Theory of socio-economic formation

K. Marx presented world history as a natural-historical, natural process of changing socio-economic formations. Using as the main criterion of progress - economic - the type of production relations (first of all, the form of ownership of the means of production), Marx identifies five main economic formations in history: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, bourgeois and communist.

The primitive communal system is the first non-antagonistic socio-economic formation through which all peoples without exception passed. As a result of its decomposition, a transition is made to class, antagonistic formations. Among the early stages of class society, some scientists, in addition to the slave and feudal modes of production, distinguish a special Asian mode of production and the formation corresponding to it. This question remains debatable, open in social science even now.

"Bourgeois relations of production," wrote Karl Marx, "are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production... The prehistory of human society ends with the bourgeois social formation." As K. Marx and F. Engels foresaw, it naturally comes to be replaced by a communist formation that opens a truly human history.

A socio-economic formation is a historical type of society, an integral social system that develops and functions on the basis of its characteristic method of material wealth. Of the two main elements of the production method ( productive forces and production relations) in Marxism, the leading is considered - production relations, they determine the type of mode of production and, accordingly, the type of formation. The totality of the dominant economic relations of production is Basis society. Above the base rises political, legal superstructure . These two elements give an idea of ​​the systemic nature of social relations; serve as a methodological basis in studying the formation structure ( see: scheme 37).

The successive change of socio-economic formations is driven by the contradiction between the new, developed productive forces and the obsolete production relations, which at a certain stage are transformed from forms of development into fetters of the productive forces. On the basis of the analysis of this contradiction, Marx formulated two main regularities for the change of formations.

1. Not a single socio-economic formation perishes before all the productive forces have developed, for which it gives enough scope, and new, higher production relations never appear before the material conditions for their existence have matured in the bosom of the old society.

2. The transition from one formation to another is carried out through a social revolution, which resolves the contradiction in the mode of production ( between productive forces and production relations) and as a result, the whole system of social relations changes.

The theory of socio-economic formation is a method of comprehending world history in its unity and diversity. The successive change of formations forms the main line of human progress, forming its unity. At the same time, the development of individual countries and peoples is characterized by significant diversity, which is manifested in:

- in the fact that not every particular society goes through all the stages ( for example, the Slavic peoples passed the stage of slavery);

· - in the existence of regional features, cultural and historical specifics of the manifestation of common patterns;

- in the presence of various transitional forms from one formation to another; during the transitional period in society, as a rule, various socio-economic structures coexist, representing both the remnants of the old and the embryos of the new formation.

Analyzing the new historical process, K. Marx also identified three main stages ( so-called tripartite:

The theory of socio-economic formation is the methodological basis of modern historical science ( on its basis, a global periodization of the historical process is made) and social science in general.

(historical materialism), reflecting the laws of the historical development of society, ascending from simple primitive social forms of development to more progressive, historically defined type of society. This concept also reflects the social action of the categories and laws of dialectics, which marks the natural and inevitable transition of mankind from the "realm of necessity to the realm of freedom" - to communism. The category of socio-economic formation was developed by Marx in the first versions of Capital: "On the Critique of Political Economy." and in "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts 1857 - 1859". It is presented in its most developed form in Capital.

The thinker believed that all societies, despite their specificity (which Marx never denied), go through the same stages or stages of social development - socio-economic formations. Moreover, each socio-economic formation is a special social organism that differs from other social organisms (formations). In total, he distinguishes five such formations: primitive communal, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist and communist; which the early Marx reduces to three: public (without private property), private property and again public, but at a higher level of social development. Marx believed that the determining factors in social development are economic relations, the mode of production, in accordance with which he named formations. The thinker became the founder of the formational approach in social philosophy, who believed that there are common social patterns in the development of various societies.

The socio-economic formation consists of the economic basis of society and the superstructure, interconnected and interacting with each other. The main thing in this interaction is the economic basis, the economic development of society.

The economic basis of society - the defining element of the socio-economic formation, which is the interaction of the productive forces of society and production relations.

The productive forces of society - forces with the help of which the production process is carried out, consisting of a person as the main productive force and means of production (buildings, raw materials, machines and mechanisms, production technologies, etc.).

industrial relations - relations between people that arise in the process of production, associated with their place and role in the production process, the relationship of ownership of the means of production, the relationship to the product of production. As a rule, the one who owns the means of production plays a decisive role in production, the rest are forced to sell their labor power. The concrete unity of the productive forces of society and production relations forms mode of production, determining the economic basis of society and the entire socio-economic formation as a whole.

