Sociology distinguishes several types of society: traditional, industrial and post-industrial. The difference between the formations is enormous. Moreover, each type of device has unique characteristics and features.
The difference lies in the attitude towards a person, the ways of organizing economic activity. The transition from traditional to industrial and post-industrial (informational) society is extremely difficult.
Traditional
The presented view social order formed first. In this case, the basis for the regulation of relationships between people is tradition. Agrarian society, or traditional, differs from industrial and post-industrial society primarily by low mobility in social sphere... In this way, there is a clear distribution of roles, and the transition from one class to another is almost impossible. An example is the caste system in India. The structure of this society is characterized by stability and a low level of development. The future role of man is primarily based on his origin. Social elevators are absent in principle, in some way they are even undesirable. The transition of individuals from one layer to another in the hierarchy can provoke a process of destruction of the entire habitual way of life.
In an agrarian society, individualism is not welcomed. All human actions are aimed at maintaining the life of the community. Freedom of choice in this case can lead to a change in formation or cause the destruction of the entire structure. Economic relationships between people are strictly regulated. Under normal market relations, the number of citizens increases, that is, processes that are undesirable for the entire traditional society are initiated.
The backbone of the economy
The economy of this type of formation is agrarian. That is, it is the land that lies at the heart of wealth. The more allotments an individual owns, the higher his social status. The tools of production are archaic and practically do not develop. This also applies to other areas of life. In the early stages of the formation of a traditional society, natural exchange prevails. Money as a universal commodity and a measure of the value of other objects are absent in principle.
There is no industrial production as such. With the development, there is a handicraft production of the necessary tools and other household products. This process is long, since most citizens living in a traditional society prefer to produce everything on their own. Subsistence farming prevails.
Demography and everyday life
In the agrarian system, most people live in local communities. At the same time, changing the place of business is extremely slow and painful. It is also important to take into account the fact that in a new place of residence, problems often arise with the allocation of land. Own plot with the ability to grow different agricultural crops - the basis of life in a traditional society. Also, the extraction of food products occurs due to cattle breeding, gathering and hunting.
In a traditional society, the birth rate is high. This is primarily due to the need for the survival of the community itself. There is no medicine, so often simple diseases and injuries become fatal. The average life expectancy is insignificant.
Life is organized taking into account the foundations. It is also not subject to any changes. Moreover, the life of all members of society depends on religion. All canons and foundations in the community are regulated by faith. Changes and an attempt to escape from the usual life are suppressed by religious dogmas.
Change of formation
The transition from a traditional society to an industrial and post-industrial one is possible only with a sharp development of technology. This became possible in the 17th and 18th centuries. In many ways, the development of progress was due to the plague epidemic that swept through Europe. A sharp decline in the population provoked the development of technology, the emergence of mechanized production tools.
Industrial formation
Sociologists associate the transition from the traditional type of society to the industrial and post-industrial with a change in the economic component of the way of life of people. The growth of production capacities led to urbanization, that is, the outflow of part of the population from the village to the city. Large settlements, in which the mobility of citizens increased significantly.
The structure of the formation is flexible and dynamic. Machine production is actively developing, labor is automated higher. The use of new (at that time) technologies is typical not only for industry, but also for agriculture. The total share of employment in the agricultural sector does not exceed 10%.
Entrepreneurial activity is becoming the main factor of development in an industrial society. Therefore, the position of the individual is determined by his skills and abilities, the desire for development and education. The origin also remains important, but gradually its influence diminishes.
Form of government
Gradually, with the growth of production and the increase in capital in an industrial society, a conflict is brewing between the generation of entrepreneurs and representatives of the old aristocracy. In many countries, this process ended with a change in the very structure of the state. Typical examples include the French Revolution or the emergence of a constitutional monarchy in England. After these changes, the archaic aristocracy lost its former possibilities of influencing the life of the state (although, in general, they continued to listen to their opinion).
The economy of an industrial society
The economy of such a formation is based on extensive exploitation. natural resources and work force... According to Marx, in a capitalist industrial society, the main roles are assigned directly to those who own the instruments of labor. Resources are often produced to the detriment of the environment, the state of the environment is deteriorating.
At the same time, production is growing at an accelerated pace. The quality of the personnel comes to the fore. Manual labor is also preserved, but to minimize costs, industrialists and entrepreneurs are beginning to invest in technology development.
The merging of banking and industrial capital is becoming a characteristic feature of the industrial formation. In agrarian society, especially at its initial stages of development, usury was persecuted. With the development of progress, loan interest became the basis for the development of the economy.
Postindustrial
Postindustrial society began to form in the middle of the last century. The development locomotive was the countries of Western Europe, the USA and Japan. Features of the formation consist in an increase in the share in the gross domestic product information technologies... The transformation also affected industry and Agriculture... Productivity increased, decreased manual labor.
The locomotive of further development was the formation of a consumer society. The increase in the share of quality services and goods has led to the development of technologies, increased investment in science.
The concept of a post-industrial society was formed by a lecturer at Harvard University. After his works, some sociologists also derived the concept of an information society, although in many respects these concepts are synonymous.
Opinions
There are two opinions in the theory of the emergence of post-industrial society. From a classical point of view, the transition was made possible thanks to:
- Production automation.
- The needs for a high educational level of staff.
- Increasing demand for quality services.
- An increase in the incomes of most of the population of developed countries.
