A social system is a qualitatively defined phenomenon, the elements of which are interconnected and form a single whole.

The specifics of the social system:

1) The social system is formed on the basis of a certain, one or another social community (social group, social organization).

2) The social system represents integrity and integration. The essential features of a social system are integrity and integration.

Integrity - fixes the objective form of the existence of phenomena, that is, the existence as a single whole.

Integration is the process itself and the mechanism for bringing parts together.

The structure of the social system:

1. People (even one person, a person).

3. Norms of connections.

Signs of a social system.

1) Relative constancy and stability.

Forms a new, integrative quality, not reducible to the sum of the qualities of its elements.

3) Each system is unique in some ways and retains its independence (“society” is each individual phenomenon of the social system).

4) Social systems can mutually regroup according to the types of synthesis (Japanese society, there is no tough confrontation between traditions and innovations), symbiosis (like protein and yolk; our country: something new was introduced, but its traditional roots are always preserved) or by force ( typical for us too...).

5) Social systems develop according to certain patterns that develop within them.

6) The individual must obey the laws of the social system in which he is included.

7) The main form of development of social systems is innovation (that is, innovation).

8) Social systems have significant inertia (stability, non-perception, there is an effect of "resistance" to innovation).

9) Any social system consists of subsystems.

10) Social systems are the most complex formations, since their main element - a person - has a large range of choice of behavior.

11) Social systems have a significant uncertainty of functioning (they wanted the best, but it turned out as always).

12) Social systems have boundaries of controllability.

Types of social systems.

I. By system level:

1) Microsystems (personality is a complex social system; a small group - student, family; study their microsociology).

2) Macrosystems (about society as a whole...).

3) Megasystems (general planetary system).

II. By quality:

1. Open, that is, those that interact with other systems through multiple channels.

2. Closed, that is, those that interact with other systems through one or two channels. Let's say the USSR was a closed system.

3. Isolated social systems. This is a very rare occurrence, as isolated systems are not viable. These are the ones that don't interact with others at all. Albania.

III. By structure:

1) Homogeneous (homogeneous).

2) Heterogeneous (dissimilar). Consist of elements of various kinds: environmental, technical and social elements (people).

Society as a socio-cultural system.

Society is a historically established and developing set of relations between individuals in the process of their joint life activity.

signs of society.

1. Common territory.

2. Self-reproduction.

3. Self-sufficiency (general economy).

4. Self-regulation.

5. Presence of norms and values.

The structure of society.

1. Social communities and groups (people create themselves).

2. Social organizations and institutions.

3. Norms and values.

Source of development of society: innovative energy of people.

The functioning of society.

The functioning of society is its constant self-reproduction based on:

1) Socialization (based on the assimilation of the norms of society).

2) Institutionalization (when we enter into more and more new relationships).

3) Legitimation (when laws are already brought under relations in society).

Algorithm for the development of society:

Innovation =>

Shock (disbalance) =>

Bifurcation (separation) =>

Fluctuation (fluctuation) =>

NEW SOCIETY.

The functions of society.

1. Creation of conditions to meet the various needs of the individual.

2. Providing individuals with opportunities for self-realization.

Types of societies.

I. According to the method of production.

· Primitive society.

The slave society.

feudal society.

· Capitalist society.

The communist society.

II. According to civilizational criteria.

· Traditional societies (pre-industrial, agrarian).

industrial societies.

post-industrial societies.

III. By political criteria:

· Totalitarian societies.

IV. religious criteria.

· Christian societies: Catholic (most of them); Protestant; Orthodox.

· Muslim - Sunni and Shiite societies.

· Buddhist (Buryats).

Jewish societies (Jews).

Patterns of development of social systems.

1. Acceleration of history. In fact, each subsequent society goes through its life cycle faster than the previous one (the primitive one is longer than all, the others are shorter ...).

2. Consolidation of historical time. At each subsequent stage comparable to the previous one, more events occur than at the previous stage.

