inherent in the phenomenon as a whole are usually referred to as systemic and integral qualities.

The specificity of a social system lies in the fact that it is formed on the basis of a particular community of people, and its elements are people whose behavior is determined by certain social positions they occupy and specific social functions that they perform; social norms and values ​​accepted in a given social system, as well as their various individual qualities. The elements of a social system may include various ideal and random elements.

The individual carries out his activities not in isolation, but in the process of interaction with other people, united in various communities under the action of a combination of factors that influence the formation and behavior of the individual. In the process of this interaction, people, the social environment have a systematic impact on this individual, as well as he has the opposite effect on other individuals and the environment. As a result, this community of people becomes a social system, an integrity that has systemic qualities, i.e. qualities that none of the individual elements included in it have.

A certain way of linking the interaction of elements, i.e. individuals occupying certain social positions and performing certain social functions in accordance with the set of norms and values ​​accepted in a given social system, form the structure of a social system. In sociology, there is no generally accepted definition of the concept of "social structure". In different scientific papers this concept is defined as "organization of relations", "certain articulation, order of arrangement of parts"; "successive, more or less constant regularities"; “pattern of behavior, i.e. observable informal action or sequence of actions”; “relationships between groups and individuals, which are manifested in their behavior”, etc. All these examples, in our opinion, do not oppose, but complement each other, allow us to create an integral idea of ​​the elements and properties of the social structure.

The types of social structure are: an ideal structure that links together beliefs, beliefs, and imaginations; normative structure, including values, norms, prescribed social roles; organizational structure that determines the way positions or statuses are interconnected and determines the nature of the repetition of systems; a random structure consisting of elements included in its functioning, available at the moment. The first two types of social structure are associated with the concept of cultural structure, and the other two are associated with the concept of societal structure. Regulatory and organizational structures are considered as a whole, and the elements included in their functioning are considered as strategic ones. The ideal and random structures and their elements, being included in the functioning of the social structure as a whole, can cause both positive and negative deviations in its behavior. This, in turn, results in a mismatch in the interaction of various structures that act as elements of a more general social system, dysfunctional disorders of this system.

The structure of a social system as a functional unity of a set of elements is regulated only by its inherent laws and regularities, and has its own determinism. As a result, the existence, functioning and change of the structure is not determined by a law that is, as it were, “outside it”, but has the character of self-regulation, maintaining - under certain conditions - the balance of elements within the system, restoring it in case of known violations and directing the change of these elements and the structure itself.

The patterns of development and functioning of a given social system may or may not coincide with the corresponding patterns of the societal system, have positive or negative socially significant consequences for a given society.

3. Functional problems of social systems

Interaction relations, analyzed in terms of statuses and roles, have a place in the system. If such a system forms a stable order or is able to maintain an orderly process of changes aimed at development, then certain functional prerequisites must exist within it for this. The system of action is structured according to three integrative starting points: the individual actor, the system of interaction, and the system of cultural standards. Each of them presupposes the presence of others, and, consequently, the variability of each is limited by the need to meet a certain minimum of conditions for the functioning of each of the other two.

When viewed from the point of view of any of these points of integration of an action, for example, of a social system, two aspects of its additional interconnections with each of the other two can be distinguished. First, a social system cannot be structured in a way that is radically incompatible with the conditions under which its components, individual actors as biological organisms and as individuals, function, or with the conditions for maintaining a relatively stable integration of the cultural system. Second, the social system requires the minimum "support" it needs from each of the other systems. She must have enough of its components, actors, adequately motivated to act in accordance with the requirements of its role system, positively disposed towards the fulfillment of expectations, and negatively towards too destructive, i.e. deviant behaviour. On the other hand, it must maintain agreement with cultural standards that would otherwise either fail to provide necessary minimum order, or will make impossible demands on people and thereby cause deviations and conflicts to a degree that would be inconsistent with the minimum conditions of stability or orderly change.

The minimum needs of the individual actor form a set of conditions to which the social system must adapt. If the variability of the latter goes too far in this regard, then a "blowback" may arise that will give rise to deviant behavior of the actors included in it, behavior that will either be directly destructive or will be expressed in the avoidance of functionally important activities. Such inevitability as a functional premise can arise abruptly. The last type of avoidance behavior occurs in the context of increasing "pressure" in favor of the implementation of certain standards of social action, which limits the use of energy for other purposes. At some point, for some individuals or classes of individuals, this pressure may be too strong, and then a destructive shift is possible: these people will no longer participate in interaction with the social system.

The functional problem for a social system that minimizes potentially destructive behavior and its motivation can be generally formulated as the order motivation problem. There are countless specific acts that are destructive because they interfere with the roles of one or more other actors. But as long as they remain random, they can reduce the efficiency of the system, affecting the level of performance of roles, but not pose a threat to its stability. Danger can arise when destructive tendencies begin to organize themselves into subsystems in such a way that these subsystems collide at strategic points with the social system itself. And precisely such strategically important points are the problems of opportunities, prestige and power.

In the present context of the problem of adequate motivation to fulfill role expectations, the significance for the social system of two fundamental properties of biological human nature should be further briefly considered. The first of these is the hotly debated plasticity of the human body, its ability to learn any of the numerous standards of behavior without being bound by its genetic constitution to only a limited number of alternatives. Of course, only within the limits of this plasticity can the independently determined action of cultural and social factors matter. This clearly demonstrates the fact that genes automatically narrow down the range of relevant factors that are of interest to the action sciences, limiting it only to those that are associated with the problems of their possible combinations that affect the processes of increase and decrease in genetic directions. The limits of plasticity, for the most part, have not yet been elucidated. Another characteristic of human nature in the biological sense is what may be called sensitivity. Sensitivity is understood as the susceptibility of the human individual to the influence of the attitudes of others in the process of social interaction and, as a result, its dependence on perceived individual specific reactions. This essentially provides the motivational basis for sensitivity to responses in the learning process.

In discussing the functional premises of social systems, it is not customary to include an explicit statement of questions about cultural premises, but the need for this follows from the main position of the theory of action. The integration of cultural standards, as well as their specific content, sets in motion factors that at any given time are independent of other elements of the system of action, and therefore must be correlated with them. A social system that allows too deep destruction of its culture, for example, by blocking the processes of its renewal, would be doomed to social and cultural deintegration.

It can be said with certainty that not only must a social system be capable of maintaining a minimum of cultural action, but conversely, any given culture must be compatible with the social system to some minimal degree so that its standards do not "fade out" but continue. function consistently.

4. Hierarchy of social systems

There is a complex hierarchy of social systems that qualitatively differ from each other. A supersystem, or, according to the accepted terminology, a societal system, is a society. The most important elements of the societal system are its economic, social, political and ideological structures, the interaction of the elements of which (systems less general order) institutionalizes them into social systems (economic, social, political, etc.). Each of these most general social systems occupies a certain place in the societal system and performs (well, poorly or not at all) strictly defined functions. In turn, each of the most common systems includes in its structure as elements an infinite number of social systems of a less general order (family, work collective, etc.).

With the development of society as a societal system, other social systems and organs of social influence on the socialization of the individual (upbringing, education), on his aesthetic (aesthetic education), moral (moral education and the suppression of various forms of deviant behavior), physical (health, physical education) development. This system itself, as an aggregate whole, has its prerequisites, and its development in the direction of integrity consists precisely in subordinating all the elements of society to itself or creating from it the organs that it still lacks. In this way, the system during historical development turns into wholeness.

5. Social connections and types of social systems

The classification of social systems can be based on the types of connections and the corresponding types of social objects.

Relationship is defined as such a relationship between objects, when a change in one object or element corresponds to a change in other objects that make up this object.

The specificity of sociology is characterized by the fact that the connections that it studies are social connections. The term "social connection" denotes the totality of factors that determine the joint activity of people in specific conditions of place and time in order to achieve specific goals. Communication is established for a very long period of time, regardless of the social and individual qualities of individuals. These are the connections of individuals with each other, as well as their connections with the phenomena and processes of the surrounding world, which are formed in the course of their practical activities. The essence of social ties is manifested in the content and nature of the social actions of individuals, or, in other words, in social facts.

The micro- and macro-continuum includes personal, social-group, organizational, institutional and societal connections. The social objects corresponding to these types of connections are the individual (his consciousness and actions), social interaction, social group, social organization, social institution and society. Within the subjective-objective continuum, there are subjective, objective and mixed connections and, accordingly, objective ones (acting personality, law, control system, etc.); subjective (personal norms and values, assessment of social reality, etc.); subjective-objective (family, religion, etc.) objects.

The first aspect characterizing the social system is associated with the concept of individuality, the second - social group, the third - social community, the fourth - social organization, the fifth - social institution and culture. Thus, the social system acts as the interaction of its main structural elements.

Social interaction. The starting point for the emergence of a social connection is the interaction of individuals or groups of individuals to meet certain needs.

Interaction is any behavior of an individual or a group of individuals that is significant for other individuals and groups of individuals or society as a whole at the moment and in the future. The category of interaction expresses the nature and content of relations between people and social groups as constant carriers of qualitatively different types of activities, differing in social positions (statuses) and roles (functions). No matter in what sphere of the life of society (economic, political, etc.) interaction takes place, it is always social in nature, as it expresses the ties between individuals and groups of individuals; connections mediated by the goals that each of the interacting parties pursues.

Social interaction has an objective and subjective side. The objective side of interaction is connections that are independent of individuals, but mediate and control the content and nature of their interaction. The subjective side of interaction is the conscious attitude of individuals to each other, based on mutual expectations of appropriate behavior. it interpersonal relationships, which are direct connections and relationships between individuals, developing in specific conditions of place and time.

The mechanism of social interaction includes: individuals who perform certain actions; changes in the outside world caused by these actions; the impact of these changes on other individuals and, finally, the feedback of the affected individuals.

Everyday experience, the symbols and meanings by which interacting individuals are guided, give their interaction, and it cannot be otherwise, a certain quality. But in this case, the main qualitative side of interaction remains aside - those real social processes and phenomena that act for people in the form of symbols; meanings, everyday experience.

As a result, social reality and its constituent social objects act as a chaos of mutual actions based on the interpretive role of the individual in determining the situation or on ordinary creation. Without denying the semantic, symbolic and other aspects of the process of social interaction, it must be recognized that its genetic source is labor, material production, and the economy. In turn, everything derived from the basis can and does have an inverse effect on the basis.