The Marxists put forward their own theory on this score. According to it, the transition to a postindustrial (informational) society from the industrial and traditional ones became possible thanks to the world division of labor. There was a concentration of industries in different regions of the planet, as a result of which the qualifications of the service personnel increased.
Deindustrialization
The information society has spawned another socio-economic process: de-industrialization. V developed countries the proportion of workers involved in industry is declining. Along with this, the influence of direct production on the economy of the state also falls. According to statistics, from 1970 to 2015, the share of industry in the United States and Western Europe in the gross domestic product decreased from 40 to 28%. Part of the production was transferred to other regions of the planet. This process gave rise to a sharp increase in development in countries, accelerated the pace of transition from the agrarian (traditional) and industrial types of society to the post-industrial one.
Risks
An intensive development path and the formation of an economy based on scientific knowledge fraught with various risks. The migration process has grown dramatically. At the same time, some countries lagging behind in development are beginning to experience a shortage of qualified personnel who move to regions with an information economy. The effect provokes the development of crisis phenomena that are more characteristic of an industrial social formation.
The experts are also concerned about the skewed demography. Three stages of development of society (traditional, industrial and postindustrial) have different relationship to family and fertility. For the agrarian formation, a large family is the basis of survival. Roughly the same opinion exists in industrial society. The transition to a new formation was marked by a sharp decline in the birth rate and an aging population. Therefore, countries with information economies are actively attracting qualified, educated youth from other regions of the planet, thereby widening the development gap.
Experts are also concerned about the decline in the growth rates of the post-industrial society. The traditional (agricultural) and industrial sectors still have room to develop, increase production and change the format of the economy. Information formation is the crown of the evolutionary process. New technologies are constantly being developed, but breakthrough solutions (for example, the transition to nuclear energy, space exploration) appear less and less often. Therefore, sociologists predict an increase in crisis phenomena.
Coexistence
Now there is a paradoxical situation: industrial, post-industrial and traditional societies coexist quite peacefully in different regions of the planet. An agrarian formation with a corresponding way of life is more characteristic of some countries in Africa and Asia. Industrial with gradual evolutionary processes to the informational one is observed in Eastern Europe and the CIS.
Industrial, post-industrial and traditional societies are different primarily in relation to the human person. In the first two cases, development is based on individualism, in the second, collective principles prevail. Any manifestation of willfulness and an attempt to stand out is condemned.
Social elevators
Social lifts characterize the mobility of segments of the population within a society. In traditional, industrial and post-industrial formations, they are expressed differentially. For an agrarian society, only the movement of an entire stratum of the population is possible, for example, through a riot or revolution. In other cases, mobility is possible for one individual. The final position depends on the knowledge, acquired skills and human activity.
In fact, the differences between traditional, industrial and post-industrial types of society are enormous. Sociologists and philosophers are engaged in the study of their formation and stages of development.
It has been proven that society is constantly evolving. The development of society can proceed in two directions and take three definite forms.
Directions of development of society
It is customary to distinguish social progress (the tendency of development from a lower level of the material state of society and the spiritual evolution of a person to a higher one) and regression (the opposite of progress: the transition from a more developed state to a less developed one).
If you demonstrate the development of society graphically, you will get a broken line (where the ups and downs will be displayed, for example, the period of fascism - the stage of social regression).
Society is a complex and multifaceted mechanism, in connection with which progress can be traced in one of its areas, while regression in another.
So, if we turn to historical facts, we can clearly see technical progress (the transition from primitive labor tools to the most complex CNC machines, from pack animals to trains, cars, airplanes, etc.). but back side medals (regression) - the destruction of natural resources, the undermining of the natural environment of a person, etc.
Social progress criteria
There are six of them:
- the establishment of democracy;
- growth in the well-being of the population and its social security;
- improving interpersonal relationships;
- the growth of spirituality and the ethical component of society;
- weakening interpersonal confrontation;
- the measure of freedom provided to the individual by society (the degree of individual freedom guaranteed by the society).
Forms of social development
The most common is evolution (smooth, gradual changes in the life of society, occurring in a natural way). Features of her character: gradualness, continuity, ascent (for example, scientific and technical evolution).
The second form of social development is revolution (rapid, profound changes; radical revolution in social life). The nature of revolutionary changes is radical and fundamental.
Revolutions can be:
- short-term or long-term;
- within one or several states;
- within one or several spheres.
If these changes affect all existing public areas (politics, daily life, economy, culture, social organization), then the revolution is called social. Such changes cause strong emotionality, mass activity of the entire population (for example, such Russian revolutions, like October, February).
The third form of social development is reforms (a set of measures aimed at transforming specific aspects of society, for example, economic reform or reform in the field of education).
D. Bell's systematic model of typologies of social development
This American sociologist has distinguished world history at the stage (types) regarding the development of society:
- industrial;
- post-industrial.
The transition from one stage to another is accompanied by a change in technology, form of ownership, political regime, lifestyle, social structure of society, mode of production, social institutions, culture, population.
Pre-industrial society: characteristics
Simple and complex societies are distinguished here. A pre-industrial society (simple) is a society without social inequality and division into strata or classes, as well as without commodity-money relations and the state apparatus.
In primitive times, gatherers, hunters, and then early pastoralists and farmers lived in a simple society.
