Dictionaries define a socio-economic formation as a historically defined type of society based on a certain mode of production. The mode of production is one of the central concepts in Marxist sociology, characterizing a certain level of development of the entire complex of social relations. Karl Marx worked out his main idea of ​​the natural-historical development of society by isolating the economic sphere from various spheres of social life and giving it special importance - as the main one, to a certain extent determining all the others, and of all types of social relations, he paid priority attention to relations of production - those , which people enter into about not only the production of material goods, but also their distribution and consumption.

The logic here is quite simple and convincing: the main and determining factor in the life of any society is the obtaining of means of subsistence, without which no other relations between people will simply be able to develop - neither spiritual, nor ethical, nor political - because without these means there will be no of people. And in order to obtain means of subsistence (to produce them), people must unite, cooperate, enter into certain relations for joint activities, which are called production relations.

According to Marx's analytical scheme, the mode of production includes the following components. The productive forces that form the core of the economic sphere are a generalized name for the connection of people with the means of production, i.e., with the totality of material resources that are in work: raw materials, tools, equipment, tools, buildings and structures used in the production of goods. The main component of the productive forces are, of course, the people themselves with their knowledge, skills and habits, which allow them, using the means of production, from the objects of the natural world to produce objects intended directly to satisfy human needs - their own or other people.

The productive forces are the most flexible, mobile, continuously developing part of this unity. This is understandable: the knowledge and skills of people are constantly growing, new discoveries and inventions appear, improving, in turn, the tools of labor. The relations of production are more inert, inactive, slow in their change, but it is they that form the shell, the nutrient medium in which the productive forces develop. The inseparable unity of the productive forces and production relations is called the basis, since it serves as a kind of foundation, support for the existence of society.

A superstructure grows on the foundation of the base. It is the totality of all other social relations "remaining minus production", 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 is the assertion that the nature of the superstructure is determined by the nature of the basis. As the nature of the basis (the deep nature of production relations) changes, so does the nature of the superstructure. Because, for example, the political structure of a feudal society differs from the political structure of a capitalist state, because the economic life of these two societies is essentially different and requires different methods of state influence on the economy, different legislative systems, ideological convictions, etc.

A historically defined stage in the development of a given society, which is characterized by a specific mode of production (including its corresponding superstructure), is called a socio-economic formation. The change of modes of production and the transition from one socio-economic formation to another is caused by the antagonism between obsolete relations of production and continuously developing productive forces, which become crowded within these old frameworks, and they break it like a grown chick breaks the shell inside which it developed.

The base-and-superstructure model has breathed life into many teachings, ranging from eighteenth-century romanticism to the analysis of family structure in modern society. The predominant form that these teachings took was of a class-theoretical character. That is, the relations of production in the base were seen as relations between social classes (say, between workers and capitalists), and hence the assertion that the base determines the superstructure means that the nature of the superstructure is largely determined by the economic interests of the dominant social class. Such an emphasis on classes, as it were, "removed" the question of the impersonal action of economic laws.

The metaphor of base and superstructure and the socio-economic structure they define has proved to be a fruitful analytical tool. But it has also generated a great deal of controversy both within and outside Marxism. One of the points of the problem is the definition of industrial relations. Since their core is the ownership of the means of production, they must inevitably include legal definitions, and this model defines them as superstructural. Because of this, the analytical separation of the base and the superstructure seems difficult.

An important subject of controversy around the basis and superstructure model was the point of view that the basis allegedly rigidly determines the superstructure. A number of critics argue that this model entails economic determinism. However, it should be borne in mind that K. Marx and F. Engels themselves never adhered to such a doctrine. First, they understood that many elements of the superstructure can be relatively autonomous from the basis and have their own laws of development. Secondly, they argued that the superstructure not only interacts with the base, but also quite actively influences it.

So, the historical period of development of a particular society, during which this mode of production dominates, is called the socio-economic formation. The introduction of this concept into the sociological analysis of the periodization of societies has a number of advantages.

♦ The formational approach makes it possible to distinguish one period of the development of society from another according to fairly clear criteria.

♦ Using the formational approach, one can find common essential features in the life of various societies (countries and peoples) that are at the same stage of development even in different historical periods, and vice versa - to find explanations for the differences in the development of two societies coexisting in the same period , but with different levels of development due to differences in production methods.

♦ The formational approach allows us to consider society as a single social organism, that is, to analyze all social phenomena on the basis of the mode of production in organic unity and interaction.

♦ The formational approach makes it possible to reduce the aspirations and actions of individuals to the actions of large masses of people.

Based on the formational approach, the entire human history is divided into five socio-economic formations. However, before proceeding to their direct consideration, one should pay attention to the backbone features that determine the parameters of each of the formations.

The first of these refers to the structure of labor as defined by Marx in his Capital. According to the labor theory of value, the goal of any economic system is to create use values, that is, useful things. However, in many economies (especially capitalist ones), people produce things not so much for their own use, but in exchange for other goods. All commodities are produced by labor, and ultimately it is the labor time involved in their production that determines the value of exchange.

The working time of an employee can be conditionally divided into two periods. During the first, he produces commodities whose value is equal to the value of his existence - this is necessary labor. “The second period of labor is that during which the worker works already beyond the limits of necessary labor, although it costs him labor, the expenditure of labor power, however, does not form any value for the worker. It forms surplus value.” Suppose the working day is ten hours long. During part of it - say eight hours - the worker will produce commodities, the value of which is equal to the cost of his existence (subsistence). During the remaining two hours, the worker will create surplus value, which is appropriated by the owner of the means of production. And this is the second system-forming feature of the socio-economic formation.