3. Pattern of uneven development (uneven development).

4. Increasing role of the subjective factor. This means an increase in the role of the individual, each person.

social organization.

In Russian, the concept of “organization” refers to the meaning “where a person works, in which organization” ... We use the example of “organization of the educational process”, that is, “how to organize, streamline people's lives”.

Social organization is a way of ordering and regulating the activities of people.

Signs (mandatory elements, structural analysis) of a social organization:

1. The presence of common goals and interests.

2. The system of statuses and roles (there are three statuses at the university: students, professorial and teaching staff and something like service personnel. Roles of students: elders, students, trade unionists ... Professorial and teaching status, roles: associate professor, candidate of sciences ...).

3. Relationship rules.

4. This is a relationship of public power. This is not political power, but rather the right to influence, the ability to influence (according to Max Weber).

Social properties of the organization.

1) The organization is created as tool solving social problems.

2) The organization develops as a specific human (that is, social) community.

3) The organization is objectified as an impersonal structure of connections and norms (there were students and teachers before us and there will be after us).

The effectiveness of social organization depends on cooperation (from synergy - synergy, the new science of synergetics - the science of cooperation), where the main thing is not the number, but the method of association.

Scientists say that the most stable small groups are five people. Two people - extremely unstable. Three is more stable. But five is considered the best, optimal option.

Combination options: circle, snake, y and steering wheel:

Circle Snake Ygrek Steering Wheel

It is better to have a group of an odd number of people so that it does not break in half.

In order for the energy of social organization to increase, it is necessary:

1. Simultaneity and one-pointedness of many efforts.

2. Division and combination of labor.

3. Consistent dependence of participants on each other is necessary.

4. Psychological interaction (for those who will live in a confined space for a long time - such as space, a submarine ...).

5. Group control.

Functions of social organization.

1) Coordination of people's actions.

2) Smoothing out conflicts between managers and subordinates.

3) Unity of group members.

4) Maintaining a sense of individuality.

Types of social organizations.

I. According to the size of the organization can be:

1) Large (states).

2) Medium (youth organization, trade union organizations).

3) Small (family, student group…).

II. On a legal basis.

1) Legitimate organizations and illegal organizations.

2) Formal (has statutory documents) and informal organizations.

Both legal and illegal organizations can be both formal and informal.

Formal organization was described by Max Weber in his theory of rationality and was called the "theory of bureaucracy". According to Weber, a formal organization is an ideal type of bureaucracy. Management activities are carried out constantly, there is a ceiling of competence at each level, higher managers control the lower ones (vertical of power), each official is separated from ownership of the means of control. Managerial work becomes a special special profession (people must receive special knowledge. RAKS - the Russian Academy ... In general, 2/3 of the officials did not appear there).

III. By historical type:

1) Estate-feudal organization. It still exists. Statuses and roles are rigidly fixed in this organization (it is impossible to change statuses and roles in it)

2) Command and administrative organization. The USSR survived it in full. This organization is characterized by the so-called etatism (a large role of the state), parthenalism (a large role of the first person).

3) Civil society as a type of social organization. First of all, this is a legal, social state, democracy, mobility, pluralism, self-government, individual autonomy, plus broad rights and freedoms that are guaranteed.

Legal organization (as a separate organization).

It arose quite late - only in the 19th century.

A legal organization is a state institution or public organization specially created for the professional performance of legal functions, that is, for establishing legal facts and resolving conflicts on the basis of law.

Legal organizations include: all law enforcement agencies, these are courts, prosecutors, police, advocacy, notaries and even administrative institutions.

But what does not apply to legal organizations: they do not include state administration bodies (including the Ministry of Justice) and the so-called penitentiary institutions.

The essence of social organization is to ensure social (public) order in society.

social institutions.

The social institution is the form regulation of joint activities with the help of a system of norms and rules.