Social relations. Interaction leads to the establishment of social relationships. Social relations are relatively stable links between individuals and social groups as constant carriers of qualitatively different types of activities, differing in social status and roles in social structures.

social communities. Social communities are characterized by: the presence of living conditions common to a group of interacting individuals; a way of interaction of a given set of individuals (nations, social classes, etc.), i.e. social group; belonging to historically established territorial associations (city, village, settlement), i.e. territorial communities; the degree of limitation of the functioning of social groups by a strictly defined system of social norms and values, the belonging of the studied group of interacting individuals to certain social institutions (family, education, science, etc.).

6. Types of social interactions between subsystems

The orderliness of social systems is represented in terms of "social structure", "social organization", "social behavior". The connections of elements (subsystems) can be divided into hierarchical, functional, interfunctional, which in general can be defined as role-playing, since in social systems ideas about people are involved.

However, there is also a specific structure of the system and, accordingly, connections. Hierarchical links are described when subsystems of different levels are analyzed. For example, the director - the head of the workshop - the foreman. In the management of this type of connection, they are also called linear. Functional links represent the interaction of subsystems that perform the same functions at different levels of the system. For example, educational functions can be performed by the family, school, public organizations. At the same time, the family, as the primary group of socialization, will be at a lower level of the education system than the school. Interfunctional links exist between subsystems of the same level. If we are talking about a system of communities, then this kind of connection can be between national and territorial communities.

The nature of the connections in the subsystem is also determined by the goals of the study and the specifics of the system that scientists are studying. Particular importance is given to the role structure of the system - a generalized social indicator, in which both functional and hierarchical structures can be represented. Performing certain roles in systems, individuals occupy social positions (statuses) corresponding to these roles. At the same time, normative forms of behavior can be different depending on the nature of the connections within the system and between the system and the environment.

In accordance with the structure of connections, the system can be analyzed from different points of view. With the functional approach, we are talking about the study of ordered forms of social activity that ensure the functioning and development of the system as a whole. In this case, the units of analysis can be the nature of the division of labor, the spheres of society (economic, political, etc.), social institutions. In the organizational approach, we are talking about the study of the system of connections that form various types of social groups that are characteristic of the social structure. In this case, the units of analysis are teams, organizations and their structural elements. The value-oriented approach is characterized by the study of certain orientations towards types of social action, norms of behavior, and values. At the same time, the units of analysis are the elements of social action (goals, means, motives, norms, etc.).

These approaches can act as complements to each other and as the main directions of analysis. And each of the types of analysis has both theoretical and empirical levels.

From the point of view of the methodology of cognition, when analyzing social systems, we single out a system-forming principle that characterizes relationships, interactions, connections between structural elements. At the same time, we not only describe all the elements and structures of connections in the system, but, most importantly, we single out those of them that are dominant, ensuring the stability and integrity of this system. For example, in the system former USSR political ties between the union republics were so dominant, on the basis of which all other ties were formed: economic, cultural, etc. Breaking the dominant connection - political system The USSR led to the collapse of other forms of interaction between the former Soviet republics, for example, economic ones.

When analyzing social systems, special attention should also be paid to the target characteristics of the system. They are of great importance for the stability of the system, since it is through changing the target characteristics of the system that the system itself can change, i.e. its structure. At the level of social systems, target characteristics can be mediated by value systems, value orientations, interests and needs. It is with the concept of purpose that another term of system analysis is associated - “social organization”.

The concept of "social organization" has several meanings. Firstly, it is a target group, bringing together people who strive to achieve a common goal in an organized way. In this case, it is this goal that binds these people (through interest) into the target system (organization). A number of sociologists believe that the emergence of a large number of such associations with a complex internal structure is a characteristic feature of industrial societies. Hence the term "organized society".

In the second approach, the concept of "social organization" is associated with the way people are led and managed, with the appropriate means of action and methods of coordinating functions.

The third approach is connected with the definition of social organization as a system of patterns of activity of individuals, groups, institutions, social roles, a system of values ​​that ensure the joint life of members of society. This creates for people the prerequisites for the comfort of life, the ability to satisfy their many needs, both material and spiritual. It is this functioning of entire communities in an orderly manner that J. Szczepański calls social organization.

Thus, we can say that an organization is a social system with a specific purpose, which unites individuals, groups, communities or societies on the basis of a common interest (or interests). For example, the NATO organization links a number of Western countries based on military and political interests.

The largest of this kind of target systems (organizations) is society and its corresponding structures. As the American functionalist sociologist E. Shils notes, society is not just a collection of people, primordial and cultural groups interacting and exchanging services with each other. All these collectives form a society by virtue of the fact that they have a common power that exercises control over the territory marked by boundaries, maintains and enforces more or less common culture. These factors transform a set of relatively specialized initially corporate and cultural subsystems into a social system.

Each of the subsystems bears the stamp of belonging to a given society and to no other. One of the many tasks of sociology is to identify the mechanisms and processes by virtue of which these subsystems (groups) function as a society (and, accordingly, as a system). Along with the system of power, society has a common cultural system, which consists of dominant values, beliefs, social norms, and beliefs.

The cultural system is represented by its social institutions: schools, churches, universities, libraries, theaters, etc. Along with the subsystem of culture, one can single out the subsystem of social control, socialization, etc. When studying society, we see the problem from a "bird's eye view", but in order to really get an idea about it, we need to study all its subsystems separately, look at them from the inside. This is the only way to understand the world in which we live and which can be called the complex scientific term “social system”.

7. Societies and social systems

It is easy to see that in most cases the term society is used in two main meanings. One of them interprets society as a social association or interaction; the other as a unit with its own boundaries separating it from neighboring or neighboring societies. Some uncertainty and ambiguity of this concept is not as problematic as it might seem. The tendency that society as a social whole is an easily interpretable unit of study is influenced by a number of pernicious social-scientific assumptions. One of them is the conceptual correlation of social and biological systems, understanding the former by analogy with parts of biological organisms. Today there are not many people left who, like Durkheim, Spencer and many other representatives of the social thought of the nineteenth century, use direct analogies with biological organisms in describing social systems. However, hidden parallels are quite common even in the writings of those who speak of societies as open systems. The second of these assumptions is the prevalence of deployable models in the social sciences. According to these models, the main structural characteristics of society, which provide stability and change at the same time, are internal to it. It is quite obvious why these models are related to the first point of view: it is assumed that societies have qualities similar to those that make it possible to control the formation and development of the organism. Finally, one should not forget about the well-known tendency to endow any form of social organization with features characteristic of modern societies as nation-states. The latter are distinguished by clearly marked territorial boundaries, which, however, are not characteristic of most other historical types of societies.

These assumptions can be countered by recognizing the fact that societal communities exist only in the context of intersocietal systems. All societies are social systems and are simultaneously generated by their intersection. In other words, we are talking about systems of domination, the study of which is possible through an appeal to the relations of autonomy and dependence that have been established between them. Thus, societies are social systems that stand out against the background of a number of other systemic relations in which they are included. Their special position is due to clearly defined structural principles. This kind of grouping is the first and most essential characteristic of society, but there are others. These include:

1) the connection between the social system and a certain locality or territory. The localities occupied by societies are not necessarily fixed, stationary areas. Nomadic societies roam along changing spatio-temporal paths;

2) the presence of normative elements that determine the legality of using locality. The tones and styles of claiming compliance with laws and principles vary widely and can be challenged to varying degrees;

3) the feeling by members of society of a special identity, regardless of how it is expressed or manifested. Such feelings are found at the level of practical and discursive consciousness and do not imply "unanimity in views." Individuals may be aware of their belonging to a certain community, not being sure that this is right and just.

We emphasize once again that the term "social system" should not be used only to refer to clearly defined sets of social relations.

The tendency to regard nation-states as typical forms of society against which all other varieties can be judged is so strong that it deserves special mention. The three criteria behave in changing societal contexts. Consider, for example, traditional China of a relatively late period, around 1700. When discussing this era, Sinologists often talk about Chinese society. In this case, we are talking about state institutions, the petty nobility, economic units, family structure and other phenomena that are united in a common, rather specific social system called China. However, China thus defined is only small plot territory that a government official declares to be the Chinese state. From the point of view of this official, there is only one society on earth, the center of which is China as the capital of culture and political life; at the same time, it expands to include the numerous barbarian tribes living in close proximity on the outer edges of this society. Although the latter acted as if they were independent social groupings, the official point of view regarded them as belonging to China. At that time, the Chinese believed that China included Tibet, Burma and Korea, since the latter were connected in a certain way with the center. Western historians and social analysts approached its definition from a more rigid and limited position. However, the very recognition of the fact of existence in the 1700s. a special Chinese society, isolated from Tibet and others, involves the incorporation of several million ethnically diverse populations of southern China. The latter considered themselves independent and had their own government structures. At the same time, their rights were constantly violated by representatives of the Chinese officials, who believed that they were closely connected with the central state.

Compared to vast agrarian societies, modern Western nation-states are internally coordinated administrative units. Moving back into the depths of the centuries, we consider China as an example in the form in which it was in the fifth century. Let us ask ourselves what social ties could exist between the Chinese peasant from Honan province and the ruling class of Toba (tobacco). From the point of view of the representatives of the ruling class, the peasant stood at the lowest rung of the hierarchical ladder. However, his social connections were completely different from the social world of Toba. In most cases, communication did not go beyond the nuclear or extended family: many villages consisted of related clans. The fields were arranged in such a way that during the working day, clan members rarely encountered strangers. Usually a peasant visited neighboring villages no more than two or three times a year, and even less often the nearest town. On the market square of a nearby village or city, he encountered representatives of other classes, estates and strata of society - craftsmen, artisans, handicraftsmen, merchants, lower government officials, to whom he was obliged to pay taxes. In all his life, a peasant might never meet Toba. Local officials visiting the village could supply grain or cloth. In all other respects, however, the villagers strove to avoid contact with the highest authorities, even when they seemed to be inevitable. Either these contacts foreshadowed interactions with the courts, imprisonment or forced military service.

The boundaries officially established by the Toba government may not have been the same economic activity a peasant living in certain areas of Honan province. During the Toba Dynasty, many villagers made contact with members of kindred clans living across the border in the southern states. However, the peasant, deprived of such connections, tended to regard individuals outside the frontier as representatives of his own people rather than outsiders. Assuming that he met with someone from the province of Kansu, located in the northwest of the state of Toba. This person will be considered by our peasant as an absolute stranger even if they cultivated nearby fields. Or he will speak a different language, dress differently and adhere to unfamiliar traditions and customs. Neither the peasant nor the guest may even realize that both are citizens of the Toba Empire.