The worker himself may be the owner, but the more developed the society, the less likely it is; in most socio-economic formations known to us, the means of production are owned not by the one who directly works with the help of them, but by someone else - a slave owner, feudal lord, capitalist. It should be noted that it is surplus value that is the basis, firstly, of private property, and secondly, of market relations.

Thus, we can single out the system-forming features of socio-economic formations that are of interest to us.

The first of these is the ratio between necessary and surplus labor, the most typical for this formation. This ratio depends decisively on the level of development of the productive forces, and above all on technological factors. The lower the level of development of productive forces, the greater the proportion of necessary labor in the total volume of any product produced; and vice versa, as the productive forces improve, the share of the surplus product steadily increases.

The second system-forming feature is the nature of ownership of the means of production, which is dominant in a given society. Now, based on these criteria, we will try to briefly review all five formations.

Primitive communal system (or primitive society). With a given socio-economic formation, the mode of production is characterized by an extremely low level of development of the productive forces. All labor is necessary; surplus labor is zero. Roughly speaking, this means that everything that is produced (more precisely, mined) is consumed without a trace, no surplus is formed, which means that there is no way to either make savings or carry out exchange transactions. Therefore, the primitive communal formation is characterized by practically elementary production relations based on public, or rather communal, ownership of the means of production. Private property simply cannot arise here due to the almost complete absence of a surplus product: everything that is produced (more precisely, mined) is consumed without a trace, and any attempt to take away, appropriate something obtained by the hands of others will simply lead to the death of the one who has it. take away.

For the same reasons, there is no commodity production here (there is nothing to put up for exchange). It is clear that an extremely underdeveloped superstructure corresponds to such a basis; there simply cannot be people who could afford to professionally engage in administration, science, religious rites, etc.

A rather important point is the fate of the captives who are captured during the skirmishes of the warring tribes: they are either killed, or eaten, or accepted into the tribe. It makes no sense to force them to work: they will use everything they produce without a trace.

Slavery (slave-owning formation). Only the development of productive forces to such a level that causes the appearance of a surplus product, even in an insignificant amount, radically changes the fate of the aforementioned captives. Now it becomes profitable to turn them into slaves, since the entire surplus of products produced by their labor goes to the undivided disposal of the owner. And the more slaves the owner possesses, the greater the amount of material wealth is concentrated in his hands. In addition, the appearance of the same surplus product creates the material prerequisites for the emergence of the state, as well as - for a certain part of the population - professional religious activities, science and art. That is, there is a superstructure as such.

Therefore, slavery as a social institution is defined as a form of property that gives one person the right to own another person. Thus, the main object of property here is people, who act not only as a personal, but also as a material element of the productive forces. In other words, like any other means of production, a slave is a thing with which its owner is free to do whatever he wants - buy, sell, exchange, donate, throw away, etc.

Slave labor existed under a variety of social conditions, from the ancient world to the colonies of the West Indies and the plantations of the southern states of North America. Surplus labor here is no longer equal to zero: the slave produces products in an amount slightly exceeding the cost of his own subsistence. At the same time, from the point of view of production efficiency, the use of slave labor always raises a number of problems.

1. The barracks slave system is not always able to reproduce itself, and slaves must be obtained either by purchase in the slave markets, or by conquest; therefore, slave systems often tended to suffer severe labor shortages.

2. Slaves require significant "power" supervision due to the threat of their rebellions.

3. It is difficult to force slaves to perform labor tasks that require qualifications without additional incentives. The existence of these problems suggests that slavery cannot provide an appropriate basis for sustained economic growth. As for the superstructure, its characteristic feature is the almost complete exclusion of slaves from all forms of political, ideological and many other forms of spiritual life, since the slave is considered as one of the varieties of working cattle or a “talking tool”.

Feudalism (feudal formation). American researchers J. Prauer and S. Eisenstadt list five characteristics common to the most developed feudal societies:

1) relations of the lord-vassal type;

2) a personalized form of government that is effective locally rather than nationally, and which has a relatively low level of separation of functions;

3) land ownership based on the granting of feudal estates (fiefs) in exchange for service, primarily military;

4) the existence of private armies;

5) certain rights of landlords in relation to serfs.

These features characterize the economic and political system, which was most often decentralized (or weakly centralized) and depended on a hierarchical system of personal ties within the nobility, despite the formal principle of a single line of authoritarianism going back to the king. This provided collective defense and maintenance of order. The economic basis was the local organization of production, when the dependent peasantry delivered the surplus product that the landowners needed to fulfill their political functions.

The main object of property in the feudal socio-economic formation is land. Therefore, the class struggle between landlords and peasants focuses primarily on the size of the production units assigned to the tenants, the terms of the lease, as well as control over the main means of production, such as pastures, drainage systems, mills. Therefore, modern Marxist approaches argue that because the tenant peasant has a certain degree of control over production (for example, the possession of customary law), “non-economic measures” are required to ensure landowners control over the peasantry and the products of their labor. These measures represent basic forms of political and economic domination. It should be noted that, unlike capitalism, where the workers are deprived of any control over the means of production, feudalism allows the serfs to fairly effectively own some of these means, in exchange for providing themselves with the appropriation of surplus labor in the form of rent.

