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

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

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

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

Formation types

Marxism distinguishes five types of socio-economic formations.

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

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

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

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

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

Materialistic approach in the study of civilizations

Within the framework of this approach, civilization appears as a higher level of development that goes beyond the limits of the "natural society" with its natural productive forces.

L. Morgan about the signs of a civilizational society: the development of productive forces, the functional division of labor, the expansion of the exchange system, the emergence of private ownership of land, the concentration of wealth, the split of society into classes, the formation of the state.

L. Morgan, F. Engels identified three major periods in the history of mankind: savagery, barbarism, civilization. Civilization is the achievement of some higher level than barbarism.

F. Engels about the three great eras of civilizations: the first great era is ancient, the second is feudalism, the third is capitalism. The formation of civilization in connection with the emergence of a division of labor, the separation of craft from agriculture, the formation of classes, the transition from a tribal system to a state based on social inequality. Two types of civilizations: antagonistic (the period of class societies) and non-antagonistic (the period of socialism and communism).

East and West as different types of civilizational development

The "traditional" society of the East (eastern traditional civilization), its main characteristics: the indivisibility of property and administrative power, the subordination of society to the state, the absence of private property and the rights of citizens, the complete absorption of the individual by the collective, the economic and political domination of the state, the presence of despotic states. The influence of Western (technogenic) civilization.

Achievements and contradictions of Western civilization, its characteristic features: market economy, private property, rule of law, democratic social order, the priority of the individual and his interests, various forms of class organization (trade unions, parties, etc.) - Comparative characteristics of the West and East, their main features, values.

Civilization and culture. Different approaches to understanding the phenomenon of culture, their connection. Main approaches: activity, axiological (value), semiotic, sociological, humanistic. Contrasting concepts "civilization" and "culture"(O. Spengler, X. Ortega y Gasset, D. Bell, N. A. Berdyaev and others).

The ambiguity of the definitions of culture, its relationship with the concept of "civilization":

• - civilization as a certain stage in the development of the culture of individual peoples and regions (L. Tonnoy, P. Sorokin);
• - civilization as a specific stage of social development, which is characterized by the emergence of cities, writing, the formation of national-state formations (L. Morgan, F. Engels);
• - civilization as the value of all cultures (K. Jaspers);
• - civilization as the final moment in the development of culture, its "decline" and decline (O. Spengler);
• - civilization as a high level of human material activity: tools, technologies, economic and political relations and institutions;
• - culture as a manifestation of the spiritual essence of man (N. Berdyaev, S. Bulgakov), civilization as the highest manifestation of the spiritual essence of man;
• - culture is not civilization.

culture, according to P. S. Gurevich, it is a historically defined level of development of society, creative forces, human abilities, expressed in the types of organization and activities of people, as well as in the material and spiritual values ​​\u200b\u200bcreated by them. Culture as a set of material and cultural achievements of mankind in all spheres of public life; as a specific characteristic of human society, as something that distinguishes man from animals.

The most important component of culture is the value-normative system. Value - this property of a particular social object, phenomenon to satisfy the needs, desires, interests of a person, society; this is a personally colored attitude to the world, arising not only on the basis of knowledge and information, but also on a person’s own life experience; the significance of the objects of the surrounding world for a person: class, group, society, humanity as a whole.

Culture occupies a special place in the structure of civilizations. Culture is a way of individual and social life, expressed in a concentrated form, the degree of development of both a person and social relations, as well as one's own being.

Differences between culture and civilization according to S. A. Babushkin, are as follows:

• - in historical time, culture is a broader category than civilization;
• - culture is part of civilization;
• - types of culture do not always coincide with the types of civilizations;
• - they are smaller, more fractional than the types of civilizations.

The theory of socio-economic formations of K. Marx and F. Engels

Socio-economic formation - it is a society at a certain stage of historical development, using a certain mode of production.

The concept of linear development of the world-historical process.

World history is a set of histories of many socio-historical organisms, each of which must "go through" all socio-economic formations. Production relations are primary, the foundation of all other social relations. Many social systems are reduced to several basic types - socio-economic formations: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist, communist .

Three social formations (primary, secondary and tertiary) are designated by K. Marx as archaic (primitive), economic and communist. K. Marx includes the Asian, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois mode of production in the economic formation.

Formation - a certain stage in the historical progress of society, its natural and gradual approach to communism.

Structure and main elements of the formation.

Social relations are divided into material and ideological. Basis - the economic structure of society, the totality of production relations. material relations- production relations that arise between people in the process of production, exchange and distribution of material goods. The nature of production relations is determined not by the will and consciousness of people, but by the achieved level of development of the productive forces. The unity of production relations and productive forces forms a specific for each formation mode of production. Superstructure - a set of ideological (political, legal, etc.) relations, related views, theories, ideas, i.e. ideology and psychology of various social groups or society as a whole, as well as relevant organizations and institutions - the state, political parties, public organizations. The structure of the socio-economic formation also includes social relations of society, certain forms of life, family, lifestyle. The superstructure depends on the basis and affects the economic basis, and the relations of production affect the productive forces.