The position of the Buddhist priests looked different. However, with the exception of a small minority directly called to perform services in the official temples of the Toba petty nobility, these people did not often associate with the ruling class. Their life proceeded in the locality of the monastery, while, however, they had a developed system of social relationships, stretching from Central Asia to the southern regions of China and Korea. In the monasteries, people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds lived side by side with each other, brought together through a common spiritual quest. Against the background of other social groups, priests and monks stood out for their education and erudition. Without any restrictions, they traveled around the country and crossed its borders, not paying attention to those to whom they nominally obeyed. Despite all this, they were not perceived as something external to Chinese society, as was the case with the Arab community of Canton during the era of the Tang Dynasty. The government believed that the said community was under its jurisdiction, demanded the payment of taxes, and even established special services responsible for maintaining mutual relations. However, everyone understood that the community is a special type of social structure, and therefore is not comparable with other communities that exist on the territory of the state. Here's a final example:

In the nineteenth century In Yunan province, the political power of the bureaucracy was established, which was controlled by Beijing and personified the Chinese government; on the plains there were villages and cities inhabited by the Chinese, who interacted with representatives of the government and, to a certain extent, shared its views. On the slopes of the mountains there were other tribes, theoretically subordinate to China, but, despite this, they lived their own lives, had special values ​​and institutions, and even had an original economic system. Interaction with the Chinese living in the valleys was minimal and limited to the sale of firewood and the purchase of table salt and textiles. Finally, high in the mountains lived a third group of tribes, which had their own institutions, language, values, religion. If we wish, we will ignore such circumstances, calling these people a minority. However, the earlier periods are studied, the more often one will meet imaginary minorities, which are in reality self-sufficient societies, sometimes connected with each other by economic relations and periodic interactions; the relationship of such societies with the authorities, as a rule, resembled the relationship between the vanquished and the winner at the end of the war, while both sides tried to minimize possible contacts.

Arguments about units larger than imperial states should not fall into ethnocentrism. So, today we tend to talk about Europe as a special socio-political category, however, this is the result of reading history in reverse. Historians who explore perspectives beyond individual nations note that if the totality of societies occupying the space of Afro-Eurasia were divided into two parts, the division into Europe (West) and East would lose all meaning. The Mediterranean Basin, for example, was a historical alliance long before the formation of the Roman Empire and remained so hundreds of years later. The cultural disunity of India increased as one moved east and was more significant than the differences between the states of the Middle East and the countries of Europe; China was even more heterogeneous. Often, the differences between the main areas of culture are no less noticeable than those that exist between the compounds known to us as societies. Large-scale regionalization should not be perceived only as a set of complex relations between societies. This point of view has a right to exist if we use it in the context of the modern world with its internally centralized nation-states, but it is completely unsuitable for previous eras. Thus, in certain cases, the entire Afro-Eurasian zone can be considered as a single whole. Starting from the VI century. BC, civilization developed not only by creating centers scattered in space and different from each other; in some way there has been a process of constant and continuous expansion of the Afro-Eurasian region as such.

8. Social and cultural systems

In the most significant intellectual trend of all, common in English-speaking countries, i.e. in a tradition rooted in utilitarianism and Darwinian biology, the independent position of the social sciences was the result of a special area of ​​interest that did not fit within the boundaries of general biology. First of all, the rubric of Spencer's social heredity, Taylor's culture, turned out to be in the center of the selected sphere. Considered in terms of general biology, this sphere obviously corresponded more to the field of environmental influence than to heredity. At this stage, the category of social interaction played a subordinate role, although it was clearly implied by Spencer when he emphasized social differentiation.

Common to modern sociology and anthropology is the recognition of the existence of a sociocultural sphere. In this area, a normalized cultural tradition is created and preserved, shared to one degree or another by all members of society and transmitted from generation to generation through the process of learning, and not through biological heredity. It includes organized systems structured, or institutionalized, interaction between a large number individuals.

In the United States, anthropologists tend to emphasize the cultural aspect of this complex, and sociologists the interaction aspect. It seems important to them that these two aspects, although empirically related to each other, are analytically treated as separate. The focus of the social system is the condition for the interaction of human beings, who make up specific collectives, with a defined membership. The focus of the cultural system, on the contrary, is in semantic models, in other words, in models of values, norms, organized knowledge and beliefs, expressive forms. The main concept for the integration and interpretation of both aspects is institutionalization.

Thus, an essential part of the tactic is to distinguish the social system from the cultural one and to consider the former as the sphere in which the analytical interests of sociological theory are primarily concentrated. However, these two types of systems are closely related.

As noted, the provision on an analytically independent socio-cultural sphere was a through line in the history of scientific ideas that were most directly related to the emergence of modern sociological theory. The development of such an analytical representation was very importance, however, its supporters have gone too far, trying to deny both the existence of social interaction at subhuman levels of the biological world, and the existence of subhuman prototypes of human culture. But once the fundamental theoretical boundaries have been established, restoring the required balance is no longer difficult, and we will try to do this in a more detailed presentation of the material. Ultimately, a single current emerged most clearly, consisting in an increasingly insistent assertion of the significance of motivated social interaction throughout the scale of biological evolution, especially at its upper steps.

9. Social systems and the individual.

Another set of problems arose in parallel with the basic distinction between the sociocultural and individual spheres. Just as in sociology there was no clear differentiation between social and cultural systems, so in psychology there was an even more pronounced tendency to interpret the behavior of the organism as a single object of scientific analysis. The problem of education was placed at the center of psychological interests. AT recent times here, too, an analytical distinction appeared, analogous to the distinction between social and cultural systems, opposing, on the one hand, the organism as an analytical category centered around its genetically determined structure (to the extent that this latter is relevant to the analysis of behavior), and, on the one hand, on the other hand, the personality, the system, which is made up of the components of the organization of behavior acquired by the body in the course of training.

10. Social systems analysis paradigm

The concept of interpenetration implies that, whatever the meaning of the logical closed as a theoretical ideal, from an empirical point of view, social systems are considered as open systems involved in complex processes of interaction with the systems that surround them. The environmental systems in this case include cultural and personal systems, behavioral and other subsystems of the organism, and also, through the latter, the physical environment. The same logic applies to the internal structure of the social system itself, considered as a system differentiated and divided into many subsystems, each of which, from an analytical point of view, should be interpreted as an open system interacting with surrounding subsystems within a larger system.

The idea of ​​an open system interacting with the systems around it implies the existence of boundaries and their stability. When a certain set of interrelated phenomena exhibits a sufficiently definite order and stability over time, then this structure has a structure and it would be useful to treat it as a system. The concept of a boundary expresses only the fact that a theoretically and empirically significant difference between structures and processes internal to a given system and processes external to it exists and tends to persist. As soon as such boundaries are absent, a certain set of interdependent phenomena cannot be defined as a system: this set is absorbed by some other, larger set that forms a system. It is important, therefore, to distinguish between a set of phenomena that are not supposed to form a system in the theoretically meaningful sense of the term, from a genuine system.

Conclusion

A system is an object, phenomenon or process consisting of a qualitatively defined set of elements that are in mutual connections and relationships, form a single whole and are capable of changing their structure in interaction with the external conditions of their existence. A social system is defined as a set of elements (individuals, groups, communities) that are in interactions and relationships forming a single whole. The types of social structure are: an ideal structure that links together beliefs, beliefs; normative structure, including values, norms; organizational structure that determines the way positions or statuses are interconnected and determines the nature of the repetition of systems; a random structure consisting of elements included in its functioning.

The social system can be represented in five aspects:

1) as an interaction of individuals, each of which is a carrier of individual qualities;

2) as a social interaction, resulting in the formation of social relations and the formation of a social group;

3) as group interaction, which is based on certain general circumstances (city, village, labor collective, etc.);

4) as a hierarchy of social positions (statuses) occupied by individuals included in the activities of a given social system, and the social functions that they perform on the basis of these social positions;

5) as a set of norms and values ​​that determine the nature and content of the activities of the elements of this system.

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A social system is an orderliness of interacting individuals, things and processes that form integrative qualities that are not characteristic of these components considered autonomously.

Levels of social systems.

A) All specifically historical society, i.e. it is a set of members of a given society, as well as the whole complex of social relations: economic, political, social and spiritual.

B) communities and associations of people of a smaller order (nations, estates, ethnic groups, settlements, etc.)

C) organizations operating in the real sectors of the economy (credit and financial institutions, scientific and educational institutions, firms, public associations, etc.)

D) the primary 3 level of social systems (departments, divisions, work areas, project groups within firms and enterprises)

Synergetic effect of the formation of social systems.

The synergistic effect of the formation of social systems allows us to solve the following tasks:

1) ensuring survival

2) Increase in people, population

3) Expansion and development of the territory

4) Consolidation, conservation and use of resources

5) Division, specialization and distribution of labor

6) Formation of the necessary diversity for existence

7) Implementation of harmonious and integrated development.

The main components of social systems.

1. Human, i.e. a social being, conscious, goal-setting, connected with other people by many relationships and forms of interaction. The presence of a human component is an essential and most important feature of a social system that distinguishes it from other systems.

2. Processes. Economic, social, political, spiritual. This is a change in the states of the system as a whole or its individual subsystems. Processes can be progressive and regressive, but they are all caused by the activities of people, social and professional groups.

3. Things. Items involved in the orbit of economic and public life.

4. Components of a Spiritual Nature. These are social ideas, values, rituals, customs, rituals, traditions, which are determined by the actions and deeds of various social groups and individuals.

2) Essence and signs of the organization.

Organization is a type of social system . This is an association of 2 or more people who jointly realize some goal based on certain principles and rules. Organization is the primary element of any social system. This is the most common form of human community. Depending on the goal, organizations can be commercial and non-commercial (educational, political, medical, legal, etc.).

The main features of the organization:

- purpose. It gives meaning to the entire existence of the organization, and also gives a specific direction to the actions of the participants in the organization and units.

- presence of a certain number of participants. Effective achievement of the goal of the organization is possible if there is a certain critical number of participants of the appropriate qualification.