Capitalism (capitalist formation). This type of economic organization in its ideal form can be very briefly defined by the presence of the following features:

1) private ownership and control over the economic instrument of production, i.e. capital;

2) activation of economic activity for profit;

3) the market structure that regulates this activity;

4) appropriation of profit by the owners of capital (subject to taxation by the state);

5) providing the labor process with workers who act as free agents of production.

Historically, capitalism developed and grew to a dominant position in economic life simultaneously with the development of industrialization. However, some of its features can be found in the commercial sector of the pre-industrial European economy - and throughout the entire medieval period. We will not dwell here in detail on the characteristics of this socio-economic formation, since in modern sociology the view of capitalist society as identical to industrial society is largely widespread. A more detailed consideration of it (as well as the question of the legitimacy of such an identification) we will transfer to one of the subsequent chapters.

The most important characteristic of the capitalist mode of production is that the development of the productive forces reaches such a quantitative and qualitative level that it makes it possible to increase the share of surplus labor to a size exceeding the share of necessary labor (here it is expressed in the form of wages). According to some reports, in a modern high-tech firm, the average employee works for himself (i.e., produces a product worth his salary) for fifteen minutes of an eight-hour working day. This indicates an approach to a situation where the entire product becomes surplus, turning the share of necessary labor to zero. Thus the logic of the labor theory of value brings the trend of general historical development close to the idea of ​​communism.

This logic is as follows. The capitalist formation, having developed mass production, gigantically increases the total volume of output and at the same time ensures an increase in the share of the surplus product, which at first becomes comparable with the share of the necessary product, and then begins to quickly exceed it. Therefore, before proceeding to consider the concept of the fifth socio-economic formation, let us dwell on the general trend in the change in the ratio of these shares in the transition from one formation to another. Graphically, this trend is conditionally represented in the diagram (Fig. 18).

This process begins, as we remember, with the fact that in the primitive community the entire product produced is necessary, there is simply no surplus. The transition to slavery means the appearance of a certain share of the surplus product and, at the same time, an increase in the total volume of products produced in society. The trend continues with each subsequent transition, and modern capitalism (if it can still be called capitalism in the strict sense of the word), as we saw in the previous chapter, reaches a ratio of the shares of necessary and surplus product as 1 to 30. If we extrapolate this trend into the future , then the conclusion about the complete disappearance of the necessary product is inevitable - the entire product will be surplus, just as in the primitive community the entire product was necessary. This is the main quality of the hypothetical fifth formation. We are already accustomed to calling it communist, but not everyone understands its characteristic features, which logically follow from the extrapolation described above. What does the disappearance of the necessary share of the product mean in accordance with the provisions of the labor theory of value?

It finds its expression in the following systemic qualities of the new formation.

1. Production ceases to have a commodity character, it becomes directly social.

2. This leads to the disappearance of private property, which also becomes public (and not just communal, as in the primitive formation).

3. If we take into account that the necessary share of the product under capitalism was expressed in wages, then it also disappears. Consumption in this formation is organized in such a way that any member of society receives from public stocks everything that he needs for a full life. In other words, the connection between the measure of labor and the measure of consumption disappears.

Rice. 18. Trends in the ratio of the necessary and surplus product

Communism (communist formation). Being more a doctrine than a practice, the concept of a communist formation is referred to such future societies in which there will be no:

1) private property;

2) social classes;

3) forced ("enslaving man") division of labor;

4) commodity-money relations.

The characteristic of the fifth formation follows directly from the properties listed above. K. Marx argued that communist societies would be formed gradually - after the revolutionary transformation of capitalist societies. He also noted that these four basic properties of the fifth formation in a certain (albeit very primitive) form are also characteristic of primitive tribal societies - a condition that he considered as primitive communism. The logical construction of “genuine” communism, as we have already said, is derived by Marx and his followers as a direct extrapolation from the tendencies of the previous progressive development of socio-economic formations. It is no coincidence that the beginning of the creation of the communist system is regarded as the end of the prehistory of human society and the beginning of its true history.

There are serious doubts that these ideas have been put into practice in contemporary societies. Most of the former "communist" countries retained both a certain amount of private property and a widely enforced division of labor, as well as a class system based on bureaucratic privileges. The actual development of societies that called themselves communist has given rise to discussions among communist theorists, some of whom are of the opinion that a certain amount of private property and a certain level of division of labor seem inevitable under communism.

So, what is the progressive essence of this historical process of successive change of socio-economic formations?

The first criterion of progress, as noted by the classics of Marxism, is a consistent increase in the degree of freedom1 of living labor in the transition from one formation to another. Indeed, if we pay attention to the main object of private property, we will see that under slavery it is people, under feudalism it is land, under capitalism it is capital (acting in the most diverse form). The serf is really freer than any slave. The worker is generally a legally free person, and without such freedom the development of capitalism is generally impossible.

The second criterion of progress in the transition from one formation to another is, as we have seen, a consistent (and significant) increase in the share of surplus labor in the total volume of social labor.

Despite the presence of a number of shortcomings of the formational approach (many of which stem, rather, from fanatical dogmatization, the absolutization of some provisions of Marxism by its most orthodox and ideological supporters), it can be quite fruitful in the analysis of the periodization of the historical development of human society, in which we have yet to times to be convinced throughout the further presentation.

The founder of the formational perception of the historical process was the German scientist Karl Marx. In a number of his works of philosophical, political and economic direction, he singled out the concept of a socio-economic formation.