The social structure of a pre-industrial society (simple) has the following features:
- small size of the association;
- the primitive level of development of technology and division of labor;
- egalitarianism (economic, political, social equality);
- priority of blood family ties.
Evolutionary stages of simple societies
- groups (local);
- communities (primitive).
The second stage has two periods:
- tribal community;
- neighbor's.
The transition from clan communities to neighboring ones became possible thanks to a sedentary lifestyle: groups blood relatives they settled not far from each other and were united both by marriages and by mutual assistance with regards to joint territories, by the labor corporation.
Thus, pre-industrial society is characterized by the gradual emergence of the family, the emergence of a division of labor (between sexes, between ages), and the emergence of social norms that are taboo (absolute prohibitions).
Transitional form from a simple society to a complex one
Chiefdom is a hierarchical structure of a system of people that does not have a ramified administrative apparatus, which is an integral part of a mature state.
According to the size criterion, this is a large association (more than a tribe). It already includes truck farming without arable farming and a surplus product without surplus. Gradually, there is a stratification into rich and poor, noble and simple. The number of management levels is 2-10 and more. Modern examples of chiefdoms are: New Guinea, Tropical Africa and Polynesia.
Complex societies of the pre-industrial type
The final stage in the evolution of simple societies, as well as the prologue to complex ones, was the Neolithic Revolution. A complex (pre-industrial) society is characterized by the emergence of a surplus product, social inequality and stratification (castes, classes, slavery, estates), commodity-money relations, a ramified, specialized management apparatus.
It is usually numerous (hundreds of thousands - hundreds of millions of people). Within the framework of complex society consanguineous, personal relationships are replaced by unrelated, impersonal ones (this is especially evident in cities, when even the roommates may be unfamiliar).
Social ranks are being replaced by social stratification. As a rule, a pre-industrial society (complex) is referred to as stratified due to the fact that the strata are numerous, and the groups include only those who are not related by kinship with the ruling class.
Signs of a Complex Society by W. Child
There are at least eight of them. The signs of a pre-industrial society (complex) are as follows:
- People are settled in the cities.
- Non-agricultural labor specialization is developing.
- A surplus product appears and accumulates.
- Clear class distances emerge.
- Customary law is replaced by legal law.
- Large-scale public works such as irrigation are emerging, and pyramids are also emerging.
- Overseas trade appears.
- Writing, mathematics and an elite culture emerged.
Despite the fact that the agrarian society (pre-industrial) is characterized by the emergence of a large number of cities, most of the population lived in the countryside (a closed territorial peasant community, conducting a subsistence economy, which is weakly connected with the market). The village is oriented towards religious values and traditional way of life.
Characteristic features of a pre-industrial society
The following features of a traditional society are distinguished:
- Agriculture occupies a dominant position, dominated by manual technologies (using the energy of animals and people).
- A significant proportion of the population is rural.
- Production is focused on personal consumption, and therefore market relations are underdeveloped.
- Caste or class system of population classification.
- Low level of social mobility.
- Large patriarchal families.
- Social change is proceeding at a slow pace.
- Priority is given to the religious and mythological worldview.
- Uniformity of values and norms.
- Sacralized, authoritarian political power.
These are schematic and simplified features of a traditional society.
Industrial type of society
The transition to this type was due to two global processes:
- industrialization (creation of large-scale machine production);
- urbanization (resettlement of people from villages to cities, as well as the promotion of urban life values in all segments of the population).
Industrial society(originated in the 18th century) - the child of two revolutions - political (Great French revolution) and economic (English Industrial Revolution). The result of the first is economic freedoms, a new social stratification, and the second is a new political form(democracy), political freedom.
Feudalism was replaced by capitalism. In everyday life, the concept of "industrialization" has become firmly established. Its flagship is England. This country is the birthplace of machine production, new legislation and free enterprise.
Industrialization is interpreted as the use of scientific knowledge regarding industrial technology, the discovery of fundamentally new sources of energy, which made it possible to carry out all the work previously carried out by people or draft animals.
Thanks to the transition to industry, a small proportion of the population was able to feed a significant number of people without land cultivation.
Compared to agricultural states and empires, industrial countries are more numerous (tens, hundreds of millions of people). These are the so-called highly urbanized societies (cities began to play a dominant role).
Signs of an industrial society:
- industrialization;
- class antagonism;
- representative democracy;
- urbanization;
- division of society into classes;
- transfer of power to the owners;
- insignificant social mobility.
Thus, we can say that pre-industrial and industrial societies are actually different social worlds... This transition, obviously, could not be easy or fast. Western societies, so to speak, pioneers of modernization, took more than one century to implement this process.
Post-industrial society
It gives priority to the service sector, which prevails over industry and agriculture. The social structure of post-industrial society is shifting in favor of those employed in the above-mentioned sphere, and new elites are also emerging: scientists and technocrats.
This type of society is characterized as "post-class" due to the fact that the disintegration of consolidated social structures and identities that are so characteristic of an industrial society is traced in it.
Industrial and post-industrial society: distinctive features
The main characteristics of modern and post-modern society are shown in the table below.