- division of labor. Allows you to specialize the activities of participants, as well as increase the productivity and quality of their work.

1) horizontal. According to the stages of the production process

2) vertical. by levels of control.

- Hierarchical structure of the organization. fixes the division of labor of participants in structural divisions and forms links between them.

- The organization is a self-governing system. The presence of an internal coordinating center ensures the unity of action of all participants in the organization

- principle of self-regulation or self-organization. the coordinating center independently makes a decision regarding the internal life of the organization, its employees, and also ensures the rational behavior of the organization in the external environment.

- isolation of the organization. It is expressed in the isolation of internal processes, in the presence of a boundary that separates the organization from the external environment.

- the presence of an individual organizational culture. This is a set of traditions, values, beliefs and symbols shared by the majority of members of the organization and predetermining the nature of relationships in the organization.

3) The main types of organizations (classification)

Organizations that form the basis of any civilization can be represented as a set of legal forms and organizational structures. Their classification is important for 3 reasons:

1. Grouping the organization according to organizational parameters. Allows you to create a minimum of methods for their analysis and improvement.

2. Use of a unified classification. Contributes to the creation of the necessary infrastructure, which includes

a) personnel training system

b) planning the work of control services

c) preparation of a system of legislation

3. Belonging of the organization to a particular group. Allows you to determine its relationship to tax and social benefits

Organization classification:

1) Commercial - their main goal is to make a profit

Non-commercial - their main goal is any other than commercial.

2) Public - build their activities on the basis of meeting the needs of their members.

Economic - their activities are aimed at meeting the needs of society in goods and services.

3) Government - organizations that have the appropriate status, such as ministries and departments.

Non-Governmental - organizations that do not have this status.

4) Formal - officially registered organizations.

Informal - not included in the registers and do not have relevant documents.

4) factors that determine the nature of the organization.

There are a number of dynamically changing factors that directly or indirectly affect the nature and state of the organization. These include:

1. External environment (direct and indirect impact). This is a set of variables that are outside the enterprise and are not directly affected by the management of the organization.

A) direct impact. A set of organizations and subsystems with which a given organization has connections in the course of its functioning (consumers, suppliers, media, financial institutions, competitors)

B) indirect impact. These are factors that affect all organizations without exception and create opportunities or threats for the functioning of the organization (economic, political, technological, climatic, socio-demographic, cultural).

2. Goals and strategies. Variables that are partly set by the organization itself, and partly regulated by the external environment.

A) goals. Reflection of the objective essence of the organization and its functions in society. These are the motives and incentives for the employees of the organization. These are the criteria for evaluating the performance of the organization and its units.

B) strategies. On the one hand, this is the definition of the main long-term objectives of the organization, on the other hand, it is the course of action (structures, technologies) necessary to achieve the main goals of the organization.

3. Technologies of work. This factor predetermines the production structure, as well as the methods of organizing production, and through them the organizational structure and management connections. Achieving goals depends on general level development of productive forces and scientific and technical progress.

4. Staff. This is the staff of the organization. These are socio-cultural and professional qualification characteristics of employees, their individual goals and strategies, as well as values ​​and motivation.

A social system is a set of social phenomena and processes that are in relationship and connection with each other and form a certain social object. This object acts as a unity of interconnected parts (elements, components, subsystems), the interaction of which with each other and with the environment determines its existence, functioning and development as a whole. Any system presupposes the presence of internal order and the establishment of boundaries separating it from other objects. Structure - provides an internal order of connection of system elements.

The understanding of society as a system was preceded by its understanding as a social order - the maintenance and regulation of life by a certain set of rules that initially exist or are established between people. The foundations of this order were sought either in natural law, inherent in the very nature of things, or in its supernatural (divine) establishment. People, to one degree or another, are aware of the existence of this order, support it with the help of custom, tradition, ritual (morally) or fix it legally. But in any case, the society's justification of this order, its fairness, was based on the procedure for recognizing its competence (legitimacy). Thus, people's behavior became understandable (understandable, predictable) and manageable. With the development of a systematic approach in science, the concept of "social system" was formalized.

System-forming factors:

The presence of common goals;

The performance of certain functions by each element of the system to achieve a common goal.

Hierarchical construction - this means:

subordination of elements of a lower level to elements of a higher level;

division of labor vertically horizontally;

compliance by any member of the organization with the rules and procedures adopted in it.

The relationship of subordination and coordination between the elements of the system.

Subordination - the relation of subordination of the elements of the lower level to the elements of the higher level.

Coordination - cooperation between elements of the same level.

The subordination of the goals of any element of the system to the overall goal of the organization.

The presence of feedback between the control and managed subsystems. Feedback allows you to control the functioning of the control object and regulate its activities.

The structure of a social system is a way of interconnecting subsystems, components and elements interacting in it, ensuring its integrity. The main elements (social units) of the social structure of society are social communities, social institutions, social groups and social organizations. The social system, according to T. Parsons, must meet certain requirements, namely:

must be adapted to the environment (adaptation);

It must have goals (goal-achievement);

All its elements must be coordinated (integration);

Values ​​in it must be preserved (maintenance of the model).

T. Parsons believes that society is a special type of social system with high specialization and self-sufficiency. Its functional unity is provided by social subsystems.

To the social subsystems of society, as a system, T. Parsons refers to the following: economics (adaptation), politics (goal achievement), culture (maintenance of the model). The function of the integration of society is performed by the system of "societal community", which mainly contains the structures of norms.

The main functions of a sociological system include:

cognitive;

prognostic;

Social Design;

Organizational and technological;

managerial;

Instrumental.

The cognitive function is inherent in any science. For sociology, this is the knowledge of the social. In the broadest sense, the social can be defined as an immanent (intrinsic, inalienable) quality that reflects the process and result of human interaction. The theoretical and empirical analysis of social facts is cognitive function sociology. It can act in descriptive (descriptive) and diagnostic forms.

Another direction in the implementation of the cognitive function is the development of methodology, methods and techniques of sociological research. The reliability depends on how the theory, methods and methods of study will be adequate to the studied social processes and phenomena. scientific knowledge. Next function- prognostic - is also closely related to the cognitive function, which provides material on the state and trends of changes in social reality.

The predictive function of sociology reflects the need of society or social institutions in the development and implementation of scientifically based decisions of social development.

It is customary to distinguish two types of social forecasts: exploratory and normative. The search forecast describes the possible future state of the object, taking into account control actions. In the normative, the desired state of the object, the ways and means of achieving it, the necessary control actions are considered.

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social system

1. The concept of a social system

5. Functions of the social system

Literature

1. The concept of a social system

Social systems theory is a relatively new branch of general sociology. It originated in the early 1950s and owes its birth to the efforts of two sociologists - Talcott Parsons of Harvard University and Robert Merton of Columbia University.

There are two possible approaches to the definition of a social system.

In one of them, the social system is seen as the orderliness and integrity of a multitude of individuals and groups of individuals. Such a definition is given by analogy with the definition of a system in general as a “complex of interacting elements”, as formulated by L. Bertalanffy, one of the founders of the “general theory of systems”. With this approach, interaction turns into an adjective, which clearly does not take into account the specifics of social systems and the role of social relations in them.

But another approach is also possible, in which the consideration of the social as one of the main forms of the movement of matter is taken as a starting point. In this case social form the movement of matter appears before us as a global social system. And what is fixed in the generally accepted names of the main forms of motion of matter? They fix the specifics of the type of interaction inherent in this form (for example, metabolism is a specific type of biological interaction). At the same time, the qualitative boundaries between the forms of matter movement are determined by their material carrier (macrobody, atom, electron, biosystem, social collective, etc.). Thus, the traditional approach to the definition of the system, in principle, is not violated, since both the “carrier” and “interaction” are present in it, only their logical position in the conceptual space changes, which, in our opinion, allows us to better understand the place of a person in a complex network of social relations called the social system.

With this approach, as a working definition, we can say that social system there is an ordered, self-governing integrity of a multitude of diverse social relations, the bearer of which is the individual and the social groups in which he is included.

2. Characteristic features of the social system

social system society

First, it follows from this definition that exists significant manifold social systems, for individual included in various public groups, large and small (planetary community of people, society within a given country, class, nation, family, etc.). As soon as this is so, then society as a whole as a system acquires a super-complex and hierarchical character: it is possible to distinguish various levels in it - in the form of subsystems, sub-subsystems, etc. - which are interconnected by subordinating lines, not to mention subordination of each of them to impulses and commands coming from the system as a whole. At the same time, it should be taken into account that the intrasystemic hierarchy is not absolute, but relative. Each subsystem, each level of the social system is not hierarchical at the same time, i.e. it has a certain degree of autonomy, which does not weaken the system as a whole, but, on the contrary, strengthens it: it allows you to respond more flexibly and quickly to signals coming from outside, not to overload the upper levels of the system with such functions and reactions that the lower levels of integrity can easily cope with.

Second, it follows from this definition that because the in face social systems we we have integrity, then main in systems -- this is them integrative quality, not inherent generating them parts and components, but inherent system in in general. Thanks to this quality, a relatively independent, separate existence and functioning of the system is ensured. There is a dialectical relationship between the integrity of the system and its integrative quality that unites the entire system: the integrative quality is generated in the process of becoming a system integrity and at the same time acts as a guarantor of this integrity, including by transforming the components of the system according to the nature of the system as a whole. Such integration becomes possible due to the presence in the system of a system-forming component that “attracts” all other components to itself and creates the very same gravitational field that allows the multitude to become an integrity.

Third, it follows from this definition that human is universal component social systems, he certainly included in every from them, beginning With societies in in general and ending family. Having been born, a person immediately finds himself included in the system of relations that has developed in a given society, and before he becomes their carrier and even manages to have a transformative effect on it, he himself must; fit into it. The socialization of the individual is essentially his adaptation to the existing system, it precedes his attempts to adapt the system itself to his needs and interests.

Fourth, it follows from this definition that social systems relate to category self-managed. This feature characterizes only highly organized integral systems, both natural and natural-historical (biological and social) and artificial (automated machines). The very ability for self-regulation and self-development implies the presence in each of these systems of special management subsystems in the form of certain mechanisms, bodies and institutions. The role of this subsystem is extremely important - it is it that ensures the integration of all components of the system, their coordinated action. And if we remember that an individual, a social group, society as a whole always act purposefully, then the significance of the management subsystem will become even more visible. We often hear the expression: “The system is working in overdrive,” i.e., it is self-destructing. When does this become possible? Obviously, when the control subsystem begins to falter, or even fails, as a result of which a mismatch occurs in the actions of the system components. In particular, the tremendous costs that society endures during its revolutionary transformation are largely due to the fact that a temporary gap is formed between the demolition of the old system of government and the creation of a new one.