Spheres of life of human society

Marx's approach was based on a revolutionary (in the literal and figurative sense of the word) approach to three main areas of human society:

1. Economic, where for the first time specific

the concepts of labor power and surplus value to the price of a commodity. Based on these sources, Marx proposed an approach where the defining form of economic relations was the exploitation of workers by the owners of the means of production - factories, factories, and so on.

2. Philosophical. An approach called historical materialism saw material production as the driving force behind history. And the material possibilities of society are its basis, on which the cultural, economic and political components arise - the superstructure.

3. Social. This area in Marxist teaching logically followed from the two previous ones. Material possibilities determine the nature of the society in which exploitation takes place in one way or another.

Socio-economic formation

As a result of the separation of historical types of societies, the concept of formation was born. The socio-economic formation is a peculiar character of social relations, determined by the method of material production, production relations between different strata of society and their role in the system. From this point of view, the driving force of social development is the constant conflict between the forces of production - in fact, people - and the production relations between these people. That is, despite the fact that the material forces are growing, the ruling classes are still trying to conserve the established position in society, which leads to upheavals and, in the end, a change in the socio-economic formation. Five such formations were identified.

Primitive socio-economic formation

It is characterized by the so-called appropriating principle of production: gathering and hunting, the absence of agriculture and cattle breeding. As a result, material forces remain extremely low and do not allow creating a surplus product. There are still not enough material goods to ensure some kind of social stratification. Such societies did not have states, private property, and the hierarchy was based on gender and age principles. Only the Neolithic revolution (the discovery of cattle breeding and agriculture) allowed the emergence of a surplus product, and with it property stratification, private property and the need for its protection - the state apparatus.

Slave-owning socio-economic formation

This was the nature of the ancient states of the 1st millennium BC and the first half of the 1st millennium AD (before the fall of the Western Roman Empire). Slave-owning society was called because slavery was not just a phenomenon, but its solid foundation. The main production force of these states were disenfranchised and completely personally dependent slaves. Such societies already had a pronounced class structure, a developed state, and significant achievements in many areas of human thought.

Feudal socio-economic formation

The fall of the ancient states and the coming to replace the barbarian kingdoms in Europe gave rise to the so-called feudalism. As in antiquity, subsistence farming and handicraft dominated here. Trade relations were still poorly developed. The society was a class-hierarchical structure, the place in which was determined by land grants from the king (in fact, the highest feudal lord, possessing the largest amount of land), which in turn was inextricably linked with domination over the peasants, who were the main production class of society. At the same time, the peasants, unlike slaves, themselves possessed the means of production - small plots of land, livestock, tools from which they were fed, although they were forced to pay tribute to their feudal lord.

Asian way of production

At one time, Karl Marx did not sufficiently work out the question of Asian societies, which gave rise to the so-called problem of the Asian mode of production. In these states, firstly, there was never a concept of private property, unlike Europe, and secondly, there was no class-hierarchical system. All subjects of the state in the face of the sovereign were disenfranchised slaves, at his will, at the moment they were deprived of all privileges. No European king had such power. This implied a completely unusual concentration of productive forces in Europe in the hands of the state with the appropriate motivation.

Capitalist socio-economic formation

The development of productive forces and the industrial revolution led to the emergence in Europe, and later throughout the world, of a new version of the social pattern. This formation is characterized by the high development of commodity-money relations, the emergence of a free market as the main regulator of economic relations, the emergence of private ownership of the means of production and

the use of workers there who do not have these funds and are forced to work for wages. Forceful coercion of the times of feudalism is replaced by economic coercion. Society is undergoing a strong social stratification: new classes of workers, bourgeoisie, and so on are emerging. An important phenomenon of this formation is the growing social stratification.

Communist socio-economic formation

The growing contradictions between the workers, who create all material wealth, and the ruling classes of capitalists, who increasingly appropriate the results of their labor, according to Karl Marx and his followers, should have led to a peak of social tension. And to the world revolution, as a result of which a socially homogeneous and fair distribution of material wealth will be established - a communist society. The ideas of Marxism had a significant impact on the socio-political thought of the 19th and 20th centuries and on the face of the modern world.

Socio-economic formation- according to the Marxist concept of the historical process, a society that is at a certain stage of historical development, characterized by the level of development of productive forces and the historical type of economic production relations. At the heart of each socio-economic formation is a certain mode of production (basis), and production relations form its essence. The system of production relations that form the economic basis of the formation corresponds to a political, legal and ideological superstructure. The structure of the formation includes not only economic, but also social relations, as well as forms of life, family, lifestyle. The reason for the transition from one stage of social development to another is the discrepancy between the increased productive forces and the preserved type of production relations. According to Marxist teaching, humanity in the course of its development must go through the following stages: primitive communal system, slave system, feudalism, capitalism, communism.