Separate elements of the structure of the socio-economic formation are interconnected and experience mutual influence. As socio-economic formations develop, they change, the transition from one formation to another through a social revolution, the resolution of antagonistic contradictions between the productive forces and production relations, between the base and the superstructure. Within the framework of the communist socio-economic formation, socialism develops into communism.

• Cm.: Gurevich A. Ya. The theory of formation and the reality of history // Questions of Philosophy. 1991. No. 10; Zakharov A. Once again about the theory of formations // Social sciences and modernity. 1992. No. 2.

Prerequisites for the development of the theory of socio-economic formation

In the middle of the XIX century. Marxism arose, an integral part of which was the philosophy of history - historical materialism. Historical materialism is the Marxist sociological theory - the science of the general and specific laws of the functioning and development of society.

To K. Marx (1818-1883) idealistic positions dominated in his views on society. For the first time, he consistently applied the materialistic principle to explain social processes. The main thing in his teaching was the recognition of social being as primary, and social consciousness as secondary, derivative.

Social being is a set of material social processes that do not depend on the will and consciousness of an individual or even society as a whole.

The logic here is this. The main problem for society is the production of the means of life (food, housing, etc.). This production is always carried out with the help of tools. Certain objects of labor are also involved.

At each specific stage of history, the productive forces have a certain level of development. And they determine (determine) certain production relations.

This means that the relations between people in the course of the production of means of subsistence are not chosen arbitrarily, but depend on the nature of the productive forces.

In particular, for thousands of years a rather low level of their development, the technical level of tools that allowed their individual use, led to the dominance of private property (in various forms).

The concept of the theory, its supporters

In the 19th century productive forces acquired a qualitatively different character. The technological revolution caused the massive use of machines. Their use was possible only by joint, collective efforts. Production acquired a directly social character. As a result, ownership also had to be made common, to resolve the contradiction between the social character of production and the private form of appropriation.

Remark 1

According to Marx, politics, ideology and other forms of social consciousness (superstructure) are derivative. They reflect industrial relations.

A society that is at a certain level of historical development, with a peculiar character, is called a socio-economic formation. This is a central category in the sociology of Marxism.

Remark 2

Society has gone through several formations: the original, slave, feudal, bourgeois.

The latter creates the prerequisites (material, social, spiritual) for the transition to a communist formation. Since the core of the formation is the mode of production as a dialectical unity of productive forces and production relations, the stages of human history in Marxism are often called not a formation, but a mode of production.

Marxism considers the development of society as a natural-historical process of replacing one mode of production with another, higher one. The founder of Marxism had to focus on the material factors in the development of history, since idealism reigned around him. This made it possible to accuse Marxism of "economic determinism", which ignores the subjective factor of history.

In the last years of his life, F. Engels tried to correct this shortcoming. VI Lenin attached particular importance to the role of the subjective factor. Marxism considers the class struggle to be the main driving force in history.

One socio-economic formation is replaced by another in the process of social revolutions. The conflict between the productive forces and production relations is manifested in the clash of certain social groups, antagonistic classes, which are the actors of revolutions.

The classes themselves are formed on the basis of the relationship to the means of production.

So, the theory of socio-economic formations is based on the recognition of the action in the natural-historical process of objective tendencies formulated in such laws:

• Correspondence of production relations to the nature and level of development of the productive forces;
• The primacy of the basis and the secondary nature of the superstructure;
• class struggle and social revolutions;
• Natural and historical development of mankind through the change of socio-economic formations.

conclusions

After the victory of the proletariat, public ownership puts everyone in the same position with respect to the means of production, and therefore leads to the disappearance of the class division of society and the destruction of antagonism.

Remark 3

The biggest shortcoming in the theory of socio-economic formations and the sociological concept of K. Marx is that he refused to recognize the right to a historical future for all classes and strata of society, except for the proletariat.

Despite the shortcomings and the criticism that Marxism has been subjected to for 150 years, it has more influenced the development of the social thought of mankind.

Socio-economic formation- in Marxist historical materialism - a stage of social evolution, characterized by a certain stage in the development of the productive forces of society and the historical type of economic production relations corresponding to this stage, which depend on it and are determined by it. There are no formational stages in the development of productive forces that would not correspond to the types of production relations conditioned by them. Each formation is based on a specific method of production. The relations of production, taken in their totality, form the essence of this formation. The data system of production relations, which form the economic basis of the formation, corresponds to a political, legal and ideological superstructure. The structure of the formation organically includes not only economic, but also all social relations between the communities of people that exist in a given society (for example, social groups, nationalities, nations, etc.), as well as certain forms of life, family, lifestyle. The root cause of the transition from one stage of social evolution to another is the discrepancy between the productive forces that increased by the end of the first and the type of production relations that persisted.