3. Components of social systems

The social organism is a set of complex structures, each of which is not just a collection, a set of certain components, but their integrity. The classification of this set is very important for understanding the essence of society and at the same time it is extremely difficult due to the fact that this set is very solid in size.

It seems to us that this classification can be based on considerations E. FROM. Markaryan, who proposed consider this problem With three qualitatively various points vision: "I. From the point of view of the subject of activity, answering the question: who is acting? 2. From the point of view of the site of the application of activity, which makes it possible to establish what human activity is aimed at. From the point of view of the mode of activity, designed to answer the question: how, in what way is human activity carried out and its cumulative effect is formed?

What does each of the main sections of society look like in this case (let's call them subjective-activity, functional and socio-cultural)?

1. Subjectively - an activity section (“who is acting?”), The components of which in any case are people, ”because there can be no other subjects of activity in society.

People, however, act as such in two versions: a) as individuals, and the individuality of an action, its relative autonomy, is expressed the more clearly, the more personal characteristics are developed in a person (moral awareness of one’s position, understanding of the social necessity and significance of one’s activity, etc.) .); b) as associations of individuals in the form of large (ethnos, social class, or a layer within it) and small (family, primary labor or educational team) social groups, although associations outside these groupings are also possible (for example, political parties, the army).

2. Functional cut (“what is human activity aimed at?”), which makes it possible to identify the main areas of application of socially significant activity. Taking into account both the biophysiological and social needs of a person, the following main areas of activity are usually distinguished: economics, transport and communications, upbringing, education, science, management, defense, health care, art, in modern society, obviously, the sphere of ecology should be attributed to them, and also the sphere with the conditional name "computer science", meaning by it not only information and computer support for all other spheres of human activity, but also the branch of the so-called mass media.

Sociocultural section (“how is the activity carried out?”), revealing the means and mechanisms for the effective functioning of society as an integral system. Giving such a definition of the cut, we take into account that basically (especially in the conditions of the modern wave of civilization) human activity is carried out by non-biological, socially acquired, i.e., socio-cultural in nature means and mechanisms. These include phenomena that seem very far from each other in their specific origin, in their substrate, range of applicability, etc.: the means of material production and consciousness, public institutions such as the state and socio-psychological traditions, language and housing.

And yet, the consideration of the main sections of society, in our opinion, will be incomplete if another important section remains out of sight - the sociostructural one, which allows us to continue and deepen the analysis of both the subject of activity and the means-mechanisms of activity. The fact is that society has an overly complex social, in the narrow sense of the word, structure, within which one can single out the most significant the following subsystems; class-stratification (primary and non-primary classes, large strata within classes, estates, strata), socio-ethnic (clan and tribal associations, nationalities, nations), demographic (gender and age structure of the population, the ratio of the active and the disabled population, the correlative characteristic of the health of the population) , settlement (villagers and townspeople), vocational education (division of individuals into workers of physical and mental labor, their educational level, place in the professional division of labor).

By superimposing the sociostructural section of society on the three previously considered, we get the opportunity to connect to the characteristics of the subject of activity the coordinates associated with his belonging to completely certain class-stratification, ethnic, demographic, settlement, vocational and educational groups. Our possibilities for a more differentiated analysis of both spheres and methods of activity are increasing from the perspective of their incorporation into specific social substructures. Thus, for example, the spheres of health care and education will obviously look different depending on the settlement context in which we have to consider them.

Despite the fact that the structures of systems differ not only quantitatively, but also fundamentally and qualitatively, there is still no harmonious, much less complete, typology of social systems on this basis. In this regard, the proposal of N. Yahiel (Bulgaria) is legitimate to single out within the class of social systems systems that have a "sociological structure". The latter refers to a structure that includes those components and relationships that are necessary and sufficient for the functioning of society as a self-developing and self-regulating system. Such systems include society as a whole, each of the specific socio-economic formations, settlement structures (city and village). "Perhaps, we can draw a line on this, because even such a system as the economy, for all its significance, does not have such a" sociological structure ".

4. Social system and its environment

The analysis of social systems carried out above was primarily of a structural-component nature. For all its importance, it allows you to understand what the system consists of, and to a much lesser extent - what is its target setting and what the system should do to achieve this goal. Therefore, the structural-component analysis of a social system should be supplemented by a functional analysis, and the latter, in turn, should be preceded by consideration of the interaction of the system with its environment, because only from this interaction can the functions of interest to us be understood.

Society belongs to the so-called open systems". This means that for all its relative isolation and autonomy in relation to the external, the social system experiences the active influence of the natural and social environment, exerting its active influence on it at the same time, either in the order of feedback, or in the order of own initiative. After all, society belongs to the category of special, adaptive-adapting systems, i.e., unlike biological systems, it is able not only to adapt to the environment, but also to adapt it according to its needs and interests.

And since society is an open and adaptive system, its functions can only be adequately understood in the context of its interaction with the environment. In the course of all further analysis, the natural environment will be understood as that part of the universe that is in contact with society and is largely drawn into the orbit of its activity. Inside it, the so-called. "humanized nature", or noosphere (from the Greek "noos" - mind), as it was called from light hand V. I. Vernadsky, and then Teilhard de Chardin. “The biosphere,” Vernadsky wrote, “transferred, or rather, is moving into a new evolutionary state—into the noosphere, is being reworked by the scientific thought of social humanity”1. The social environment for a given social system, a given specific society, is all other social systems and non-systemic social factors with which it is in various types of interaction.

It is very important to take into account that the types of external influences themselves can be very different, differing from each other not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively. It seems appropriate to classify these species.

1. The impact on the social system of other, organically unrelated systems, as well as disparate non-systemic phenomena. Here we meet with the maximum approximation to the absolutely external, which does not exclude (and perhaps that is why it presupposes) sometimes extraordinary and even catastrophic results of interaction.

2. Interaction of the "external environment - social system" type, which is, as a rule, a more stable and orderly type of interaction compared to the first one. This stems from the circumstances that both the natural environment and the social environment change in normal conditions relatively slowly, thereby creating the prerequisites for a stable, long-term, durable adaptation of the social system to its external environment. Another characteristic feature of this type of interaction is the adaptive impact of the social system on its natural and even social environment. What prevails (adaptation to the environment or its adaptation to one's healthy and unhealthy needs) depends on the characteristics of a particular stage of interaction. For example, the dialectics of the interaction of society with its natural environment has developed in such a way that, developing over many centuries, almost in geometric progression adapting, taking nature "in hand", the function has led at the present stage to the breakdown of the adaptive abilities of society.

The interaction of social systems included as elements in a more complex integrity. For each of the systems participating in this interaction, all the others in their totality act as its intrasystem environment. The essence of this type of interaction, its fundamental difference from the first two are well formulated by W. Ashby: “Each part has, as it were, the right of veto for the state of equilibrium of the entire system. No state (of the whole system) can be a state of equilibrium if it is unacceptable for each of the constituent parts acting in the conditions created by other parts.

The above typology makes it possible to better understand the origin and direction of the functions carried out by the social system. After all, each of these functions arises and is formed in connection with the need for the social system to respond appropriately to repetitive (usually in a certain algorithm) signals and irritations of the natural and social, including the internal, environment. At the same time, most of the most important functions owe their existence primarily to influences from the external environment, it is under the determining influence of these influences that the correlation of the relations of each element of the social system with its intrasystem environment takes place. Of course, there are cases of intra-system mismatch, but they still remain in the background.

5. Functions of the social system

Function (from lat. functio - execution, implementation) is the role that the system or a given element of the system (its subsystem) performs in relation to it as an integrity.

Super-complex self-governing systems, which include social systems, are characterized by multifunctionality. This means that, on the one hand, the social system has many functions, but there is another plan: multifunctionality, “combination” of functions is characteristic not only for the system as a whole, but also for its components and subsystems. In a social system there is nothing like what we find in other systems, even one as complex as the brain: a strict localization of functions. In this regard, we can talk about the presence of intra-system solidarity in the society: performing “its” function, the component (subsystem) takes on some of the other functions.

All functions implemented by the social system can be reduced to two main ones.

First, it is a function of preserving the system, its stable state (homeostasis). Everything that the system does, everything that the main areas of human activity are aimed at, work for this function, i.e., for the reproduction of the system. In this regard, we can talk about the subfunction of the reproduction of the components of the system and, above all, the biological and social reproduction of a person, the subfunction of the reproduction of intrasystem relations, the subfunction of the reproduction of the main areas of activity, etc.

Secondly, it is a function of improving the system, its optimization. The question immediately arises: optimizing against what? Obviously, in relation to the natural as well as to the social environment. No less obvious is the organic connection between the two main functions, which is predetermined by the specifics of the social system as adaptive.

After all, the nature around us changes very slowly, catastrophes like glaciation or the “global flood” are very rare in it, and if it were not for the dynamic nature of society, a stable balance between it and nature would be established “for a long time”. The society itself creates anthropogenic factors (local, regional, global) to disturb this balance, and then it is forced to look for means and mechanisms for optimizing its relations with the environment, first optimizing its internal state.

As for the interaction of the system with its social environment, it is quite clear that the disturber of the peace here is the monopoly anthropogenic factor. This is also the case in relations with the external, non-systemic social environment, and with the internal system environment. Today, for example, we are very concerned about how the reproduction of the main areas of society (economy, healthcare, ecology, upbringing, education) is going. Being unsatisfactorily reproduced both quantitatively and qualitatively, they entail a narrowing in terms of mass and low-quality biological and social reproduction of a person (deterioration of his psychophysical health, the spread of the so-called "deviant behavior" in society, the growth of alcoholism and drug addiction ). At the same time, each component of the system experiences the negative impact of other components that together make up its intra-system social environment. The economy, for example, is falling apart not only because of the rupture of traditional economic and financial ties, but also because of the embezzlement of state and public property that has turned into chaos, the regression of health care activities, the mismatch of the control subsystem, etc. each of the subsystems, if this continues, threatens to result in a general collapse of sociality and the most natural genocide.