The primitive communal system in Marxism is considered as the first non-antagonistic socio-economic formation through which all peoples without exception passed. As a result of the decomposition of the primitive communal system, a transition was made to class, antagonistic socio-economic formations. The early class formations include the slave system and feudalism, while many peoples moved from the primitive communal system immediately to feudalism, bypassing the stage of slave ownership. Pointing to this phenomenon, the Marxists substantiated for some countries the possibility of a transition from feudalism to socialism, bypassing the stage of capitalism. Karl Marx himself singled out a special Asian mode of production and the formation corresponding to it among the early class formations. The question of the Asiatic mode of production remained debatable in the philosophical and historical literature, without having received an unambiguous solution. Capitalism was considered by Marx as the last antagonistic form of the social production process, it was to be replaced by a non-antagonistic communist formation.
The change in socio-economic formations is explained by the contradictions between the new productive forces and outdated production relations, which are transformed from forms of development into fetters of the productive forces. The transition from one formation to another takes place in the form of a social revolution, which resolves the contradictions between the productive forces and production relations, as well as between the base and the superstructure. Marxism pointed to the presence of transitional forms from one formation to another. Transitional states of society are usually characterized by the presence of various socio-economic structures that do not cover the economy and life in general. These structures can represent both the remnants of the old and the embryos of a new socio-economic formation. The diversity of historical development is associated with the uneven pace of historical development: some peoples rapidly progressed in their development, others lagged behind. The interaction between them was of a different nature: it accelerated or, conversely, slowed down the course of the historical development of individual peoples.
The collapse of the world system of socialism at the end of the 20th century, the disappointment in communist ideas led to a critical attitude of researchers to the Marxist formational scheme. Nevertheless, the idea of ​​singling out stages in the world historical process is recognized as sound. In historical science, in the teaching of history, the concepts of the primitive communal system, the slave-owning system, feudalism and capitalism are actively used. Along with this, the theory of stages of economic growth developed by W. Rostow and O. Toffler has found wide application: agrarian society (traditional society) - industrial society (consumer society) - post-industrial society (information society).

In the history of sociology, there are several attempts to determine the structure of society, that is, the social formation. Many proceeded from the analogy of society with a biological organism. In society, they tried to identify system-organs with the corresponding functions, as well as to determine the main relationships of society with the environment (natural and social). Structural evolutionists consider the development of society to be determined by (a) differentiation and integration of its organ systems and (b) interaction-competition with the external environment. Let's look at some of these attempts.

The first of these was undertaken by G. Spencer, the founder of the theory of classical social evolution. His society consisted of three systems-organs: economic, transport and management (I have already spoken about this above). The reason for the development of societies, according to Spencer, is both the differentiation and integration of human activity, and the confrontation with the natural environment and other societies. Spencer identified two historical types of society - military and industrial.

The next attempt was made by K. Marx, who proposed the concept of . She represents specific a society at a certain stage of historical development, which includes (1) an economic basis (productive forces and relations of production) and (2) a superstructure dependent on it (forms of social consciousness; state, law, church, etc.; superstructural relations). The initial reason for the development of socio-economic formations is the development of tools and forms of ownership of them. Marx and his followers call the primitive communal, ancient (slave-owning), feudal, capitalist, and communist formations consistently progressive (its first phase is “proletarian socialism”). Marxist theory - revolutionary, she sees the main reason for the progressive movement of societies in the class struggle between the poor and the rich, and Marx called social revolutions the locomotives of human history.

The concept of socio-economic formation has a number of disadvantages. First of all, in the structure of the socio-economic formation there is no demo-social sphere - the consumption and life of people, for the sake of which the socio-economic formation arises. In addition, in this model of society, the political, legal, spiritual spheres are deprived of an independent role, they serve as a simple superstructure over the economic basis of society.

Julian Steward, as mentioned above, departed from Spencer's classical evolutionism based on the differentiation of labor. He based the evolution of human societies on a comparative analysis of different societies as peculiar cultures.

Talcott Parsons defines society as a type, which is one of the four subsystems of the system, acting along with the cultural, personal, human organism. The core of society, according to Parsons, is societal subsystem (societal community) that characterizes society as a whole. It is a collection of people, families, firms, churches, etc., united by norms of behavior (cultural patterns). These samples perform integrative role in relation to their structural elements, organizing them into a societal community. As a result of the action of such patterns, the societal community appears as a complex network (horizontal and hierarchical) of interpenetrating typical collectives and collective loyalties.

When compared with, defines society as an ideal concept, and not a specific society; introduces the societal community into the structure of society; refuses the base-superstructure relations between the economy, on the one hand, politics, religion and culture, on the other hand; approaches society as a system of social action. The behavior of social systems (and society), as well as biological organisms, is caused by the requirements (challenges) of the external environment, the fulfillment of which is a condition for survival; elements-organs of society functionally contribute to its survival in the external environment. The main problem of society is the organization of the relationship of people, order, balance with the external environment.

Parsons' theory is also subject to criticism. First, the concepts of system of action and society are highly abstract. This was expressed, in particular, in the interpretation of the core of society - the societal subsystem. Secondly, Parsons' model of the social system was created to establish social order, balance with the external environment. But society seeks to break the balance with the external environment in order to meet its growing needs. Thirdly, the societal, fiduciary (reproduction of the model) and political subsystems are, in fact, elements of the economic (adaptive, practical) subsystem. This limits the independence of other subsystems, especially the political one (which is typical for European societies). Fourthly, there is no demosocial subsystem, which is the starting point for society and encourages it to break the balance with the environment.

Marx and Parsons are structural functionalists who view society as a system of social (public) relations. If for Marx the economics acts as an ordering (integrating) social relations factor, then for Parsons it is the societal community. If for Marx society strives for a revolutionary imbalance with the external environment as a result of economic inequality and class struggle, then for Parsons it strives for social order, equilibrium with the external environment in the process of evolution based on the increasing differentiation and integration of its subsystems. Unlike Marx, who focused not on the structure of society, but on the causes and process of its revolutionary development, Parsons focused on the problem of "social order", the integration of people into society. But Parsons, like Marx, considered economic activity to be the basic activity of society, and all other types of action to be auxiliary.