The structure of the social institution:

1. A certain field of activity (political, economic, social, cultural).

2. This is a group of persons performing organizational and managerial functions.

3. These are norms and principles, rules of relations between people.

4. These are material means.

Functions of social institutions:

1) Ensuring the development of society.

2) The implementation of socialization (the process of learning the rules of life in society).

3) Ensuring continuity in the use of values ​​and the transmission of norms of social behavior.

4) Stabilization of social relations.

5) Integration of people's actions.

Types of social institutions (typology):

I. By type of activity:

1) Economic activity (economy) - the institution of production, property, exchange, trade, market, money, banks ...

2) Socio-political institutions (politics as a social institution) - this includes the institution of the state, the institution of the presidency, parliament, government ... In addition to the state, this is an institution of power (executive, legislative and judicial), the institution of political regimes and political parties. Law Institute.

3) Socio-cultural institutions (institutions of culture) - these include religion, education and science. Now the institution of public leisure is beginning to enter this sphere.

4) Social institutions in the social sphere. This includes the institution of the family (relations between husband and wife, parents and other relatives), the institution of marriage (relations between a man and a woman), the institution of education, the institution of medicine or health care, the institution of social guardianship and social security.

II. Depending on the functions performed:

1) "Relational" social institutions (that is, those that determine the role structure of society).

2) Regulatory social institutions (determining the permissible framework for independent actions of an individual in society).

3) Integrative social institutions (responsibility for ensuring the interests of the social community as a whole).

The change in social institutions occurs under the influence of objective and subjective, external and internal factors and causes.

Institutionalization is the process of bringing norms and rules under a certain type of relationship between people.

social processes.

1. The essence of social processes.

2. Social conflicts and crises.

3. Social reforms and revolutions.

The social system is one of the most complex systems of living nature, which is a collection of people, relationships between them, their knowledge, skills, and abilities. The main generic feature of a social system is their human nature and essence, since it is formed by people, is the sphere of their activity, the object of their influence. This is both the strength and vulnerability of social management, its creative nature and the possibility of manifestations of subjectivism and voluntarism.

The concept of "social system" is based on a systematic approach to the study of ourselves and the world around us, and therefore this definition can be considered both in the "broad" and in the "narrow" sense. In accordance with this, a social system can be understood as either a human society as a whole, or its individual components - groups of people (societies), united according to some sign (territorial, temporal, professional, etc.). At the same time, it should be taken into account that the essential features of any systems are: the plurality of elements (at least two); the existence of connections; the holistic nature of this education.

Social systems, unlike others that have received a program of their behavior from outside, are self-regulating, which is inherent in society at any stage of its development. As an integral set, the social system has specific stable qualities that make it possible to distinguish social systems from each other. These characteristics are called systemic features.

The concept of ″system features″ should be distinguished from the concept of ″system features″. The first characterizes the main features of the system, i.e. those features of a society, social group, collective, which give us reason to call a given social formation a system. The second is the qualitative characteristics inherent in a particular system and distinguishing it from another.

Signs of a social system or, in other words, society, can be divided into two groups, the first of which characterizes the external conditions of the life of a social organism, the second reveals the internal, most important moments of its existence.

External signs .

First commonly referred to as a hallmark of society territory where the development of various social relations takes place. In this case, the territory can be called a social space.

Second sign of society chronological framework his existence. Any society exists as long as there is an expediency to continue the social ties that make it up, or as long as there are no external causes that can liquidate this society.

Third the hallmark of society is relative isolation, which allows us to consider it as a system. Consistency makes it possible to divide all individuals into members and non-members of a given society. This leads to the identification of a person with a certain society and the consideration of other people as ″outsiders″. Unlike the animal herd, where identification with society occurs on the basis of instinct, in a human collective, the correlation of oneself with a given society is built primarily on the basis of reason.

internal signs.