In terms of their importance and priority, the functions that make up the main content of activities in a particular area of ​​society can historically change places. So, for millennia, the function of preserving society and optimizing it was implemented primarily at the expense of the economy, all other areas of activity, including ecology, were still on the periphery of attention in this regard. It had its own iron logic. First, the economy itself had to develop before health care, science, and environmental protection could take their rightful place. Secondly, for the time being, the environmental consequences of economic growth could be neglected, and the demographic consequences of natural phenomena (for example, the repeated extinction of almost half of Europe as a result of plague epidemics) were covered and blocked by rapid population growth. In the 20th century, especially in its second half, the situation changed radically. Today, in order to survive the terrestrial civilization, the sphere of ecological activity must come to the fore, displacing all the others, even the economy. Summing up, we can say: if before, behind the scenes, humanity implemented the slogan “Economy is everything, ecology can be neglected!”, Today it is forced to make a turn of almost 180 ° - “Ecology - first of all, economy - if possible!”.

6. Subsystems and elements of society

Consider the basic principles of a systematic approach to society. To do this, it is necessary to define the basic concepts.

The social system is a holistic formation, the main element of which are people, their connections, interactions and relationships. These connections, interactions and relationships are stable and are reproduced in the historical process, passing from generation to generation.

The functioning and development of a social system occurs on the basis of social ties and the interaction of its elements.

In the very general view a relationship is an expression of the compatibility of the functioning or development of two or more elements of an object or two (several) objects. Communication is the most profound manifestation of such compatibility. In social studies, various types of connections are distinguished: connections of functioning, development, or genetic, causal connections, structural connections, etc. In epistemological terms, it is important to distinguish between the connections of an object and formal connections, i.e., connections that are established only in the plane of knowledge and do not have a direct analogue in the sphere of the object itself, mixing these connections inevitably leads to errors, both in methodology and in the results of the study. .

Social connection is a set of facts that determine joint activities in specific communities at a specific time to achieve certain goals. Social ties are established for a long period of time not at the whim of people, but objectively, that is, regardless of the personal qualities of individuals. These are the connections of individuals with each other, as well as their connections with the phenomena and processes of the surrounding world, which are formed in the course of their practical activities. The essence of social ties is manifested in the content and nature of the actions of people who make up this social community. It is possible to single out connections of interaction, control, relations, as well as institutional connections.

The establishment of these links is dictated by the social conditions in which individuals live and act. The essence of social ties is manifested in the content and nature of the actions of people who make up this social community. Sociologists single out connections of interaction, relations, control, institutional, etc.

The starting point for the formation of a social connection may be the interaction of individuals or groups that form a social community to meet certain needs. Interaction is interpreted as any behavior of an individual or group that is important for other individuals and groups of a social community or society as a whole. Moreover, interaction expresses the nature and content of relations between people and social groups, which, being constant carriers of qualitatively different types of activities, differ in social positions (statuses) and roles.

Social interaction is the mutual influence of various spheres, phenomena and processes of social life, carried out through social activities. It takes place both between separate objects (external interaction) and within a separate object, between its elements (internal interaction). social interaction It has objective and subjective sides. The objective side of the interaction is connections that are independent of individual people, but mediate and control the content and nature of their interaction. The subjective side is understood as the conscious attitude of individuals to each other, based on mutual expectations of appropriate behavior. These are, as a rule, interpersonal (or socio-psychological) relations that develop in specific social communities at a certain point in time. The mechanism of social interaction includes individuals who perform certain actions, changes in the social community or society as a whole caused by these actions, the impact of these changes on other individuals that make up the social community, and, finally, the feedback of individuals. Interaction leads to the restoration of new social relations. The latter can be represented as relatively stable and independent links between individuals and social groups.

Social relations are relatively stable and independent ties between individuals and social groups. So, society is made up of many individuals, their social connections, interactions and relationships.

But is it possible to consider society as a simple sum of individuals, their connections, interactions and relationships? Supporters systemic approach to analysis societies answer: "Not". FROM them points vision, society It is not a total, but a complete system. This means that at the level of society, individual actions, connections and relationships form a new, systemic quality. Systemic quality is a special qualitative state that cannot be considered as a simple sum of elements. Social interactions and relations are of a supra-individual, transpersonal nature, that is, society is some kind of independent substance that is primary in relation to individuals. Each individual, being born, finds a certain structure of connections and relations, and in the process of socialization is included in it. Due to what is this integrity achieved, i.e. system quality?

A holistic system has many connections, interactions and relationships. The most characteristic are correlative connections, interactions and relationships, including the coordination and subordination of elements. Coordination - this is a certain consistency of elements, that special nature of their mutual dependence, which ensures the preservation of an integral system. Subordination- this is subordination and subordination, indicating a special specific place, the unequal value of elements in an integral system.

In the sociology of concepts “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. Separate phenomena and processes act as elements of the system. The concept of “social structure” is part of the concept of a social system, and combines two components - social composition and social ties. Social composition is a set of elements that make up a given structure. The second component is a set of connections of these elements. So the way concept social structures includes, on the one hand, the social composition, or a combination of various types of social communities as the 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 characterizing the social structure of society at a certain stage of development .

Social structure means the objective division of society into separate strata, groups, different in their social position, in their relation to the mode of production. This is a stable connection of elements in a social system. Main elements social structures are such social commonality 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 reflects the characteristics of the 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. economic relations. The social aspect of any community is concentrated in its connections and mediations with production and class relations in society.

Another type of social systems is formed on the basis of communities, the social ties of which are determined by associations of organizations. Such social connections called institutional, and social systems - social institutions. The latter act on behalf of society as a whole. Institutional relations can also be called normative, since their nature and content are established by society in order to meet the needs of its members in certain areas of public life.

Consequently, social institutions perform in society the functions of social management and social control as one of the elements of management. Social control enables society and its systems to enforce normative conditions, the violation of which is detrimental to the social system. The main objects of such control are legal and moral norms, customs, administrative decisions, etc. The effect of social control is reduced, on the one hand, to the application of sanctions against behavior that violates social restrictions, on the other hand, to the approval of desirable behavior. The behavior of individuals is conditioned by their needs. These needs can be met different ways, and the choice of means to satisfy them depends on the value system adopted by a given social community or society as a whole. The adoption of a certain system of values ​​contributes to the identity of the behavior of members of the community. Education and socialization are aimed at conveying to individuals the patterns of behavior and methods of activity established in a given community.

Social institutions govern the behavior of community members through a system of sanctions and rewards. In social management and control, institutions play a very important role. Their task is not only to coercion. In every society there are institutions that guarantee freedom in certain types of activity - freedom of creativity and innovation, freedom of speech, the right to receive a certain form and amount of income, housing and free medical care, etc. For example, writers and artists have guaranteed freedom creativity, search for new artistic forms; scientists and specialists undertake to investigate new problems and search for new technical solutions, etc. Social institutions can be characterized in terms of both their external, formal (“material”) structure, and their internal, content.

Externally social institute looks like a set of persons, institutions equipped with certain material resources and carrying out a specific social function. FROM meaningful sides- this is a certain system of expediently oriented standards of behavior of certain individuals in specific situations. So, if there is justice as a social institution, it can be outwardly characterized as a set of persons, institutions and material means that administer justice, then from a substantive point of view, it is a set of standardized patterns of behavior of eligible persons that provide this social function. These standards of conduct are embodied in certain roles characteristic of the justice system (the role of a judge, prosecutor, lawyer, investigator, etc.).

The social institution thus determines the orientation of social activity and social relations through a mutually agreed system of expediently oriented standards of behavior. Their emergence and grouping into a system depend on the content of the tasks solved by the social institution. Each such institution is characterized by the presence of an activity goal, specific functions that ensure its achievement, a set of social positions and roles, as well as a system of sanctions that encourage the desired and suppress deviant behavior.

The most important social institutions are political. With their help, political power is established and maintained. Economic institutions provide the process of production and distribution of goods and services. A family also one of the important social institutions. Its activities (relations between parents, parents and children, methods of education, etc.) are determined by a system of legal and other social norms. Along with these institutions, such socio-cultural institutions, as the education system, health care, social security, cultural and educational institutions, etc. Still a significant role in society continues to play institute religions.

Institutional ties, like other forms of social ties on the basis of which social communities are formed, represent an ordered system, a certain social organization. This is a system of accepted activities of social communities, norms and values ​​that guarantee similar behavior of their members, coordinate and direct people's aspirations in a certain direction, establish ways to satisfy their needs, and resolve conflicts that arise in the process of everyday life. And they also provide a state of balance between the aspirations of various individuals and groups of a given social community and society as a whole. In the case when this balance begins to fluctuate, one speaks of social disorganization of the intensive manifestation of undesirable phenomena (for example, such as crime, alcoholism, aggressive actions, etc.).

A systematic approach to society is complemented in sociology deterministic and functionalist. The deterministic approach is most clearly expressed in Marxism. From the point of view of this doctrine, society as an integral system consists of the following subsystems: economic, social, political and spiritual, each of which, in turn, can be considered as a system. To distinguish these subsystems from the actual social one, they are called societal. In the relationship between these systems, cause-and-effect relationships play a dominant role. This means that each of these systems does not exist by itself, but, according to Marxism, is in a causal dependence on other systems. All these systems represent a hierarchical structure, that is, they are in the ratio of subordination, subordination in the order in which they are listed. Marxism clearly points out the dependence and conditionality of all systems on the features economic system, which is based on material production, based on a certain nature of property relations.

The main subsystems of society -- the social spheres of public life: economic, Covers the relations that arise in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption, material goods; political, Covers relations related to the interaction of the state, political parties and organizations about power and control; social, covers relations associated with the interaction of classes, social strata and groups; spiritual, embraces relations connected with the development of social consciousness, science, culture, and art.

These subsystems (spheres), in turn, can be represented by a set of their constituent elements:

economic - production institutions (factories, factories), transport institutions, stock and commodity exchanges, banks, etc.,

political - the state, parties, trade unions, youth, women's and other organizations, etc.,

social - classes, countries, social groups and strata, nations, etc.,

spiritual - the church, educational institutions, scientific institutions, etc.

So, as a result, society becomes an integral system with qualities that none of the elements included in it separately have. As a result of its integral qualities, the social system acquires a certain independence in relation to its constituent elements, a relatively independent way of its development.