Social formation as a metasystem of society

The proposed concept of social formation is based on a synthesis of the ideas of Spencer, Marx, Parsons on this issue. The social formation is characterized by the following features. First, it should be considered an ideal concept (rather than a specific society, as in Marx), fixing in itself the most essential properties of real societies. At the same time, this concept is not as abstract as Parsons' "social system". Secondly, the demo-social, economic, political and spiritual subsystems of society play original, basic and auxiliary role, turning society into a social organism. Thirdly, the social formation is a metaphorical "public house" of the people living in it: the initial system is the "foundation", the basis is the "walls", and the auxiliary system is the "roof".

Initial the system of social formation includes geographical and demosocial subsystems. It forms the “metabolic structure” of a society consisting of people-cells interacting with the geographical sphere, it represents both the beginning and the end of other subsystems: economic (economic benefits), political (rights and obligations), spiritual (spiritual values). The demosocial subsystem includes social groups, institutions, their actions aimed at the reproduction of people as biosocial beings.

Basic the system performs the following functions: 1) acts as the main means of satisfying the needs of the demosocial subsystem; 2) is the leading adaptive system of a given society, satisfying some leading need of people, for the sake of satisfying which the social system is organized; 3) the social community, institutions, organizations of this subsystem occupy leading positions in society, manage other areas of society with the help of its characteristic means, integrating them into the social system. In singling out the basic system, I proceed from the fact that some fundamental needs (and interests) of people under certain circumstances become leading in the structure of the social organism. The basic system includes a social class (societal community), as well as its inherent needs, values, and norms of integration. It is distinguished by the type of sociality according to Weber (purposeful, value-rational, etc.), which affects the entire social system.

Auxiliary the system of social formation is formed primarily by the spiritual system (artistic, moral, educational, etc.). it cultural orientation system, giving meaning, purposefulness, spirituality existence and development of the initial and basic systems. The role of the auxiliary system is: 1) in the development and preservation of interests, motives, cultural principles (beliefs, beliefs), patterns of behavior; 2) their transmission among people through socialization and integration; 3) their renewal as a result of changes in society and its relations with the external environment. Through socialization, worldview, mentality, characters of people, the auxiliary system has an important influence on the basic and initial systems. It should be noted that the political (and legal) system can also play the same role in societies with some of its parts and functions. In T. Parsons, the spiritual system is called cultural and is located out of society as a social system, defining it through the reproduction of patterns of social action: the creation, preservation, transmission and renewal of needs, interests, motives, cultural principles, patterns of behavior. Marx has this system in the superstructure socio-economic formation and does not play an independent role in society - an economic formation.

Each social system is characterized by social stratification in accordance with the initial, basic and auxiliary systems. The strata are separated by their roles, statuses (consumer, professional, economic, etc.) and united by needs, values, norms, and traditions. The leading ones are stimulated by the basic system. For example, in economic societies this includes freedom, private property, profit and other economic values.

Between demosocial strata is always formed confidence, without which the social order and social mobility (upward and downward) are impossible. It forms social capital social structure. “In addition to the means of production, the qualifications and knowledge of people,” writes Fukuyama, “the ability to communicate, to collective action, in turn, depends on the extent to which certain communities adhere to similar norms and values ​​and can subordinate the individual interests of individuals interests of large groups. Based on these shared values, confidence, which<...>has a great and quite specific economic (and political. — S.S.) value.”

Social capital - it is a set of informal values ​​and norms shared by members of the social communities that make up society: fulfillment of obligations (duty), truthfulness in relationships, cooperation with others, etc. Speaking of social capital, we are still abstracting from it social content, which is substantially different in Asian and European types of societies. The most important function of society is the reproduction of its "body", the demosocial system.

The external environment (natural and social) has a great influence on the social system. It is included in the structure of the social system (type of society) partially and functionally as objects of consumption and production, remaining for it an external environment. The external environment is included in the structure of society in the broad sense of the word - as natural and social organism. This emphasizes the relative independence of the social system as a characteristic society in relation to the natural conditions of its existence and development.

Why is there a social formation? According to Marx, it arises primarily to satisfy material the needs of people, so the economy occupies a basic place in it. For Parsons, the basis of society is the societal community of people, so the societal formation arises for the sake of integration people, families, firms and other groups into a single whole. For me, a social formation arises in order to satisfy the various needs of people, among which the basic one is the main one. This leads to a wide variety of types of social formations in the history of mankind.

The main ways of integrating people into the social organism and the means of satisfying the corresponding needs are economics, politics, and spirituality. economic strength society is based on material interest, the desire of people for money and material well-being. political power society is based on physical violence, on people's desire for order and security. Spiritual strength society is based on a certain meaning of life that goes beyond well-being and power, and life from this point of view is transcendent in nature: as a service to the nation, God and the idea in general.

The main subsystems of the social system are closely are interconnected. First of all, the boundary between any pair of systems of society is a kind of "zone" of structural components that can be considered as belonging to both systems. Further, the basic system is itself a superstructure over the original system, which it expresses and organizes. At the same time, it acts as an initial system in relation to the auxiliary one. And the latter is not only back controls the basis, but also provides additional influence on the original subsystem. And, finally, demo-social, economic, political, spiritual subsystems of society, different in type, in their interaction form many intricate combinations of the social system.