Characteristic | Modern society | Fast modern society |
1. The basis of public welfare | ||
2. Mass class | Managers, employees |
|
3. Social structure | "Grainy", status | "Cellular", functional |
4. Ideology | Sociocentrism | Humanism |
5. Technical basis | Industrial | Information |
6. Leading industry | Industry | |
7. Principle of management and organization | Management | Agreement |
8. Political regime | Self-government, direct democracy |
|
9. Religion | Small denominations |
Thus, both industrial and post-industrial society is modern types... The main distinguishing feature of the latter is that a person is not viewed as primarily an “economic man”. Post-industrial society is a “post-labor”, “post-economic” society (the economic subsystem loses its decisive importance; labor is not the basis of social relations).
Comparative characteristics of the considered types of development of society
Let's trace the main differences that have a traditional, industrial and post-industrial society. Comparative characteristics is presented in the table.
Comparison criterion | Pre-industrial (traditional) | Industrial | Postindustrial |
1. The main production factor | |||
2. Main production product | Food | Industrial goods | |
3. Manufacturing features | Exclusively manual labor | Widespread use of technologies and mechanisms | Computerization of society, automation of production |
4. Specificity of labor | Individuality | Dominance of standard activities | Encouraging creativity |
5. Structure of employment of the population | Agricultural - approximately 75% | Agriculture - about 10%, industry - 75% | Agriculture - 3%, industry - 33%, services - 66% |
6. Priority type of export | Mainly raw materials | Manufactured products | |
7 social structure | Classes, estates, castes included in the collective, their isolation; negligible social mobility | Classes, their mobility; simplification of the existing social. structures | Maintaining the existing social differentiation; an increase in the size of the middle class; professional differentiation based on qualifications and level of knowledge |
8. Average life expectancy | 40 to 50 years old | Up to 70 years old and above | Over 70 years |
9. The degree of human influence on the environment | Uncontrolled, local | Uncontrolled, global | Controlled, global |
10. Relations with other states | Minor | Strong relationship | Complete openness of society |
11. Political sphere | Most often, monarchical forms of government, lack of political freedoms, power is above the law | Political freedoms, equality before the law, democratic reforms | Political pluralism, strong civil society, emergence of a new democratic form |
So, it is worth recalling once again the three types of socium development: traditional, industrial and post-industrial society.
In the modern world, there are various forms of societies that differ significantly from each other in many respects. In the same way, in the history of mankind, you can see that there were different types societies.
Typology of society
We looked at society from the inside: its structural elements. But if we approach the analysis of society as an integral organism, but one of many, we will see that in the modern world there are different types societies that differ sharply among themselves in many ways. A retrospective view shows that society has also gone through various stages in its development.
It is known that any living, naturally developing organism, during the time from its inception to the end of its existence, goes through a number of stages, which, in essence, are the same for all organisms belonging to this kind, regardless of the specific conditions of their life. Probably, this statement is to a certain extent true for social communities, considered as a whole.
The typology of society is determining whether,
a) what steps humanity goes through in its historical development;
b) what forms of modern society exist.
What criteria can be used to define historical types, as well as various forms of modern society? Different sociologists have approached this problem in different ways.
So, English sociologist E. Giddens subdivides societies into the main way of earning a livelihood and allocates the following types societies.
· Hunter-gatherer societies consist of a small number of people who support their existence by hunting, fishing and gathering edible plants. Inequality in these societies is weak; differences in social status are determined by age and sex (the time of existence - from 50,000 BC to the present time, although now they are on the verge of complete disappearance).
At the heart of agricultural societies- small rural communities; there are no cities. The main way of obtaining a livelihood is agriculture, sometimes supplemented by hunting and gathering. These societies are more unequal than hunter-gatherers; these societies are headed by leaders. (the time of their existence - from 12,000 BC to the present time. Today, most of them are part of larger political formations and are gradually losing their specific character).
· Pastoralist societies are based on breeding domestic animals to meet material needs. The sizes of such societies range from a few hundred to thousands of people. These societies are usually characterized by strong inequalities. They are ruled by chiefs or military leaders. The same length of time as agricultural societies. Today pastoralist societies are also part of the larger states; and their traditional way of life is destroyed
· Traditional states, or Civilizations... In these societies, agriculture is still the basis of the economic system, but there are cities in which trade and production are concentrated. Among the traditional states, there are very large ones, with a multimillion population, although their size is usually small in comparison with large industrial countries. Traditional states have a special government apparatus headed by a king or emperor. Significant inequalities exist between the various classes (dating from about 6000 BC to the nineteenth century). To this day, traditional states have completely disappeared from the face of the earth. Although hunter-gatherer tribes, as well as pastoral and agricultural communities, continue to exist today, they can only be found in isolated areas. The cause of the destruction of societies that defined the entire human history two centuries ago was industrialization - the emergence of machine production based on the use of inanimate energy sources (such as steam and electricity). Industrial societies are in many ways fundamentally different from any of the previous types of social structure, and their development has led to consequences far beyond the borders of their European homeland.
· Industrial (industrial) societies are based on industrial production, with a significant role assigned to free enterprise. Only a small part of the population is employed in agriculture; the overwhelming majority of people live in cities. There is significant class inequality, albeit less pronounced than in traditional states. These societies constitute special political formations, or national states (the time of existence - from the eighteenth century to the present).
Industrial society - modern society. Until now, in relation to modern societies, they use their division into countries of the first, second and third world.
Ø Term first world denotes industrialized countries in Europe, Australia, Asia, and the United States and Japan. Almost all countries of the first world adopted a multiparty parliamentary system of government.
Ø Countries second world called the industrial societies that were part of the socialist camp (today these countries include societies with an economy in transition, i.e. developing from a centralized state to a market system).