First The hallmark of a society is its relative stability achieved through the constant development and modification of social ties that exist in it. Society, as a social system, can exist only through the constant development and modification of the social ties that exist in it. The stability of a social system is thus closely related to its ability to develop.

Second sign - presence internal public structures. In this case, the structure is understood as stable social formations (institutions), connections, relations that exist on the basis of any principles and norms defined for this society.

Third The hallmark of a society is its ability to be self-sufficient self-regulating mechanism. In any society, its own specialization and infrastructure are created, which allow it to have everything necessary for a normal existence. Any society is multifunctional. Various social institutions and relations ensure the satisfaction of the needs of members of society and the development of society as a whole.

Finally, ability to integrate, is an seventh sign of society. This sign lies in the ability of a society (social system) to include new generations (systems, subsystems), modify the forms and principles of some of its institutions and connections on the basic principles that determine one or another character of social consciousness.

I would like to especially note that the main distinguishing feature of social systems, arising from their nature, is the presence of goal setting. Social systems always strive to achieve certain goals. Here nothing is done without a conscious intention, without a desired goal. People unite in various kinds of organizations, communities, classes, social groups and other kinds of systems, which necessarily have certain interests and common goals. Between the concepts of "goal" and "interest" there is a close relationship. Where there is no commonality of interests, there can be no unity of goals, since the unity of goals based on common interests creates the necessary prerequisites for the development and improvement of such a supersystem as society as a whole.

One and the same object (including the social system), depending on the objectives of the study, can be considered both in statics and in dynamics. At the same time, in the first case we are talking about the structure of the object of study, and in the second - about its functions.

All the variety of social relations are grouped into certain areas, which allow to single out separate subsystems in the social system, each of which performs its own functional purpose. Relationships within each subsystem are functionally dependent, i.e. collectively acquire properties that they do not possess individually.

A social system can effectively implement its tasks when performing the following functions:

1) it must have the ability to adapt, adapt to changing conditions, be able to rationally organize and distribute internal resources;

2) it must be goal-oriented, capable of setting the main goals, objectives and supporting the process of achieving them;

3) it must remain stable on the basis of common norms and values ​​that are assimilated by individuals and relieve tension in the system;

4) it must have the ability to integrate, to be included in the system of new generations. As you can see, the above is not only a set of functions, but also distinguishing features of social systems from others (biological, technical, etc.).

In the structure of society, the following main subsystems (spheres) are usually distinguished:

- economic- includes social relations of ownership, production, exchange, distribution and consumption of material and spiritual goods;

- political- the totality of social relations regarding the functioning of political power in society;

- social- a set of social relations (in the narrow sense of the term) between groups of people and individuals who occupy a certain position in society, have an appropriate status and social roles;

- spiritual and cultural- includes relations between individuals, groups of individuals about spiritual and cultural benefits.

When studying any phenomenon, it is important to single out not only its characteristic features that distinguish it from other social formations, but also to show the diversity of its manifestation and development in real life. Even a superficial glance allows one to capture the multicolored picture of the social systems that exist in the modern world. Chronological, territorial, economic, etc. are used as criteria for differentiating the types of social systems. factors, depending on the goals and objectives of the study.

The most common and generalized is the differentiation of social systems in accordance with the structure of social activity and social relations, for example, in such spheres of social life as material production, social (in the narrow sense), political, spiritual, family and household. The listed main spheres of public life are subdivided into private areas and their corresponding systems. All of them form a multi-level hierarchy, the diversity of which is due to the complexity of society itself. Society itself is a social system of the highest complexity, which is in constant development.

Without dwelling in detail on the types of social systems and their characteristics (since this is not part of the objectives of this course), we only note that the system of internal affairs bodies is also one of the varieties of social systems. We will dwell on its features and structure below.

With the advent of people, their unification into tribes and clans began, from which, thousands of years later, peoples and societies were formed. They began to populate and explore the planet, initially leading a nomadic lifestyle, and then, having settled in the most favorable places, they organized a social space. Further filling it with objects of labor and life of people became the beginning of the emergence of city-states and states.