On the one hand, the original system of social formation is living people who during their life consume material, social, spiritual benefits for their reproduction and development. The remaining systems of the social order objectively serve to some extent the reproduction and development of the demosocial system. On the other hand, the social system exerts a socializing influence on the demo-social sphere, shaping it with its institutions. It represents for the life of people, their youth, maturity, old age, as it were, an external form in which they have to be happy and unhappy. So, people who lived in the Soviet formation evaluate it through the prism of their life of different ages.

A social formation is a type of society that is an interconnection of the initial, basic and auxiliary systems, the result of which is the reproduction, protection, development of the population in the process of transforming the external environment and adapting to it by creating artificial nature. This system provides the means (artificial nature) to meet the needs of people and reproduce their body, integrates many people, ensures the realization of people's abilities in various fields, improves as a result of the contradiction between the developing needs and abilities of people, between different subsystems of society.

Types of social formations

Society exists in the form of a country, region, city, village, etc., representing its different levels. In this sense, the family, school, enterprise, etc., are not societies, but social institutions that are part of societies. Society (for example, Russia, the USA, etc.) includes (1) the leading (modern) social system; (2) remnants of former social formations; (3) geographical system. The social formation is the most important metasystem of society, but is not identical to it, so it can be used to designate the type of countries that are the primary subject of our analysis.

Public life is the unity of social formation and private life. The social formation characterizes the institutional relations between people. Private life - this is that part of public life that is not covered by the social system, is a manifestation of the individual freedom of people in consumption, economics, politics, and spirituality. The social formation and private life as two parts of society are closely interconnected and interpenetrate each other. The contradiction between them is the source of the development of society. The quality of life of certain peoples largely, but not completely, depends on the type of their “public house”. Private life largely depends on personal initiative and many accidents. For example, the Soviet system was very inconvenient for the private life of people, it looked like a prison fortress. Nevertheless, within its framework, people went to kindergartens, went to school, loved and were happy.

The social formation is formed unconsciously, without a common will, as a result of a combination of many circumstances, wills, plans. But in this process, there is a certain logic that can be distinguished. The types of social system change from historical epoch to epoch, from country to country, and are in competitive relations with each other. The basis of a particular social system not originally included. It arises as a result unique set of circumstances including subjective ones (for example, the presence of an outstanding leader). Basic system determines the interests-goals of the initial and auxiliary systems.

Primitive communal formation is syncretic. It closely intertwines the beginnings of the economic, political and spiritual spheres. It can be argued that original the sphere of this order is the geographical system. basic is a demosocial system, the process of reproduction of people in a natural way, based on a monogamous family. The production of people at this time is the main sphere of society that determines all others. Auxiliary the economic, managerial and mythological systems that support the basic and initial systems act. The economic system is based on individual means of production and simple cooperation. The management system is represented by tribal self-government and armed men. The spiritual system is represented by taboos, rituals, mythology, pagan religion, priests, as well as the beginnings of art.

As a result of the social division of labor, primitive clans were divided into agricultural (sedentary) and pastoral (nomadic) families. Between them there was an exchange of products and wars. The agricultural communities engaged in agriculture and exchange were less mobile and warlike than the pastoral ones. With an increase in the number of people, villages, clans, the development of the exchange of products and wars, primitive communal society over the course of millennia gradually transformed into a political, economic, theocratic society. The emergence of these types of societies occurs among different peoples at different historical times due to the confluence of many objective and subjective circumstances.

From the primitive communal society, before others, socially -political(Asian) formation. Its basis is an authoritarian-political system, the core of which is an autocratic state power in a slaveholding and serf form. In such formations, the leader is public the need for power, order, social equality, it is expressed by the political classes. They become the basis value-rational and traditional activities. This is typical, for example, for Babylon, Assyria and the Russian Empire.

Then there is a public - economic(European) formation, the basis of which is the market economy in its antique-commodity, and then capitalist form. In such formations, the base becomes individual(private) need for material goods, a secure life, power, it corresponds to economic classes. The basis of them is purposeful rational activity. Economic societies arose in relatively favorable natural and social conditions - ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the countries of Western Europe.

AT spiritual(theo- and ideocratic) formation, some kind of worldview system in its religious or ideological version becomes the basis. Spiritual needs (salvation, building a corporate state, communism, etc.) and value-rational activity become basic.

AT mixed(convergent) formations, the basis is formed by several social systems. Individual social needs in their organic unity become basic. This was the European feudal society in the pre-industrial era, and the social democratic - in the industrial. They are based on both goal-oriented and value-rational types of social actions in their organic unity. Such societies are better adapted to the historical challenges of an increasingly complex natural and social environment.

The formation of a social formation begins with the emergence of a ruling class and a social system adequate to it. They are take the lead in society, subordinating other classes and related spheres, systems and roles. The ruling class makes its life activity (all needs, values, actions, results), as well as the main ideology.

For example, after the February (1917) revolution in Russia, the Bolsheviks seized state power, made their dictatorship the base, and the communist ideology - dominant, interrupted the transformation of the agrarian-serf system into a bourgeois-democratic one and created the Soviet formation in the process of the "proletarian-socialist" (industrial-serf) revolution.

Public formations are going through the stages of (1) formation; (2) heyday; (3) decline and (4) transformation into another type or death. The development of societies has a wave character, in which periods of decline and rise of different types of social formations change as a result of the struggle between them, convergence, and social hybridization. Each type of social formation represents the process of progressive development of mankind, from simple to complex.