Ø Countries third world, in which most of the world's population lives, almost all were formerly colonies. These are societies in which most of the population is engaged in agriculture, lives in rural areas and uses mainly traditional production methods. However, some of the agricultural products are sold on the world market. The level of industrialization of the third world countries is low, the majority of the population is very poor. In some third world countries there is a system of free enterprise, in others - central planning.
The best known are two approaches to the typology of society: formational and civilizational.
A socio-economic formation is a historically defined type of society based on a specific mode of production.
Mode of production- This is one of the central concepts in Marxist sociology, characterizing a certain level of development of the entire complex of social relations. The production method is the totality of production relations and productive forces. In order to obtain means of livelihood (to produce them), people must unite, cooperate, enter into certain relationships for joint activities, which are called production. Productive forces - it is a combination of people with a set of material resources in work: raw materials, tools, equipment, tools, buildings and structures. This the set of material elements forms the means of production. The main component of the productive forces are of course themselves people (personality element) with their knowledge, skills and abilities.
The productive forces are the most flexible, mobile, continuously developing part this unity. Industrial relations are more inert, are inactive, slow in their change, however, they form that shell, a nutrient medium, in which the productive forces develop. The indissoluble unity of the productive forces and production relations is called the mode of production, since it indicates in what way the personal element of the productive forces is combined with the material, thereby forming a specific method of obtaining material goods inherent in a given level of development of society.
On the foundation basis (industrial relations) grows up superstructure. It is, in fact, the totality of all other relations, "remaining after the deduction of production", and containing many different institutions, such as the state, family, religion or various types of ideologies that exist in society. The main specificity of the Marxist position proceeds from the assertion that the nature of the superstructure is determined by the nature of the base.
A historically defined stage in the development of a given society, which is characterized by a specific mode of production and the corresponding superstructure, is called socio-economic formation.
A change in production methods(and the transition from one socio-economic formation to another) is caused by antagonism between outdated industrial relations and productive forces, which becomes cramped in these old frames, and they break.
Based on the formational approach, all human history is divided into five socio-economic formations:
Primitive,
Slave-owning,
Feudal,
Capitalist,
· Communist (including socialist society as its initial, first phase).
Primitive communal system (or primitive societies). Here the production method is characterized by:
1) an extremely low level of development of productive forces, all labor is necessary; everything that is produced is consumed without a remainder, without forming any surplus, which means that it does not give an opportunity either to make savings or to carry out exchange operations;
2) elementary production relations are based on public (more precisely, communal) ownership of the means of production; people cannot appear who could afford to professionally engage in management, science, religious rituals, etc .;
3) it makes no sense to force the prisoners to work forcibly: they will use everything they produce without a trace.
Slavery:
1) the level of development of the productive forces makes it possible to profitably convert prisoners into slaves;
2) the emergence of a surplus product creates the material prerequisites for the emergence of the state and for professional engagement in religious activities, science and art (for a certain part of the population);
3) slavery as a social institution is defined as a form of property that gives one person the right to own another person.
Feudalism. For the most advanced feudal societies the following features are characteristic:
1) relations of the lord-vassal type;
2) monarchical form board;
3) land tenure based on the granting of feudal estates (feuds) in exchange for service, primarily military;
4) the existence of private armies;
5) certain rights of landowners in relation to serfs;
6) the main object of property in the feudal socio-economic formation is land.
Capitalism. This type of economic organization is distinguished by the following features:
1) the presence of private property;
2) making a profit is the main motive for economic activity;
3) market economy;
4) appropriation of profits by capital owners;
5) providing the labor process with workers who act as free agents of production.
Communism. More like a doctrine than a practice, this concept refers to societies in which absent:
1) private property;
2) social classes and the state;
3) compulsory ("enslaving man") division of labor;
4) commodity-money relations.
Karl Marx argued that communist societies would gradually take shape after the revolutionary overthrow of capitalist societies.
The criterion of progress, according to Marx, is:
- the level of development of productive forces and a consistent increase in the share of surplus labor in the total volume of labor;
- a consistent increase in the degree of freedom of a man of labor during the transition from one formation to another.
The formative approach that Marx relied on in his analysis of society has historically been justified.
An approach based on the analysis of civilizational revolutions meets the needs of a more adequate understanding of modern society. Civilizational approach more versatile than formational. The development of civilizations is a more powerful, significant, long-term process than a change in formations. In modern sociology, on the issue of types of society, it is not so much the Marxian concept of the sequential change of socio-economic formations that prevails as "triadic" scheme - types of agrarian, industrial and post-industrial civilization. Unlike the formational typology of society, which is based on economic structures, certain industrial relations, the concept of "civilization" fixes attention not only on the economic and technological side, but on the totality of all forms of society's life - material and economic, political, cultural, moral, religious , aesthetic. In the civilization scheme, the focus is on Not only the most fundamental structure of social and historical activity - technology, but to a greater extent - a set of cultural patterns, values, goals, motives, ideals.
The concept of "civilization" has essential in the classification of types of society. In history stand out civilizational revolutions:
agrarian(it took place 6-8 thousand years ago and carried out the transition of mankind from consumer to productive activity;
industrial(XVII century);
scientific and technical (mid-twentieth century);
informational(modern).