7. Public relations and social communities

To characterize society as a system, it is not enough to single out its subsystems and elements. It is important to show that they are interconnected and can be represented as links between social groups, nations, individuals that arise in the process of economic, political, social, spiritual life of society. The term "public relations" is used to refer to these links.

Kinds public relations:

material: about the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods

spiritual: political, legal, moral, ideological, etc.

The functioning of social relations, institutions of control and organizations generates a complex system of social relations that governs the needs, interests and goals of people. This system unites individuals and their groups into a single whole - a social community and through it into a social system. The nature of social ties determines both the external structure of social communities and its functions. The external structure of a community can be determined, for example, by its objective data: information about the demographic structure of the community, professional structure, educational characteristics of its members, etc.

Functionally, social communities direct the actions of their members to achieve group goals. The social community ensures the coordination of these actions, which leads to an increase in its internal cohesion. The latter is possible due to patterns of behavior, norms that determine relations within this community, as well as socio-psychological mechanisms that guide the behavior of its members.

Among the many types of social communities, such as the family, work collective, groups of joint leisure activities, as well as various socio-territorial communities (settlement, small town, big cities, region, etc.). For example, the family socializes young people in the course of mastering the norms of social life, creates a sense of security in them, satisfies the emotional need for joint experiences, prevents psychological imbalance, helps to overcome the state of isolation, etc.

The territorial community and its condition also influence the behavior of its members, especially in the sphere of informal contacts. Professional groups, in addition to the possibility of solving purely professional issues, form a sense of labor solidarity among members, provide professional prestige and authority, and control people's behavior from the standpoint of professional morality.

8. Interaction of the main spheres of public life

Thus, society is a certain set of elements that are interdependent and interact with each other. The spheres of public life are mutually permeable and interconnected.

Economic difficulties and even more so crises (economic sphere) give rise to social instability and discontent of various social forces (social sphere) and lead to an aggravation of political struggle and instability (political sphere). All this is usually accompanied by apathy, confusion of the spirit, but also by spiritual searches, intense scientific research, the efforts of cultural figures aimed at understanding the origins of the crisis and ways out of it. This is one of the examples illustrating the interaction of the main spheres of public life.

A military coup (political sphere) as a result of the economic crisis, a sharp decline in living standards (economic sphere), disagreement in society (social sphere) and all this affects the spiritual life of society. (Pinochet (1973) (military junta) came to power in Chile As a result of the military-fascist coup, he established a regime of the most severe terror, the economy improved, disagreement in society, the creative intelligentsia went underground.

Bibliography

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2. Gorelov A.A. Sociology in questions and answers. - M.: Eksmo, 2009.-316 p.

3. Dobrenkov V.I. Sociology: A short course / Dobrenkov V.I., Kravchenko A.I.. M .: Infra-M., 2008-231p.

4. Dobrenkov V.I., Kravchenko A.I. Methods of sociological research. M.: Publishing House of Moscow State University, 2009.- 860s.

5. Kazarinova N.V. and others. Sociology: A textbook for universities. M .: NOTA BENE, 2008.-269p.

6. Kasyanov V.V. Sociology: examination answers._r/nd, 2009.-319s.

7. Kravchenko A.I. General sociology: textbook for universities - M.: Unity, 2007.- 479p.

8. Kravchenko A.I. Sociology: A textbook for students of non-sociological specialties, natural sciences and the humanities. / Kravchenko A.I., Anurin V.F. - St. Petersburg et al. Peter, 2008 -431s.

9. Kravchenko A.I. Sociology: Reader for universities-M.; Yekaterinburg: Academic project: Business book, 2010.-734p.

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FEDERAL RAILWAY TRANSPORT AGENCY

SIBERIAN STATE UNIVERSITY
WAYS OF COMMUNICATION

Department of "Social Psychology of Management"

ESSAY

On the topic: "The specifics of social systems"

COMPLETED:

student

E.V. Savina

Group

08-UK-22

CHECKED:

Novosibirsk 2010
The content of the work:
Introduction ………………………………………………………………3

The concept of a social system …………………………………….3
Five organizational levels of the social system ………….6
Types of social systems ……………………………………………7
Components of social systems …………………………………15

Conclusion ……………………………………………………………18

List of used literature …………………………………..19

Introduction
Elements of any social systems are people. The inclusion of a person in society is carried out through various social communities that each individual person personifies: social groups, social institutions, social organizations and systems of norms and values ​​​​accepted in society, that is, through culture. Because of this, a person is included in many social systems, each of which has a systematic impact on him. Thus, a person becomes not only an element of the social system, but he himself represents a system that has a very complex structure.
In the course of the theory of organization, social systems are considered mainly, since all others are somehow reduced to them. The main connecting element of the social system is a person.
The concept of “social system” was used in their works by ancient thinkers, but they meant by it, first of all, the general idea of ​​the orderliness of social life, therefore, in the strict sense, it was closer to the concept of “social order”. The concept of "social system" was scientifically formalized only at the present time, in connection with the development of a systematic approach in science.

The concept of a social system

There are two possible approaches to the definition of a social system.
In one of them, the social system is seen as the orderliness and integrity of a multitude of individuals and groups of individuals. Such a definition is given by analogy with the definition of a system in general as a “complex of interacting elements”, as formulated by L. Bertalanffy, one of the founders of the “general theory of systems”. With this approach, interaction turns into an adjective, which clearly does not take into account the specifics of social systems and the role of social relations in them.
But another approach is also possible, in which the consideration of the social as one of the main forms of the movement of matter is taken as a starting point. In this case, the social form of the movement of matter appears before us as a global social system. And what is fixed in the generally accepted names of the main forms of motion of matter? They fix the specifics of the type of interaction inherent in this form (for example, metabolism is a specific type of biological interaction). At the same time, the qualitative boundaries between the forms of matter movement are determined by their material carrier (macrobody, atom, electron, biosystem, social collective, etc.). Thus, the traditional approach to the definition of the system, in principle, is not violated, since both the “carrier” and “interaction” are present in it, only their logical position in the conceptual space changes, which, in our opinion, allows us to better understand the place of a person in a complex network of social relationships called the social system.
With this approach, as a working definition, we can say that the social system is an ordered, self-governing integrity of a multitude of diverse social relations, the bearer of which is the individual and the social groups in which he is included. What then are the characteristic features of the social system?
First, it follows from this definition that there is a significant variety of social systems, because the individual is included in various social groups, large and small (the planetary community of people, society within a given country, class, nation, family, etc.). As soon as this is so, then society as a whole as a system acquires a super-complex and hierarchical character: it is possible to distinguish various levels in it - in the form of subsystems, sub-subsystems, etc. - which are interconnected by subordinating lines, not to mention the subordination of each of these, impulses and commands emanating from the system as a whole. At the same time, it should be taken into account that the intrasystemic hierarchy is not absolute, but relative. Each subsystem, each level of the social system is simultaneously non-hierarchical, i.e. it has a certain degree of autonomy, which by no means weakens the system as a whole, but, on the contrary, strengthens it: it makes it possible to more flexibly and promptly respond to signals coming from outside, not to overload the upper levels of the system with such functions and reactions that the lower levels of integrity can easily cope with.
Secondly, it follows from this definition that since we have integrity in the face of social systems, the main thing in systems is their integrative quality, which is not characteristic of their parts and components, but inherent in the system as a whole. Thanks to this quality, a relatively independent, separate existence and functioning of the system is ensured. There is a dialectical relationship between the integrity of the system and its integrative quality that unites the entire system: the integrative quality is generated in the process of becoming a system integrity and at the same time acts as a guarantor of this integrity, including by transforming the components of the system according to the nature of the system as a whole. Such integration becomes possible due to the presence in the system of a system-forming component that “attracts” all other components to itself and creates the very same gravitational field that allows the multitude to become an integrity.
Thirdly, from this definition it follows that a person is a universal component of social systems, he is necessarily included in each of them, starting with society as a whole and ending with the family. Having been born, a person immediately finds himself included in the system of relations that has developed in a given society, and before he becomes their carrier and even manages to have a transformative effect on it, he himself must; fit into it. The socialization of the individual is essentially his adaptation to the existing system, it precedes his attempts to adapt the system itself to his needs and interests.
Fourth, it follows from this definition that social systems are self-governing. This feature characterizes only highly organized integral systems, both natural and natural-historical (biological and social) and artificial (automated machines). The very ability for self-regulation and self-development implies the presence in each of these systems of special management subsystems in the form of certain mechanisms, bodies and institutions. The role of this subsystem is extremely important - it is it that ensures the integration of all components of the system, their coordinated action. And if we remember that an individual, a social group, society as a whole always act purposefully, then the significance of the management subsystem will become even more visible. We often hear the expression: “The system is working in overdrive,” i.e., it is self-destructing. When does this become possible? Obviously, when the control subsystem begins to falter, or even fails, as a result of which a mismatch occurs in the actions of the system components. In particular, the tremendous costs that society endures during its revolutionary transformation are largely due to the fact that a temporary gap is formed between the demolition of the old system of government and the creation of a new one.

Five organizational levels of the social system

A social system is a way of organizing the life of a group of people, which arises as a result of the interaction of individuals on the basis of dictated social roles. The system arises as an association into an ordered and self-preserving whole with the help of norms and values ​​that ensure both the interdependence of the parts of the system and the subsequent integration of the whole.
The social system can be represented as a hierarchical structure of the following organizational levels: biosphere, ethnosphere, sociosphere, psychosphere, anthroposphere. At each level of the hierarchical pyramid (Fig. 1), we describe the behavior of an individual, as a member of a certain group, through certain rules of behavior aimed at achieving the goal.