Rising above the economic base superstructure, representing a system of ideological social relations, expressed in the forms of social consciousness, in views, theories of illusions, feelings of various social groups and society as a whole. The most significant elements of the superstructure are law, politics, morality, art, religion, science, and philosophy. The superstructure is determined by the basis, but it can have an inverse effect on the basis. The transition from one socio-economic formation to another is connected, first of all, with the development of the economic sphere, the dialectic of the interaction of productive forces and production relations.

In this interaction, the productive forces are a dynamically developing content, and production relations are a form that allows the productive forces to exist and develop. At a certain stage, the development of the productive forces comes into conflict with the old production relations, and then the time comes for a social revolution, which is carried out as a result of the class struggle. With the replacement of old production relations by new ones, the mode of production and the economic basis of society change. With the change of the economic base, the superstructure also changes, therefore, there is a transition from one socio-economic formation to another.

Formational and civilizational concepts of social development.

In social philosophy, there are many concepts of the development of society. However, the main ones are the formational and civilizational concepts of social development. The formational concept, developed by Marxism, believes that there are general patterns of development for all societies, regardless of their specifics. The central concept of this approach is the socio-economic formation.

Civilizational concept of social development denies the general patterns of development of societies. The civilizational approach is most fully represented in the concept of A. Toynbee.

Civilization, according to Toynbee, is a stable community of people united by spiritual traditions, a similar way of life, geographical, historical boundaries. History is a non-linear process. This is the process of birth, life, death of unrelated civilizations. Toynbee divides all civilizations into main (Sumerian, Babylonian, Minoan, Hellenic - Greek, Chinese, Hindu, Islamic, Christian) and local (American, Germanic, Russian, etc.). The main civilizations leave a bright mark in the history of mankind, indirectly influence (especially religiously) other civilizations. Local civilizations, as a rule, are closed within the national framework. Each civilization historically develops in accordance with the driving forces of history, the main of which are challenge and response.

Call - a concept that reflects threats coming to civilization from outside (unfavorable geographical position, lagging behind other civilizations, aggression, wars, climate change, etc.) and requiring an adequate response, without which civilization may die.

Answer - a concept that reflects an adequate response of a civilizational organism to a challenge, that is, the transformation, modernization of civilization in order to survive and further develop. An important role in the search for and implementation of an adequate response is played by the activities of talented God-chosen outstanding people, the creative minority, the elite of society. It leads the inert majority, which sometimes “extinguishes” the energy of the minority. Civilization, like any other living organism, goes through the following cycles of life: birth, growth, breakdown, disintegration, followed by death and complete disappearance. As long as civilization is full of strength, as long as the creative minority is able to lead society, respond adequately to incoming challenges, it develops. With the depletion of vital forces, any challenge can lead to the breakdown and death of civilization.

Closely related to the civilizational approach cultural approach, developed by N.Ya. Danilevsky and O. Spengler. The central concept of this approach is culture, interpreted as a certain inner meaning, a certain goal of the life of a particular society. Culture is a system-forming factor in the formation of socio-cultural integrity, called N. Ya. Danilevsky cultural-historical type. Like a living organism, every society (cultural-historical type) goes through the following stages of development: birth and growth, flowering and fruiting, wilting and death. Civilization is the highest stage in the development of culture, the period of flowering and fruiting.

O. Spengler also identifies individual cultural organisms. This means that there is no single universal culture and cannot be. O. Spengler distinguishes cultures that have completed their cycle of development, cultures that have died ahead of time and are becoming cultures. Each cultural "organism", according to Spengler, is measured in advance for a certain (about a millennium) period, depending on the internal life cycle. Dying, culture is reborn into civilization (dead extension and "soulless intellect", sterile, ossified, mechanical formation), which marks the old age and disease of culture.

The concept of socio-economic formation(economic society) can be formulated on the basis of the study of specific types of such a formation: ancient and capitalist. An important role in understanding these was played by Marx, Weber (the role of Protestant ethics in the development of capitalism) and other scientists.