Hence, in sociology, stable is division of societies into:
- pre-industrial (agricultural) or traditional(in the modern sense, backward, basically agricultural, primitive, conservative, closed, not free societies);
- industrial, man-made(i.e., having a developed industrial basis, dynamic, flexible, free and open in the organization of social life);
- postindustrial(that is, societies of the most developed countries, the production basis of which is the use of the achievements of scientific, technical and scientific and technological revolutions and in which, due to a sharp increase in the role and significance of the latest science and information, significant structural social changes have occurred).
Under traditional civilization understand pre-capitalist (pre-industrial) social structures of the agrarian type, in whose culture the main method of social regulation is tradition. Traditional civilization covers not only the periods of antiquity and the Middle Ages, this type of social organization has survived to our times. Many countries of the so-called "third world" are inherent in the features of a traditional society. Its characteristic signs are:
- the agrarian orientation of the economy and the extensive type of its development;
- a high level of dependence on natural climatic, geographical conditions of life;
- conservatism in social relations and lifestyle; orientation not towards development, but towards the reconstruction and preservation of the established order and existing structures of social life;
- negative attitude to any innovations (innovations);
- extensive and cyclical type of development;
- priority of traditions, established norms, customs, authority;
- a high level of human dependence on social group and tight social control;
- a sharp limitation of individual freedom.
Idea industrial society developed in the 50-60s by such well-known sociologists of the United States and Western Europe as R. Darendorf, R. Aron, W. Rostow, D. Bell and others. Industrial society theories are today being combined with technocratic concepts as well as with the theory of convergence.
The first concept of an industrial society was put forward by a French scientist Jean Fourastier in the book "The Great Hope of the 20th Century" (1949). The term "traditional society" was borrowed by him from the German sociologist M. Weber, the term "industrial society" - from A. Saint-Simon. In the history of mankind, Furastier singled out two main stages:
· The period of traditional society (from the Neolithic to 1750-1800);
· The period of industrial society (from 1750-1800 to the present).
J. Fourastier pays the main attention to the industrial society, which, in his opinion, is fundamentally different from the traditional one.
An industrial society, in contrast to a traditional one, is a dynamically developing, progressive society. The source of its development is technical progress. And this progress changes not only production, but society as a whole. It provides not only a significant overall improvement in living standards, but also an equalization of incomes for all strata of society. As a result, disadvantaged classes disappear in an industrial society. Technological progress in itself is everything. social problems, which makes a social revolution unnecessary. Specified work J. Fourastier breathes optimism.
The whole idea of an industrial society for a long time did not receive wide distribution. She became famous only after the appearance of the works of another French thinker - Raymond Arona, which is often attributed to her authorship. R. Aron, like J. Fourastier, distinguished two main stadial types of human society: traditional (agrarian) and industrial (rational). The first of them is characterized by the dominance of agriculture and animal husbandry, subsistence farming, the existence of estates, an authoritarian mode of government, for the second - the domination of industrial production, the market, equality of citizens before the law and democracy.
The transition from a traditional society to an industrial one was a tremendous progress in every way. Industrial (technogenic) civilization formed on the ruins of medieval society. It was based on the development of mass machine production.
Historically the emergence of an industrial society was associated with such processes:
- the creation of nation states rallying around common language and culture;
- the commercialization of production and the disappearance of the subsistence economy;
- the dominance of machine production and the reorganization of production at the factory;
- the decline in the share of the working class employed in agricultural production;
- urbanization of society;
- the growth of mass literacy;
- Granting electoral rights to the population and institutionalizing politics around mass parties.
In the modern world, there are various types of societies that differ among themselves in many ways, both explicit (language of communication, culture, geographic location, size, etc.) and hidden (degree social integration, level of stability, etc.). Scientific classification involves the selection of the most essential, typical features that distinguish some features from others and unite societies of the same group. The complexity of social systems, called societies, determines both the variety of their specific manifestations and the absence of a single universal criterion on the basis of which they could be classified.
In the middle of the 19th century, K. Marx proposed a typology of societies, which was based on the mode of production of material goods and production relations - primarily property relations. He divided all societies into 5 main types (according to the type of socio-economic formations): primitive communal, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist and communist (the initial phase is a socialist society).
Another typology divides all societies into simple and complex. The criterion is the number of management levels and the degree of social differentiation (stratification). A simple society is a society in which the constituent parts are homogeneous, there are no rich and poor, leaders and subordinates, the structure and functions here are poorly differentiated and can easily be interchanged. These are the primitive tribes that have survived in some places to this day.
A complex society is a society with highly differentiated structures and functions, interrelated and interdependent from each other, which necessitates their coordination.
K. Popper distinguishes between two types of societies: closed and open. The differences between them are based on a number of factors, and, above all, the relationship between social control and individual freedom. A closed society is characterized by a static social structure, limited mobility, immunity to innovations, traditionalism, dogmatic authoritarian ideology, collectivism. To this type of society K. Popper attributed Sparta, Prussia, Tsarist Russia, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union of the Stalin era. An open society is characterized by a dynamic social structure, high mobility, innovation, criticism, individualism and democratic pluralistic ideology. K. Popper considered ancient Athens and modern Western democracies to be examples of open societies.
Stable and widespread is the division of societies into traditional, industrial and post-industrial, proposed by the American sociologist D. Bell on the basis of a change in the technological basis - the improvement of the means of production and knowledge.