Figure 1. Hierarchy of organizational levels
At the lower, biospheric, level, a group of people is a subsystem of an ecological system that lives mainly on the energy of the Sun and participates in the exchange of biomass with other subsystems of this level. The biosphere of the Earth is considered from the point of view of the theory of V.I.Vernadsky. Society in this case is a set of separate, not exerting any noticeable influence on each other, consumers of someone else's biomass, giving away their biomass as a result of biological death. This society is better called a population.
On the second, ethnic, level, a group is already a collective of individuals capable of unified unconscious actions and characterized by the same unconscious responses to external influences, that is, a well-defined stereotype of behavior generated by the landscape (regional) conditions of the place of residence. Such a society is called an ethnos. The ethnos lives at the expense of the biochemical energy of the passionary impetus originally received at birth, which is wasted on culture and art characteristic only for it, technical innovations, wars, and on maintaining the feeding surrounding landscape.
On the third, social level, the group is society. Each individual has his own system of action, which is consistent with the public consciousness. Here we consider society on the basis of the theory of social action by T. Parsons. Combining individuals into a cohesive group, society regulates the behavior of everyone within this group. The behavior of the members of the group is based on social actions due to social status and a set of social roles.
On the fourth, psychic level, a group is a crowd. Each member of the group has a set of collective reflexes. A collective reflex is a synchronous response of a group of people to an external stimulus. The group's behavior is a chain of successive collective reflexes. The basis of the model at this level is the theory of collective reflexes by V.M. Bekhterev.
At the last level, a group is a thinking organization, each member of which has its own inner world. To construct a multi-agent model of society at this level, we can choose the theory of autopoietic systems by N. Luhmann. Here, the elements of the system are communications. Communication is not only a process of information transfer, but also a self-referential process.
Various theories describing society can be used to model a social system. But these theories complement rather than contradict each other. Modeling a social system based on the chosen theory, we get a model of a certain level. Next, we combine these models in a hierarchical manner. Such a multilevel model will most adequately reflect the dynamics of the development of a real society.

Types of social systems

In the course of the theory of organization, social systems are considered mainly, since all others are somehow reduced to them. The main connecting element of the social system is a person. Social systems, depending on the goals set, can be educational, economic, political, medical, etc. Figure 2 shows the main types of social systems according to the direction of their activities.

Fig.2 Types of social systems.
In real life, social systems are implemented in the form of organizations, companies, firms, etc. The products of such organizations are goods (services), information or knowledge. Thus, a social organization is a social (public) subsystem characterized by the presence of a person as a subject and object of management in the aggregate of interrelated elements and realizing itself in the production of goods, services, information and knowledge.
In the theory of organization, socio-political, socio-educational, socio-economic and other organizations are distinguished. Each of these types also has a priority of its own goals. So, for socio-economic organizations, the main goal is to maximize profits; for socio-cultural - the achievement of aesthetic goals, and maximizing profit is a secondary goal; for socio-educational - the achievement of a modern level of knowledge, and making a profit is also a secondary goal.
Social organizations play an essential role in the modern world. Their features:
realization of the potential capabilities and abilities of a person;
formation of unity of interests of people (personal, collective, public). The unity of goals and interests serves as a system-forming factor;
complexity, dynamism and a high level of uncertainty.
Social organizations cover various areas of activity of people in society. The mechanisms of interaction between people through socialization create the conditions and prerequisites for the development of communication skills, the formation of positive moral standards of people in social and industrial relations. They also create a control system that includes punishing and rewarding individuals so that the actions they choose do not go beyond the norms and rules available to this system. In social organizations, objective (natural) and subjective (artificial, at the will of man) processes take place. The objective ones include cyclic processes of decline and rise in the activity of a social organization, processes associated with the operation of the laws of social organization, for example, synergy, composition and proportionality, awareness. The subjective ones include the processes associated with the adoption of managerial decisions (for example, the processes associated with the privatization of a social organization).
In a social organization there are formal and informal leaders. A leader is an individual who has the greatest influence on the employees of a brigade, workshop, section, department, etc. He embodies group norms and values ​​and advocates for these norms. The formal leader (manager) is appointed by the higher management and endowed with the rights and duties necessary for this. An informal leader is a member of a social organization recognized by a group of people as a professional (authority) or advocate in matters of interest to them. A leader usually becomes a person whose professional or organizational potential is significantly higher than the potential of his colleagues in any field of activity.
A team can have several informal leaders only in non-overlapping areas of activity.
When appointing a leader, senior management should strive to take into account the possibility of combining a formal and informal leader in one person.
The basis of social organization is a small group of people. A small group unites up to 30 people, performs the same or related functions and is located in the territorial proximity (in the same room, on the same floor, etc.).
On fig. 3 (a, b, c, d) presents the basic schemes of the relationships of individuals in the organization and the naming of relationships.

Rice. 3a. Linear scheme (linear connections).

There is no feedback in the circuit. The linear scheme works well in small social organizations with high professionalism and authority of the leader; as well as the great interest of subordinates in the successful work of the social organization.
The ring scheme has worked well in small social organizations or in subdivisions of medium-sized social organizations, a social organization with a stable product and market, in which there is a clear division of functional responsibilities among professional workers.

Fig.3b. Ring diagram (functional connections).

Rice. 3c. Scheme "wheel" (linear-functional connections).

The "wheel" scheme has worked well in small social organizations or in subdivisions of medium-sized social organizations with an unstable product range and sales markets, where there is a clear division of functional responsibilities among professional workers. The manager implements linear (administrative) influences, and employees perform their functional duties.

Rice. 3y. Scheme "star" (linear connection).

The "star" scheme gives positive results with the branch structure of the social organization and, if necessary, confidentiality in the activities of each component of the social organization.
Basic schemes make it possible to form a wide variety of relationship schemes derived from them. (Fig. 3, e, f, g).

Rice. 3d. Hierarchical scheme (linear-functional relationships)

The hierarchical scheme is based on the "wheel" scheme and is applicable for large organizations with a pronounced division of labor.

Rice. 3e. Staff scheme (linear connection)

The scheme is based on the basic star scheme. It provides for the creation of functional headquarters under the head in the form of departments or groups (for example, the financial department, the personnel department, etc.). These headquarters prepare draft decisions on relevant issues for the head. Then the manager makes a decision and brings it to the appropriate department. The staff scheme has the advantage, if necessary, of exercising linear control (one-man management) for key divisions of the social organization.

Rice. 3g. Matrix scheme (linear and functional connections).

The matrix scheme is based on the "line" and "ring" schemes. It provides for the creation of two branches of subordination links: administrative - from the immediate supervisor and functional - from specialists who may not be subordinate to the same leader (for example, these may be specialists from a consulting firm or an advanced organization). The matrix scheme is used in complex, knowledge-intensive production of goods, information, services and knowledge.
The middle level of management determines the flexibility of the organizational structure of a social organization - this is its most active part. The top and bottom levels should be the most conservative in structure.
Within one social organization, and even within one type of social organization, there may be several types of relationships.

Components of social systems

The social organism is a set of complex structures, each of which is not just a collection, a set of certain components, but their integrity. The classification of this set is very important for understanding the essence of society and at the same time it is extremely difficult due to the fact that this set is very solid in size.
It seems to us that this classification can be based on the considerations of E. S. Markaryan, who proposed to consider this problem from three qualitatively different points of view: “I. From the point of view of the subject of activity, answering the question: who is acting? 2. From the point of view of the site of the application of activity, which makes it possible to establish what human activity is aimed at. 3. From the point of view of the mode of activity, designed to answer the question: how, in what way is human activity carried out and its cumulative effect is formed? .
What does each of the main sections of society look like in this case (let's call them subjective-activity, functional and socio-cultural)?
1. Subjective-activity section (“who is acting?”), The components of which in any case are people, because in society there can be no other subjects of activity.
People, however, act as such in two versions: a) as individuals, and the individuality of an action, its relative autonomy, is expressed the more clearly, the more personal characteristics are developed in a person (moral awareness of one’s position, understanding of the social necessity and significance of one’s activity, etc.) .); b) as associations of individuals in the form of large (ethnos, social class, or a layer within it) and small (family, primary labor or educational team) social groups, although associations outside these groupings are also possible (for example, political parties, the army).
2. Functional cut (“what is human activity aimed at?”), which makes it possible to identify the main areas of application of socially significant activity. Taking into account both the biophysiological and social needs of a person, the following main areas of activity are usually distinguished: economics, transport and communications, upbringing, education, science, management, defense, health care, art, in modern society, obviously, the sphere of ecology should be attributed to them, and also the sphere with the conditional name "computer science", meaning by it not only information and computer support for all other spheres of human activity, but also the branch of the so-called mass media.
3. Socio-cultural cut (“how is the activity carried out?”), revealing the means and mechanisms for the effective functioning of society as an integral system. Giving such a definition of the cut, we take into account that basically (especially in the conditions of the modern wave of civilization) human activity is carried out by non-biological, socially acquired, i.e., socio-cultural in nature means and mechanisms. These include phenomena that seem very far from each other in their specific origin, in their substrate, range of applicability, etc.: the means of material production and consciousness, public institutions such as the state and socio-psychological traditions, language and housing.
And yet, the consideration of the main sections of society, in our opinion, will be incomplete if another important section remains out of sight - the sociostructural one, which allows us to continue and deepen the analysis of both the subject of activity and the means-mechanisms of activity. The fact is that society has an overly complex social, in the narrow sense of the word, structure, within which the following subsystems can be distinguished as the most significant; class-stratification (basic and non-basic classes, large strata within classes, estates, strata), socio-ethnic (clan and tribal associations, nationalities, nations), demographic (sex and age structure of the population, the ratio of the active and the disabled population, the correlative characteristic of the health of the population) , settlement (villagers and townspeople), vocational education (division of individuals into workers of physical and mental labor, their educational level, place in the professional division of labor).
By superimposing the sociostructural section of society on the three previously considered, we get the opportunity to connect to the characteristics of the subject of activity the coordinates associated with his belonging to completely certain class-stratification, ethnic, demographic, settlement, vocational and educational groups. Our possibilities for a more differentiated analysis of both spheres and methods of activity are increasing from the perspective of their incorporation into specific social substructures. Thus, for example, the spheres of health care and education will obviously look different depending on the settlement context in which we have to consider them.
Despite the fact that the structures of systems differ not only quantitatively, but also fundamentally and qualitatively, there is still no harmonious, much less complete, typology of social systems on this basis. In this regard, the proposal of N. Yahiel (Bulgaria) is legitimate to single out within the class of social systems systems that have a "sociological structure". The latter refers to a structure that includes those components and relationships that are necessary and sufficient for the functioning of society as a self-developing and self-regulating system. Such systems include society as a whole, each of the specific socio-economic formations, settlement structures (city and village).
Conclusion
A social system is a phenomenon or process consisting of a qualitatively defined set of elements that are in mutual connections and relationships and form a single whole, capable of changing its structure in interaction with external conditions.
Thus, the social system as a sociological phenomenon is a multidimensional and multidimensional formation with a complex composition, typology and functions.
The most complex and general social system is society itself (society as a whole), which reflects all the characteristics of social systems.

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