Socio-economic formation include: 1) demo-social community of market-mass consumption ( initial system); 2) a dynamically developing market economy, economic exploitation, etc. ( basic system); 3) democratic rule of law, political parties, church, art, free media, etc. ( auxiliary system). The socio-economic formation is characterized by purposeful activity, the prevalence of economic interests, and a focus on profit.

The concept of private property and Roman law distinguish Western (market) societies from Eastern (planned) ones, in which there is no institution of private property, private law, or democracy. A democratic (market) state expresses the interests primarily of the market classes. Its foundation is formed by free citizens who have equal political, military and other rights and duties and who control power through elections and municipal self-government.

Democratic law is a legal form of private property and market relations. Without reliance on private law and power, the market basis cannot function. The Protestant Church, unlike the Orthodox, becomes the mental basis of the capitalist mode of production. This was shown by M. Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Bourgeois art comprehends and imagines bourgeois existence in its works.

The private life of the citizens of an economic society is organized into a civil community that opposes the socio-economic formation as an institutional system organized by the market basis. This community is partly included in the auxiliary, basic and demosocial subsystems of the economic society, representing in this sense a hierarchical formation. The concept of civil society (community) appeared in the 17th century in the works of Hobbes and Locke, was developed in the works of Rousseau, Montesquieu, Vico, Kant, Hegel and other thinkers. It got the name civil Unlike class societies subjects under feudalism. Marx considered civil society along with bourgeois state, as part of the superstructure, and the revolutionary proletariat considered the gravedigger of both bourgeois civil society and the liberal state. Instead, communist self-government should appear.

Thus, the concept of socio-economic formation is a synthesis of Spencer's industrial society, Marx's socio-economic formation and Parsons' social system. It is more adequate to the laws of development of living nature, based on competition, than political, based on monopoly. In social competition, the victory is won by a free, intellectual, enterprising, organized, self-developing community, for which the dialectical rejection of traditionalism for the sake of modernity, and modernity for the sake of postmodernity is organic.

Types of socio-economic formations

The socio-economic formation is known in the form of (1) ancient, agrarian-market (Ancient Greece and Rome) and (2) capitalist (industrial-market). The second social formation arose from the remnants of the first in the conditions of feudal Europe.

The ancient formation (1) arose later than the Asian one, around the 8th century BC. e.; (2) from some primitive communal societies living in favorable geographical conditions; (3) influenced by Asian societies; (4) as well as the technical revolution, the invention of iron tools and war. New tools became the reason for the transition of the primitive communal formation to the ancient one only where there were favorable geographical, demographic and subjective (mental, intellectual) conditions. Such conditions prevailed in ancient Greece, and then in Rome.

As a result of these processes, ancient community free private landowners-families, significantly different from the Asian. Antique policies appeared - states in which the veche assembly and elective power constituted the two poles of the ancient democratic state. A sign of the emergence of such societies can be considered the appearance of coins at the turn of the 8th-7th centuries BC. e. Ancient societies were surrounded by many primitive communal and Asian societies, with which they had complex relations.

In the Greek policies, there was an increase in the population, the withdrawal of excess population to the colonies, the development of trade, which transformed the family economy into a commodity-money one. Trade quickly became the leading branch of the Greek economy. The social class of private producers and merchants became the leading one; his interests began to determine the development of ancient policies. There was a decline of the ancient aristocracy, based on the tribal system. The excess population was not only sent to the colonies, but also recruited into the standing army (as, for example, with Philip, the father of Alexander the Great). The army became the leading instrument of "production" - the robbery of slaves, money and goods. The primitive communal system of Ancient Greece turned into an ancient (economic) formation.

Initial the system of the ancient system was made up of families of free Greek or Italian community members who could feed themselves in favorable geographical conditions (sea, climate, land). They met their needs through their own economy and commodity exchange with other families and communities. The ancient demosocial community consisted of slave owners, free community members and slaves.

basic the system of the ancient formation was a private property economy, the unity of the productive forces (land, tools, livestock, slaves, free community members) and market (commodity) relations. In the Asian formations, the market group was rebuffed by other social and institutional groups when it became rich because it encroached on the power hierarchy. In European societies, due to a random confluence of circumstances, the trade and craft class, and then the bourgeois, imposed their type of purposeful rational market activity as a basis for the whole society. As early as the 16th century, European society became capitalist in type of economy.