Traditional (pre-industrial) society is a society with an agrarian way of life, with a predominance of natural economy, class hierarchy, sedentary structures and a method of socio-cultural regulation based on tradition. It is characterized by manual labor, extremely low rates of development of production, which can satisfy the needs of people only at a minimum level. It is extremely inertial, therefore it is not receptive to innovations. The behavior of individuals in such a society is regulated by customs, norms, and social institutions. Customs, norms, institutions, consecrated by traditions, are considered unshakable, not allowing even the thought of changing them. Carrying out its integrative function, culture and social institutions suppress any manifestation of personal freedom, which is a necessary condition for the gradual renewal of society.
The term industrial society was introduced by A. Saint-Simon, emphasizing its new technical basis. Industrial society - (in modern terms) is a complex society, with an industry-based way of managing, with flexible, dynamic and modifying structures, a way of socio-cultural regulation based on a combination of individual freedom and the interests of society. These societies are characterized by a developed division of labor, the development of mass media, urbanization, etc.
Post-industrial society (sometimes called information society) is a society developed on an information basis: the extraction (in traditional societies) and processing (in industrial societies) of natural products are replaced by the acquisition and processing of information, as well as preferential development (instead of agriculture in traditional societies and industry in industrial) service sectors. As a result, the structure of employment and the ratio of various professional and qualification groups are changing. According to forecasts, already at the beginning of the 21st century in advanced countries, half of the workforce will be employed in the field of information, a quarter - in the field of material production, and a quarter - in the production of services, including information.
The change in the technological basis also affects the organization of the entire system of social ties and relations. If in an industrial society the mass class was made up of workers, then in a postindustrial society it was white-collar workers and managers. At the same time, the significance of class differentiation is weakening, instead of a status ("grainy") social structure, a functional ("ready-made") structure is being formed. Instead of leadership, the principle of governance is being replaced by coordination, and representative democracy is being replaced by direct democracy and self-government. As a result, instead of a hierarchy of structures, a new type of network organization is created, focused on rapid change depending on the situation.
True, at the same time, some sociologists pay attention to the contradictory possibilities, on the one hand, to ensure a higher level of individual freedom in the information society, and on the other, to the emergence of new, more hidden and therefore more dangerous forms of social control over it.
In conclusion, it should be noted that, in addition to those considered, there are other classifications of societies in modern sociology. It all depends on what criterion will be used as the basis for this classification.
Traditional society (pre-industrial) is the longest of the three stages, with a history spanning thousands of years. Most of history humanity has spent in a traditional society. This is a society with an agrarian way of life, little dynamic social structures and a tradition-based method of socio-cultural regulation. In a traditional society, the main producer is not man, but nature. Subsistence farming prevails - the absolute majority of the population (over 90%) is engaged in agriculture; apply simple technologies, and therefore - the division of labor is simple. This society is characterized by inertia, low perception of innovations. To use Marxist terminology, traditional society is a primitive, slave-owning, feudal society.
Industrial society
An industrial society is characterized by machine production, a national economic system, and a free market. This type of society emerged relatively recently - starting from the eighteenth century. As a result of the industrial revolution, which first swept England and Holland, and then the rest of the world. In Ukraine, the industrial revolution began around the middle of the 19th century. The essence of the industrial revolution is the transition from manual to machine production, from manufacture to factory. New sources of energy are being mastered: if earlier humanity used mainly the energy of muscles, less often - water and wind, then with the beginning of the industrial revolution, they begin to use steam energy, and later - diesel engines, internal combustion engines, and electricity. In an industrial society, the task, which was the main one for a traditional society - to feed people and provide them with the things necessary for life, has receded into the background. Now only 5-10% of people employed in agriculture produce enough food for the whole society.
Industrialization leads to increased growth of cities, the national liberal-democratic state is strengthening, industry, education, and the service sector are developing. New specialized social statuses appear ("worker", "engineer", "railroad", etc.), class barriers disappear - no longer noble origin or family ties are the basis for defining a person in the social hierarchy, but her personal actions. In a traditional society, a nobleman, poorer, remained a nobleman, and a rich merchant was still the face of an "ignoble" one. In an industrial society, everyone gains their status by personal merit - the capitalist, has gone bankrupt, is no longer a capitalist, and yesterday's shoe cleaner can become the owner of a large company and take high position in society. Social mobility is growing, and human opportunities are being leveled due to the universal accessibility of education.
In an industrial society, the complexity of the system social connections leads to the formalization of human relations, which in most cases become depersonalized. A modern city dweller communicates with more people in a week than his distant rural ancestor in his entire life. Therefore, people communicate through their role and status "masks": not as a specific individual with a specific individual, each of whom is endowed with certain individual human qualities, but as a Teacher and a student, or a Policeman and a Pedestrian, or a Director and an Employee ("I am telling you as a specialist .. . "," it is not accepted in our country ... "," the professor said ... ").
Post-industrial society
Postindustrial society (the term was proposed by Daniel Bell in 1962.). At one time, D. Bell headed the 2000 Commission, created by the decision of the US Congress. The task of this commission was to develop forecasts of the socio-economic development of the United States in the third millennium. Based on the research carried out by the commission, Daniel Bell, together with other authors, wrote the book "America in 2000." In this book, in particular, it was necessary that a new stage begins for the industrial society human history, which will be based on the achievements of scientific and technological progress. This stage is called "postindustrial" by Daniel Bell.