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  The end of socialism is communism, "the beginning of the true history of mankind", a never-before-existing structure of society. The cause of communism is the development of the productive forces to the extent that it requires that all means of production be in public ownership (not state property). There is a social and then a political revolution. Private ownership of the means of production has been completely abolished; there is no class division. Because of the absence of classes, there is no class struggle, no ideology. A high level of development of productive forces frees a person from heavy physical labor, a person is engaged only in mental labor. Today it is believed that this task will be performed by full automation of production, machines will take over all the hard physical labor. Commodity-money relations are dying out because they are not needed for the distribution of material goods, since the production of material goods exceeds the needs of people, and therefore there is no point in exchanging them. Society provides any technologically available benefits to every person. The principle “To each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!” is being implemented. A person does not have false needs as a result of the elimination of ideology and the main occupation is the realization of his cultural potential in society. A person's achievements and his contribution to the lives of other people are the highest value of society. A person motivated not economically, but by the respect or disrespect of the people around him, works consciously and much more productively, strives to bring the greatest benefit to society in order to receive recognition and respect for the work done and to occupy the most pleasant position in it. In this way, public consciousness under communism encourages independence as a condition for collectivism, and thus the voluntary recognition of the priority of common interests over personal ones. Power is exercised by the whole society as a whole, on the basis of self-government, the state withers away.

  Development of Marx's views on historical formations

  Marx himself, in his later writings, considered three new "modes of production": "Asiatic", "Ancient" and "Germanic". However, this development of Marx's views was later ignored in the USSR, where only one orthodox version of historical materialism was officially recognized, according to which "five socio-economic formations are known to history: primitive communal, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist and communist"

  To this it must be added that in the preface to one of his main early works on this topic: "On the Critique of Political Economy", Marx mentioned the "ancient" (as well as "Asiatic") mode of production, while in other works he (as well as Engels) wrote about the existence in antiquity of a "slave-owning mode of production." The historian of antiquity M. Finley pointed to this fact as one of the evidence of Marx and Engels' poor study of the issues of the functioning of ancient and other ancient societies. Another example: Marx himself discovered that the community appeared among the Germans only in the 1st century, and by the end of the 4th century it had completely disappeared from them, but despite this he continued to assert that the community everywhere in Europe had been preserved from primitive times.

  One of the ways of studying society is the formational way.

  Formation is a word of Latin origin, meaning "formation, appearance." What is a formation? What types of formations exist? What are their features?

  Formation

  Formation is a society at a certain stage of historical development, main criterion which is the development of the economy, the method of production of material goods, the level of development of productive forces, the totality of production relations. It all makes up basis, that is, the basis of society. Rising above him superstructure.

  Let us consider in more detail the concepts of "basis" and "superstructure", put forward by K. Marx.

  Basis - it's different material relations in society, that is, production relations that develop in the process of production of material goods, their exchange and distribution.

  superstructure includes various ideological relations(legal, political), related views, ideas, theories, as well as relevant organizations - the state, political parties, public organizations and foundations, etc.

  The formational approach to the study of society was put forward in the 19th century Karl Marx. He also identified the types of formations.

  Five types of formations according to K. Marx

  • Primitive communal formation: low level of development of productive forces and production relations, ownership of tools and means of production - communal. Management was carried out by all members of society or by the leader, who was elected as an authoritative person. The superstructure is primitive.
  • slave formation: means of production, tools were in the hands of slave owners. They also owned the slaves whose labor was exploited. The superstructure expressed the interests of the slave owners.
  • feudal formation: the means of production and most importantly, the land belonged to the feudal lords. The peasants were not the owners of the land, they rented it and paid dues for it or worked out the corvée. Religion played a huge role in the superstructure, defending the interests of those in power and at the same time uniting feudal lords and peasants into a spiritual unity.
  • capitalist formation: the means of production belonged to the bourgeoisie, and the proletariat, the working class, the producer of material goods, was deprived of the ownership of the means of production, selling their labor power, working in factories and factories. Personally, the proletariat is free. The superstructure is complex: all members of society participate in the political struggle and movement, public organizations and parties appear. The main contradiction of the formation arose: between the social nature of production and the private form of appropriation of the produced product. Only a socialist revolution could solve it, and then the next formation was established.
  • communist formation: characterized by a social form of ownership of the means of production. All members of society participate in the creation of wealth and their distribution, there is a complete satisfaction of all the needs of society. Today we understand that communism is a utopia. However, for a long time they believed in him, even Khrushchev N.S. hoped that communism would be built in the USSR by 1980.

  Material prepared: Melnikova Vera Aleksandrovna