For tens of thousands of years, a social society has been formed and developed in order to acquire the features that it has today.

Definition of social structure

Each society goes through its own path of development and formation of the foundations of which it consists. To understand what a social structure is, it should be taken into account that this is a complex relationship of elements and systems functioning in it. They constitute a kind of skeleton on which society stands, but at the same time it tends to change, depending on conditions.

The concept of social structure includes:

• elements that fill it, that is, various types of communities;
• social ties affecting all stages of its development.

The social structure consists of a society divided into groups, layers, classes, as well as into ethnic, professional, territorial and other elements. At the same time, it is a reflection of the relationship between all its members, based on cultural, economic, demographic and other types of ties.

It is people who, by creating not arbitrary, but permanent relationships with each other, form the concept of social structure as an object with established relationships. Thus, a person is not completely free in his choice, being part of this structure. He is limited by the social world and the relations that have developed in it, into which he constantly enters in various spheres of his activity.

The social structure of a society is its framework, within which there are various groups that unite people and put forward certain requirements for their behavior in the system of role relations between them. They may have some limits that must not be violated. For example, a person, working in a team where they did not impose strict requirements on the appearance of employees, having got to another job where they are, will fulfill them, even if he does not like it.

The distinctive features of the social structure are the presence of real subjects that create certain processes in it. They can be both separate individuals and various sections of the population and social communities, regardless of their size, for example, the working class, a religious sect or the intelligentsia.

The structure of society

Each country has its own social system with its own traditions, norms of behavior, economic and cultural ties. Any such society has a complex structure based on the relationship of its members and the relationship between castes, classes, layers and strata.

It is made up of large and small social groups, which are usually called associations of people united by common interests, work activities or the same values. Large communities are distinguished by the amount of income and methods of obtaining it, by social status, education, occupation or other characteristics. Some scholars refer to them as "strata", but more common are the concepts of "stratum" and "class", such as workers, who make up the largest group in most countries.

Society at all times had a clear hierarchical structure. For example, 200 years ago in some countries there were estates. Each of them had their own privileges, property and social rights, which were enshrined in law.

The hierarchical division in such a society operates vertically, passing through all types of connections - politics, economics, culture, professional activity. As it develops, groups and estates change in it, as well as the internal interconnection of their members. For example, in medieval England, an impoverished lord was more respected than a very rich merchant or merchant. Today, ancient noble families are honored in this country, but successful and wealthy businessmen, athletes or people of art are more admired.

Flexible social system

A society in which there is no caste system is mobile, since its members can move from one layer to another both horizontally and vertically. In the first case, the social status of a person does not change, for example, he simply moves from one position to a similar one in another job.

Vertical transition implies an increase or decrease in social or financial status. For example, a person with an average income occupies a leadership position, which gives incomes much higher than before.

In some modern societies, there are social inequalities based on financial, racial or social differences. In such structures, some layers or groups have more privileges and opportunities than others. By the way, some scientists believe that inequality is a natural process for modern society, as it gradually creates a large number of people with outstanding abilities, talents and leadership qualities, which become its basis.

Types of social structures of the ancient world

The formation of society throughout the history of human development directly depended on the division of labor, the level of development of people and the socio-economic relations between them.

For example, during the primitive communal system, the social structure of society was determined by how useful the representatives of a tribe or clan were to the rest of its members. The sick, the elderly and the crippled were not kept unless they could make at least some feasible contribution to the welfare and security of the community.

Another thing is the slave system. Although it was divided into only 2 classes - slaves and their owners, the society itself was made up of scientists, merchants, artisans, the army, artists, philosophers, poets, peasants, priests, teachers and representatives of other professions.

On the example of ancient Greece, Rome and a number of countries of the East, one can trace how the social society of that time was formed. They had well-developed economic and cultural ties with other countries, and the strata of the population were clearly divided into representatives of various professions, into freemen and slaves, into those in power and lawyers.