In the second half of the XX century. in the most developed countries of the world, such as the USA, Western Europe, Japan, the importance of knowledge and information is sharply increasing. The dynamics of updating information has become so high that already in the 70s. XX century sociologists have concluded (as time has shown - correct) that in the XXI century. Illiterate can be considered not those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, forget the unnecessary, and learn again.
In connection with the growing weight of knowledge and information, science is turning into a direct productive force of society - an increasing part of the incomes of advanced countries does not come from the sale of industrial products, but from trade in new technologies and science-intensive and information products (for example: cinema, television programs, computer programs, etc. etc.). In a post-industrial society, the entire spiritual superstructure is integrated into the production system and, thereby, the dualism of the material and the ideal is overcome. If the industrial society was economically centric, then the post-industrial society is characterized by culture-centricity: the role of the "human factor" and the entire system of socio-humanitarian knowledge directed at it is growing. This, of course, does not mean that the post-industrial society denies the basic components of the industrial one (highly developed industry, labor discipline, highly qualified personnel). As noted by Daniel Bell, "a post-industrial society does not replace an industrial one, just as an industrial society does not eliminate the agrarian sector of the economy." But a person in a post-industrial society ceases to be an "economic person". New, “post materialistic” values become dominant for it (Table 4.1).
The first "entry into the public arena" of a person for whom "post materialistic values" are priority, consider (G. Marcuse, S. Ayerman) a youth riot in the late 60s of the XX century, which declared the death of the Protestant work ethic as moral foundations of Western industrial civilization.
Table 4.1. Comparison of industrial and post-industrial society
Scientists have fruitfully worked on the development of the concept of a post-industrial society: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alvin Toffler, Aron, Kenneg Boulding, Walt Rostow and others. True, some of them used own terms for the name of a new type of society that is replacing the industrial one. Kenneth Boulding calls it "post-civilization." Zbigniew Brzezinski prefers the term "technotronic society", thereby emphasizing the decisive importance in the new society of electronics and communications. Alvin Toffler calls it "superindustrial society", referring to it as a complex mobile society based on highly advanced technology and a post-materialistic value system.
Alvin Toffler in 1970. He wrote: "The inhabitants of the Earth are divided not only on racial, ideological or religious grounds, but also, in a sense, and in time. Studying the modern population of the planet, we find a small group of people who still live by hunting and fishing. Others, their majority , rely on agriculture. They live much the same way as their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. These two groups together make up about 70% of the world's population. They are people of the past.
More than 25% of the world's population lives in industrialized countries. They live modern life... They are a product of the first half of the 20th century. formed by mechanization and mass education, brought up on the memories of the agro-industrial past of their country. They are modern people.
The remaining 2-3% of the world's population can be called neither people of the past, nor people of the present. Since in the main centers of technological and cultural change, in New York, London, Tokyo, millions of people can be said to be living in the future. These pioneers, without realizing it, live the way others will live tomorrow. They are the scouts of humanity, the first citizens of a super-industrial society. "
We can add only one thing to Toffler: today, almost 40 years later, more than 40% of humanity already lives in a society that he called super-industrial.
The transition from industrial to post-industrial society is determined by the following factors:
a change in the economic sphere: the transition from a commodity-oriented economy to an economy oriented towards the services and information sector. Moreover, we are talking primarily about highly qualified services, such as the development and general availability of banking services, the development of mass media and the general availability of information, health care, education, social care, and only secondarily - services provided to individual clients. In the mid-90s. XX century in the field of production and in the field of service and provision information services was, respectively, employed: in the United States - 25% and 70% of the working population; in Germany - 40% and 55%; in Japan - 36% and 60%); which is more - even in the production sphere in countries with a post-industrial economy, representatives of intellectual work, production organizers, technical intelligentsia and administrative personnel make up about 60% of all employed;
a change in the social structure of society (division on the basis of professionalism is replacing class division). For example, Daniel Bell believes that the capitalist class is disappearing in a post-industrial society, and its place is being taken by a new ruling elite, which possesses high level education and knowledge;
central place of theoretical knowledge in determining the main vectors of development of society. The main conflict, therefore, in this society does not lie between labor and capital, but between knowledge and incompetence. The importance of higher educational institutions: the university entered an industrial enterprise, the main institution of the industrial era. Under the new conditions, higher education has at least two main tasks: to create theories, knowledge, which become the main factor of social change, and also to educate advisers and experts;
the creation of new intelligent technologies (among others, for example, genetic engineering, cloning, new agricultural technologies, etc.).
Test questions and tasks
1. Give a definition of the term "society" and describe its main features.
2. Why is society considered a self-reproducible system?
3. How does the systemic-mechanical approach to understanding society differ from the systemic-organic one?
4. Describe the essence of the synthetic approach to understanding society.
5. What is the difference between the traditional community and the modern society (terms of F. Tionnis)?
6. Describe the main theories of the origin of society.
7. What is "anomie"? Describe the main features of this state of society.
8. How does R. Merton's theory of anomie differ from E. Durkheim's theory of anomie?
9. Explain the difference between social progress and social evolution.
10. What is the difference between social reform and revolution? Do you know the types of social revolutions?
11. Name the criteria of the typology of societies known to you.
12. Describe the Marxist concept of typology of societies.
13. Compare traditional and industrial societies.
14. Describe the post-industrial society.
15. Compare post-industrial and industrial societies.