Auxiliary the system of ancient society consisted of: a democratic state (the ruling elite, branches of government, bureaucracy, law, etc.), political parties, communal self-government; religion (priests), which asserted the divine origin of ancient society; ancient art (songs, dances, painting, music, literature, architecture, etc.), which substantiated and exalted ancient civilization.

Ancient society was civil, representing a set of demo-social, economic, political and religious amateur organizations of citizens in all systems of the social system. They had freedom of speech, access to information, the right to free exit and entry, and other civil rights. Civil society is evidence of the liberation of the individual, which the traditional East is not familiar with. It opened up additional opportunities for the disclosure of energy, initiative, and enterprise of individuals, which significantly affected the quality of the demographic sphere of society: it was formed by the economic classes of the rich, wealthy, and poor. The struggle between them became the source of the development of this society.

The dialectics of the original, basic and auxiliary systems of the ancient formation determined its development. The increase in the production of material goods led to an increase in the number of people. The development of the market basis affected the growth of wealth and its distribution among social classes. political, legal, religious, artistic spheres of the socio-economic formation ensured the maintenance of order, legal regulation of the activities of owners and citizens, ideologically justified the commodity economy. Due to its independence, it influenced the basis of a commodity society, slowing down or accelerating its development. The Reformation in Europe, for example, created new religious and moral motives for labor and the ethics of Protestantism, from which modern capitalism grew.

In a feudal (mixed) society, the foundations of a liberal-capitalist system gradually emerge from the remnants of the ancient. A liberal-capitalist worldview appears, the spirit of the bourgeoisie: rationality, professional duty, the desire for wealth and other elements of Protestant ethics. Max Weber criticized the economic materialism of Marx, who considered the consciousness of the bourgeois superstructure over the spontaneously formed market and economic basis. According to Weber, first appear single bourgeois adventurers and capitalist farms influencing other entrepreneurs. Then they become massive in the economic system and form capitalists from non-capitalists. Simultaneously an individualistic Protestant civilization arises in the form of its individual representatives, institutions, way of life. It also becomes a source of market-economic and democratic systems of society.

Liberal-capitalist (civil) society arose in the 18th century. Weber, following Marx, argued that it appeared as a result of a combination of a number of factors: experimental science, rational bourgeois capitalism, modern government, rational legal and administrative systems, modern art, etc. As a result of the combination of these social systems, capitalist society does not know itself equal in adaptation to the external environment.

The capitalist formation includes the following systems.

Initial the system is formed by: favorable geographical conditions, colonial empires; the material needs of the bourgeois, peasants, workers; inequality of demo-social consumption, the beginning of the formation of a society of mass consumption.

basic the system is formed by the capitalist mode of social production, which is a unity of capitalist productive forces (capitalists, workers, machines) and capitalist economic relations (money, credit, bills, banks, world competition and trade).

Auxiliary the system of capitalist society is formed by a democratic rule of law, a multi-party system, universal education, free art, the church, the media, and science. This system determines the interests of capitalist society, justifies its existence, comprehends its essence and development prospects, educates the people necessary for it.

Features of socio-economic formations

The European path of development includes the following: primitive communal, ancient, feudal, capitalist (liberal capitalist), bourgeois socialist (social democratic). The last one is convergent (mixed).

Economic societies are different: high efficiency (productivity) of the market economy, resource saving; the ability to meet the growing needs of people, production, science, education; rapid adaptation to changing natural and social conditions.

A process of transformation has taken place in socio-economic formations informal values ​​and norms characteristic of a traditional (agrarian) society, in formal. This is the process of transforming a status society, where people were bound by many informal values ​​and norms, into a contract society, where people are bound by a contract for the duration of their interests.

Economic societies are characterized by: economic, political and spiritual inequality of classes; exploitation of workers, colonial peoples, women, etc.; economic crises; formational evolution; competition due to markets and raw materials; opportunity for further transformation.

In an economic society, the civil community assumes the function of expressing and protecting the interests and rights of citizens in front of a democratic, legal, social state, forming a dialectical opposition with the latter. This community includes numerous voluntary non-governmental organizations: a multi-party system, independent media, socio-political organizations (trade unions, sports, etc.). Unlike the state, which is a hierarchical institution and based on orders, the civil society has a horizontal structure based on conscious voluntary self-discipline.