Types of social structures from the Middle Ages to the present day

What is the social structure of a feudal society can be understood by tracing the development of the European countries of that period. It consisted of 2 classes - the feudal lords and their serfs, although society was also divided into several classes and representatives of the intelligentsia.

Estates are social groups that occupy their position in the system of economic, legal and traditional ties. For example, in France there were 3 classes - the secular (feudal lords, nobility), the clergy and the largest part of society, which included free peasants, artisans, merchants and merchants, and later - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

The capitalist system, especially the modern one, has a more complex structure. For example, the concept of the middle class arose, which used to include the bourgeoisie, and today it includes merchants, and entrepreneurs, and highly paid employees and workers, and farmers, and small businesses. Membership in the middle class is determined by the income level of its members.

Although this category includes a large part of the population in highly developed capitalist countries, representatives of big business have the greatest influence on the development of the economy and politics. Separately, there is a class of intelligentsia, especially creative, scientific, technical and humanitarian. Thus, many artists, writers and representatives of other intellectual and creative professions have an income characteristic of big business.

Another type of social structure is the socialist system, which should be based on equal rights and opportunities for all members of society. But the attempt to build developed socialism in Eastern, Central Europe and Asia has led many of these countries to poverty.

A positive example is the social system in such countries as Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and others, which are based on capitalist relations with full social protection of the rights of its members.

Components of social structure

To understand what a social structure is, you need to know what elements are included in its composition:

1. Groups that bring together people connected by common interests, values, professional activities or goals. More often they are perceived by others as communities.
2. Classes are large social groups that have their own financial, economic or cultural values ​​based on their code of honor, behavior and interaction of their representatives.
3. Social strata are intermediate and constantly changing, emerging or disappearing social groups that do not have an explicit connection with the means of production.
4. Strata are social groups limited by some parameter, such as profession, status, income level, or other attribute.

These elements of the social structure determine the composition of society. The more of them, the more complex its design, the more clearly the hierarchical vertical is traced. The division of society into various elements is noticeable in the attitude of people towards each other, depending on the criteria inherent in their class. For example, the poor do not like the rich because of their financial superiority, while the latter despise them for their inability to earn money.

Population

The system of various types of communities with strong internal ties between their members is what the social structure of the population is. There are no rigid criteria that separate people in them. These can be both main and non-main classes, layers, layers within them and social groups.

For example, before the advent of Soviet power to Ukraine, most of its population was made up of artisans and individual peasants. A third were landowners, wealthy peasants, merchants and workers, while there were very few employees. After collectivization, the population of the country already consisted of only three layers - workers, employees and peasants.

If we consider the historical stages of development of countries, then the absence of a middle class, namely entrepreneurs, small businesses, free artisans and wealthy farmers, led them to impoverishment and a sharp economic contrast between the strata of society.

The formation of "middle peasants" contributes to the rise of the economy, the emergence of a whole class of people with a completely different mentality, goals, interests and culture. The poorer stratum thanks to them receives new types of goods and services, jobs and higher wages.

Today, in most countries, the population consists of the political elite, the clergy, technical, creative and humanitarian intelligentsia, workers, scientists, farmers, entrepreneurs and representatives of other professions.

The concept of a social system

If for the sages who lived 2500 years ago, this term meant the orderliness of life in the state, today the social system is a complex formation, which includes the primary subsystems of society, for example, economic, cultural and spiritual, political and social.