The development of societies is characterized by the decline of the former and the emergence of new social formations, along with the former. The advanced social formations occupy a dominant position, while the backward social formations occupy a subordinate position. Over time, a hierarchy of social formations arises. Such a formational hierarchy gives strength and continuity to societies, allowing them to draw strength (physical, moral, religious) for further development in historically early types of formations. In this regard, the elimination of the peasant formation in Russia during collectivization weakened the country.

Thus, the development of mankind is subject to the law of negation of negation. In accordance with it, the stage of negation of the negation of the initial stage (primitive communal society), on the one hand, represents a return to the original type of society, and on the other hand, is a synthesis of previous types of societies (Asian and European) in the social democratic.

K. Marx worked out his main idea about the natural-historical process of the development of society by singling out the economic one from different areas of social life, and production relations from all social relations as the main and determining other relations1.

Taking as a starting point the fact of earning a livelihood, Marxism associated with it the relations into which people enter in the process of production, and in the system of these production relations saw the basis - the basis of a certain society - which is clothed with political and legal superstructures and various forms of social thought. .

Each system of production relations that arises at a certain stage in the development of productive forces is subject both to the laws common to all formations and to the laws of emergence, functioning and transition to a higher form, which are specific to only one of them. The actions of people within each socio-economic formation were generalized by Marxism and reduced to the actions of large masses, in a class society - classes that realize in their activities the urgent needs of social development.

The socio-economic formation is, according to Marxism, a historical type of society based on a certain mode of production and is a stage in the progressive development of mankind from the primitive communal system through the slave system, feudalism and capitalism to the communist formation. The concept of "socio-economic formation" is the cornerstone of the Marxist understanding of history. At the same time, one formation is replaced by another as a result of a social revolution. Capitalist society, according to Marxism, is the last of the formations based on class antagonism. It ends the prehistory of mankind and begins the true history - communism.

Formation types

Marxism distinguishes five types of socio-economic formations.

The primitive communal system is a primary (or archaic) social formation, the structure of which is characterized by the interaction of communal and related forms of community of people. This formation covers the time from the birth of social relations to the emergence of a class society. With a broad interpretation of the concept of "primary formation", the beginning of the primitive communal system is considered the phase of the primitive herd, and the final stage is the society of communal statehood, where class differentiation has already been outlined. Primitive communal relations reach their greatest structural completeness during the period of the tribal system, formed by the interaction of the tribal community and the clan. The basis of production relations here was the common ownership of the means of production (instruments of production, land, as well as housing, household equipment), within which there was also personal ownership of weapons, household items, clothing, etc. Existing in the conditions of the initial stages of technical development of mankind, collective forms of ownership, religious and magical ideas, primitive relations are being replaced by new social relations as a result of the improvement of tools, forms of economy, the evolution of family, marriage and other relations.

The slave-owning system is the first class antagonistic society that arose on the ruins of the primitive communal system. Slavery, according to Marxism, existed in various scales and forms in all countries and among all peoples. Under the slave system, the main productive force of society is slaves, and the ruling class is the class of slave owners, which breaks up into different social groups (landowners, merchants, usurers, etc.). In addition to these two main classes - slaves and slave owners - in a slave-owning society there are intermediate strata of the free population: small proprietors who live by their labor (artisans and peasants), as well as a lumpen proletariat formed from ruined artisans and peasants. The basis of the dominant production relations of a slave-owning society is the private ownership of the slave-owner in the means of production and slaves. With the emergence of a slave-owning society, the state arises and develops. With the disintegration of the slave-owning system, the class struggle intensifies and the slave-owning form of exploitation is replaced by another - the feudal one.

Feudalism (from the Latin feodum - estate) is the middle link in the change of formations between the slave system and capitalism. It arises through the synthesis of elements of the decomposition of primitive communal and slave-owning relations. Three types of this synthesis are observed: with the predominance of the first, the second, or with their uniform ratio. The economic structure of feudalism is characterized by the fact that the main means of production - land - is in the monopoly property of the ruling class of feudal lords, and the economy is carried out by small producers - peasants. The political structure of feudal society at different stages of its development is different: from the smallest state fragmentation to highly centralized absolutist monarchies. The late period of feudalism (the descending stage of its development as a system) is characterized, according to Marxism, by the emergence in its depths of manufacturing production - the germ of capitalist relations and the time of maturation and accomplishment of bourgeois revolutions.

Capitalism is a socio-economic formation that replaces feudalism. Capitalism is based on private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of wage labor. The main contradiction of capitalism - between the social nature of labor and the private capitalist form of appropriation - finds expression, according to Marxism, in the antagonism between the main classes of capitalist society - the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The culminating point of the class struggle of the proletariat is the socialist revolution.

Socialism and communism represent two phases of the communist formation: socialism is its first, or lowest, phase; communism is the highest phase. According to Marxist teaching, their difference is based on the degree of economic maturity. Even under socialism, there is no private ownership of the means of production and no exploitation of wage labor. In this respect there is no difference between socialism and communism. But under socialism, public ownership of the means of production exists in two forms: state and collective-farm-cooperative; under communism, there should be a single national property. Under socialism, according to Marxism, the differences between the working class, the collective-farm peasantry and the intelligentsia, as well as between mental and physical labor, town and countryside, are preserved, and under communism, the differences disappear. At a certain stage in the development of communism, according to Marxist teaching, political and legal institutions, ideology, and the state as a whole will completely die out; communism will be the highest form of social organization, which will function on the basis of highly developed productive forces, science, technology, culture and social self-government.