The economic system is based on a higher level of people's consciousness than the political one. Its participants act primarily individually, and not collectively, based on personal interests. Their collective (joint) action is more in line with their common interests than is the result of centralized state intervention (in a political society). Participants in the socio-economic formation proceed from the following proposition (I have already quoted): “Man owes many of his greatest achievements not to conscious aspirations and, moreover, not to the deliberately coordinated efforts of many, but to a process in which the individual plays a role that is not entirely comprehensible to himself. role". They are moderate in rationalistic pride.

In the 19th century in Western Europe, a deep crisis arose in the liberal capitalist society, subjected to severe criticism by K. Marx and F. Engels in the Communist Manifesto. In the XX century. it led to a "proletarian socialist" (Bolshevik) revolution in Russia, a fascist revolution in Italy, and a National Socialist revolution in Germany. As a result of these revolutions, there was a revival of the political, Asian type of society in its Soviet, Nazi, fascist and other totalitarian forms.

In World War II, the Nazi and Fascist societies were destroyed. The victory was won by the union of the Soviet totalitarian and Western democratic societies. Then Soviet society was defeated by Western society in the Cold War. In Russia, the process of creating a new state-capitalist (mixed) formation began.

A number of scientists consider the societies of the liberal-capitalist formation to be the most advanced. Fukuyama writes: "All the countries undertaking the process of modernization, from Spain and Portugal to the Soviet Union, China, Taiwan and South Korea, have moved in this direction." But Europe, in my opinion, has gone much further.

The theory of socio-economic formations is the cornerstone of the materialistic understanding of history. Material relations are used as secondary basic relations in this theory, and within them, first of all, economic and production relations. All the diversity of societies, despite the obvious differences between them, belong to the same stage of historical development if they have the same type of production relations as an economic basis. As a result, all the diversity and multitude of social systems in history was reduced to several basic types, these types were called "socio-economic formations". Marx in "Capital" analyzed the laws of the formation and development of the capitalist formation, showed its historically coming character, the inevitability of a new formation - the communist one. The term "formation" was taken from geology, in geology "formation" means - the stratification of geological deposits of a certain period. Marx uses the terms "formation", "socio-economic formation", "economic formation", "social formation" in an identical sense. Lenin, on the other hand, characterized the formation as a single, integral social organism. Formation is not an aggregate of individuals, not a mechanical set of disparate social phenomena, it is an integral social system, each component of which should be considered not in isolation, but in connection with other social phenomena, with society as a whole.

At the foundation of each formation are certain productive forces (i.e., objects of labor, means of production and labor), their nature and level. As for the basis of the formation, such is the relations of production - these are the relations that develop between people in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods. Under the conditions of a class society, economic relations between classes become the essence and core of production relations. In this basis, the entire building of the formation grows.

The following elements of the formation as an integral living organism can be distinguished:

The relations of production determine the superstructure that rises above them. The superstructure is a set of political, legal, moral, artistic, philosophical, religious views of society and their corresponding relations and institutions. In relation to the superstructure, production relations act as an economic basis, the basic law of formational development is the law of interaction between the basis and the superstructure. This law determines the role of the entire system of economic relations, the main influence of ownership on the means of production in relation to political and legal ideas, institutions, social relations (ideological, moral, religious, spiritual). There is a total interdependence between the base and the superstructure. The basis is always primary, the superstructure is secondary, but in turn it affects the basis, it develops relatively independently. According to Marx, the impact of the base on the superstructure is not fatal, not mechanistic, not unambiguous under different conditions. The superstructure induces the basis to its development.

The composition of the formation includes ethnic forms of the community of people (clan, tribe, nationality, nation). These forms are determined by the mode of production, the nature of production relations, and the stage of development of the productive forces.

And finally, it is the type and form of the family.

They are also predetermined at every stage by both sides of the mode of production.

An important issue is the question of regularities, general trends in the development of a concrete historical society. Formation theorists believe:

• 1. That formations develop independently.
• 2. There is continuity in their development, continuity based on the technical and technological basis and property relations.
• 3. Regularity is the completeness of the development of the formation. Marx believed that not one formation perishes before all the productive forces for which it gives enough space are broken.
• 4. The movement and development of formations is carried out stepwise from a less perfect state to a more perfect one.
• 5. Countries of a high level of formation play a leading role in development, they have an impact on the less developed.

Usually, the following types of socio-economic formations are distinguished: primitive communal, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist and communist (includes two phases - socialism and communism).