• The economic subsystem implies the regulation of human relations in solving such issues as the production, distribution, use or exchange of material goods. It must solve 3 tasks: what to produce, how and for whom. If one of the tasks is not fulfilled, then the entire economy of the country collapses. Since the environment and the needs of the population are constantly changing, the economic system must adapt to them in order to satisfy the material interests of the whole society. The higher the standard of living of the population, the more needs it has, which means that the economy of this society functions better.
• The political subsystem is associated with the organization, establishment, operation and change of power. Its main element is the social structure of the state, namely its legal institutions, such as courts, prosecutors, electoral bodies, arbitration and others. The main function of the political subsystem is to ensure social order and stability in the country, as well as to quickly resolve the vital problems of society.
• The social (public) subsystem is responsible for the prosperity and well-being of the population as a whole, regulating the relationship between its various classes and strata. This includes health care, public transportation, utilities and domestic services.
• The cultural and spiritual subsystem is engaged in the creation, development, dissemination and preservation of cultural, traditional and moral values. Its elements include sciences, arts, upbringing, education, morality and literature. Its main duties are the education of young people, the transfer of the spiritual values ​​of the people to a new generation, and the enrichment of the cultural life of people.

Thus, the social system is a fundamental part of any society, which is responsible for the uniform development, prosperity and security of its members.

Social structure and its levels

Each country has its own territorial divisions, but in most of them they are approximately the same. In modern society, the levels of social structure are divided into 5 zones:

1. State. It is responsible for making decisions concerning the country as a whole, its development, security and international position.
2. Regional social space. It concerns each region separately, taking into account its climatic, economic and cultural characteristics. It may be independent, or it may depend on the higher state zone in matters of subsidies or budget redistribution.
3. The territorial zone is a small subject of the regional space, which has the right to elections to local councils, to form and use its own budget, to resolve issues and tasks at the local level.
4. Corporate zone. It is possible only in a market economy and is represented by farms that conduct their labor activities with the formation of the budget and local government, for example, shareholders. It is subject to territorial or regional zones according to laws formed at the state level.
5. Individual level. Although it is at the bottom of the pyramid, it is its basis, since it implies the personal interests of a person, which are always above the public. The needs of an individual can have a wide range of desires - from a guaranteed decent salary to self-expression.

Thus, the formation of a social structure is always based on the elements and levels of its components.

Changes in the structure of society

Each time countries have moved to a new level of development, their structure has changed. For example, the change in the social structure of society during the times of serfdom was associated with the development of industry and the growth of cities. Many serfs went to work in factories, moving into the class of workers.

Today, such changes concern wages and labor productivity. If even 100 years ago physical labor was paid higher than mental labor, today the opposite is true. For example, a programmer can earn more than a highly skilled worker.

Introduction 2

1. The concept of social system 3

2. Social system and its structure 3

3. Functional problems of social systems 8

4. Hierarchy of social systems 12

5. Social connections and types of social systems 13

6. Types of social interactions between subsystems 17

7. Societies and social systems 21

8. Social and cultural systems 28

9. Social systems and the individual 30

10. Paradigm of the analysis of social systems 31

Conclusion 32

References 33

Introduction

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

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

1. The concept of a social system

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

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

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

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

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

2. Social system and its structure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Functional problems of social systems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Hierarchy of social systems

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

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

5. Social connections and types of social systems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. Types of social interactions between subsystems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. Societies and social systems

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. Social and cultural systems

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

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

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

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

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

9. Social systems and the individual.

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

10. Social systems analysis paradigm

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

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

Conclusion

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

The social system can be represented in five aspects:

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

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

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

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

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

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Under social system is understood as a holistic education, consisting of functionally interconnected and interacting elements (individuals, groups, organizations, institutions, communities). A social system is a broader concept than a social structure. If a social system is a way of organizing the interaction of all its constituent elements, then the social structure acts as a set of the most stable elements and their connections that ensure the reproduction and functioning of the entire system. In other words, the social structure forms the basis, the framework of the social system.

Society as a global social system is a complex holistic formation, including a number of subsystems that carry an independent functional load. There are mainly the following main subsystems of society: economic, political, social and spiritual (socio-cultural).

Economic subsystem regulates relations between people in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods. It aims to address three interrelated questions: 1) what produce (what goods and services); 2) as to produce (on the basis of what technology and with the help of what resources); 3) for whom to produce (to whom these goods and services are intended). The main function of the economic subsystem is adaptation to changing environmental conditions and satisfaction of the material needs and interests of members of society. The higher the level of economic organization of society, the higher the degree of its adaptation, and hence the efficiency of functioning, which is clearly demonstrated today by the most developed industrial countries.

Political subsystem regulates relations related to the establishment, organization, functioning and change of public authority. The main elements of the political subsystem are the state, legal institutions (court, prosecutor's office, arbitration, etc.), political parties and movements, socio-political associations and associations, etc. It also includes value-normative structures that regulate interactions political actors, and the media, providing the relationship between the state and civil society. The main function of the political subsystem is to ensure social order, stability and integration of society, its mobilization to solve vital tasks and problems.

Social subsystem regulates the interaction of various groups and communities regarding the social conditions of their life. The social sphere in the broadest sense is a set of organizations and institutions responsible for the well-being of the entire population (public catering, health care, passenger transport, public utilities and consumer services, etc.). The social sphere at a narrow level means only institutions of social protection and social security, which cover some socially vulnerable segments of the population (pensioners, the unemployed, the disabled, large families, etc.).

Spiritual (sociocultural) subsystem directs the activity on the creation, development and development of cultural, spiritual and moral values ​​that determine the consciousness and behavior of a person. The main structural elements of the spiritual sphere include science, education, upbringing, morality, literature, art, and religion. The main functions of this subsystem are the socialization of the individual, the education and upbringing of the younger generation, the development of science and culture, the reproduction of the socio-cultural environment of people's life, and the enrichment of their spiritual world.

All four subsystems are closely interconnected and influence each other. At the same time, it is extremely difficult to establish which of them plays a leading role. The Marxist position, according to which the economic sphere determines social, political and spiritual processes, has been repeatedly criticized by many sociologists. Their main argument is that it is impossible to explain the reasons for the stability of some societies and the collapse of others only by the influence of production relations. Currently, researchers refrain from unambiguous assessments of the leading role of one or another subsystem of society. In their opinion, a society can develop normally only as a result of the effective and coordinated functioning of all its main subsystems - economic, political, social, spiritual and cultural. Underestimation of any of them is fraught with negative consequences for the life of society as an integral system.

In determining the social structure of society, it is important to establish its initial constituent elements. From this position, sociologists distinguish two main theoretical models of social structure: normative-value and categorical. The first is represented by structural functionalism and sociological trends adjacent to it (2.8). According to this model, the main elements of the social structure are normative-value formations - social institutions, status-role groups, etc. role, this or that type of social activity. Thus, the social structure is considered not as a frozen configuration, but as a dynamic integral system, which is the result of the interaction of its constituent elements.

The categorical model of the social structure is based on the fact that the main main components of the social structure are large social categories - classes, social strata, professional groups, etc. At the same time, Marxist sociologists emphasize the conditionality of the social structure by the dominant mode of production and focus on the analysis of class contradictions , their impact on structural changes in society, while representatives of technological determinism consider technological innovations to be the source of changes in the social structure and believe that technological progress is able to resolve all the contradictions of modern society.

There is also an exclusively empirical approach to the study of the social structure of society. Supporters of this direction include in the content of the social structure only observable and empirically fixed communities of people with measurable characteristics (age, profession, income, education, etc.).

Finally, in the sociological literature, one often comes across an extremely broad interpretation of the social structure, when it comes to the general structure of society, which includes the most diverse and diverse structural components, and when it also refers to the socio-demographic, socio-territorial, socio-ethnic and other structure. society.

Thus, the social structure of society is considered in various aspects. The task of sociology is primarily to reveal the patterns of its formation and development. This is all the more important because it is the social structure that largely determines the stability of society, its qualitative characteristics as an integral social system.

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