To characterize and compare various types of socio-economic formations, we analyze them from the point of view of the types of production relations. Dovgel E.S. identifies two fundamentally different types:

• 1) those in which people are forced to work by force or economically, while the results of labor are alienated from them;
• 2) those in which people work of their own free will, participate with interest and justification in the distribution of the results of labor.

The distribution of the social product under slaveholding, feudal and capitalist relations is carried out according to the first type, under socialist and communist relations - according to the second type. (In primitive communal social relations, distribution is carried out haphazardly and it is difficult to single out any type). At the same time, Dovgel E.S. believes that both "capitalists" and "communists" have to state: capitalism in economically developed countries today is just traditional words and "tablets in the brains", as a tribute to the irretrievably past History, in essence, social-production relations of high levels of development (socialist and communist) are already very common in countries with the highest level of production efficiency and people's lives (USA, Finland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Canada, France, Japan, etc.). The definition of a country as a socialist country was applied unreasonably to the USSR. Dovgel E.S. The theory of socio-economic formations and the convergence of ideologies in the economy. "Organization and management", international scientific and practical journal, 2002, no. 3, p. 145. The author of this work also agrees with this position.

Among the main shortcomings of the formational approach can be called an underestimation of the ability of capitalist society to change independently, an underestimation of the "development" of the capitalist system, this is Marx's underestimation of the uniqueness of capitalism in a number of socio-economic formations. Marx creates the theory of formations, considering them as stages of social development, and in the preface to the Critique of Political Economy, he writes, “The prehistory of human society ends with the bourgeois economic formation.” Marx established an objective interdependence between the level of development and the state of society, the change in the types of its economic argumentation, he showed world history as a dialectical change of social structures, he sort of ordered the course of world history. This was a discovery in the history of human civilization. The transition from one formation to another took place with him through the revolution, the disadvantage of the Marxist scheme is the idea of ​​the same type of historical fate of capitalism and pre-capitalist formations. Both Marx and Engels, perfectly realizing and repeatedly revealing the profound qualitative differences between capitalism and feudalism, with surprising constancy emphasize the uniformity, the same order of capitalist and feudal formations, their subordination to the same general historical law. They pointed to contradictions of the same type between the productive forces and production relations, here and there they fixed the inability to cope with them, here and there they fixed death as a form of society's transition to another, higher stage of development. Marx's change of formations is reminiscent of the change of human generations, more than one generation is not allowed to live two lifetimes, so formations come, flourish, die. This dialectic does not concern communism, it belongs to another historical era. Marx and Engels did not allow the idea that capitalism could discover fundamentally new ways of resolving its contradictions, could choose an entirely new form of historical movement.

None of the above basic theoretical points underlying the theory of formations is now indisputable. The theory of socio-economic formations is not only based on the theoretical conclusions of the middle of the 19th century, but because of this it cannot explain many of the contradictions that have arisen: the existence, along with zones of progressive (ascending) development, of zones of backwardness, stagnation and dead ends; the transformation of the state in one form or another into an important factor in social production relations; modification and modification of classes; the emergence of a new hierarchy of values ​​with the priority of universal human values ​​over class ones.

In conclusion of the analysis of the theory of socio-economic formations, it should be noted that Marx did not claim that his theory was made global, to which the entire development of society on the entire planet is subject. The "globalization" of his views occurred later, thanks to the interpreters of Marxism.

The shortcomings identified in the formational approach are taken into account to some extent by the civilizational approach. It was developed in the works of N. Ya. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, and later A. Toynbee. They put forward the idea of ​​a civilizational structure of social life. According to them, the basis of social life is made up of more or less isolated from each other “cultural-historical types” (Danilevsky) or “civilizations” (Spengler, Toynbee), which go through a series of successive stages in their development: birth, flourishing, aging, decline.

All these concepts are characterized by such features as: the rejection of the Eurocentric, one-line scheme of the progress of society; the conclusion about the existence of many cultures and civilizations, which are characterized by locality and different quality; assertion about the equal importance of all cultures in the historical process. The civilizational approach helps to see in history, without discarding some options as not meeting the criteria of any one culture. But the civilizational approach to understanding the historical process is not without some shortcomings. In particular, it does not take into account the connection between different civilizations, and does not explain the phenomenon of repetition.

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 connected 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 the 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 that 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 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 system 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 the forces of 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 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.