4.4. Typology of political regimes Political regime - 1) a set of methods for exercising power and achieving political goals; 2) a set of methods, techniques and forms of implementing political relations in society, that is, the way it functions

3.4. Typology of entry barriers The emergence of new competitors leads to competition, which can be avoided by creating new entry barriers to the industry. Limited market capacity is a significant obstacle to starting a new venture. Market with

In the modern world, there are various types of societies that differ from each other in many ways, both explicit (language of communication, culture, geographic location, size, etc.) and hidden (degree of social integration, level of stability, etc.). Scientific classification involves the selection of the most essential, typical features that distinguish some features from others and unite societies of the same group. The complexity of social systems, called societies, determines both the variety of their specific manifestations and the absence of a single universal criterion on the basis of which they could be classified.

In the middle of the 19th century, K. Marx proposed a typology of societies, which was based on the mode of production of material goods and production relations - primarily property relations. He divided all societies into 5 main types (according to the type of socio-economic formations): primitive communal, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist and communist (the initial phase is a socialist society).

Another typology divides all societies into simple and complex. The criterion is the number of management levels and the degree of social differentiation (stratification). Simple society - it is a society in which the constituent parts are homogeneous, there are no rich and poor, leaders and subordinates, the structure and functions are poorly differentiated and can easily be interchanged. These are the primitive tribes that have survived in some places to this day.

Complex society - a society with highly differentiated structures and functions, interrelated and interdependent, which necessitates their coordination.

TO. Popper distinguishes between two types of societies: closed and open. The differences between them are based on a number of factors, and, above all, the relationship between social control and individual freedom. For closed society characterized by a static social structure, limited mobility, immunity to innovations, traditionalism, dogmatic authoritarian ideology, collectivism. To this type of society K. Popper attributed Sparta, Prussia, tsarist Russia, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union of the Stalin era. Open society characterized by a dynamic social structure, high mobility, ability to innovate, criticism, individualism and democratic pluralistic ideology. K. Popper considered ancient Athens and modern Western democracies to be examples of open societies.

Stable and widespread is the division of societies into traditional, industrial and post-industrial, proposed by the American sociologist D. Bell on the basis of a change in the technological basis - the improvement of the means of production and knowledge.

Traditional (pre-industrial) society - a society with an agrarian way of life, with a predominance of natural economy, class hierarchy, sedentary structures and a method of socio-cultural regulation based on tradition. It is characterized by manual labor, extremely low rates of development of production, which can satisfy the needs of people only at a minimum level. It is extremely inertial, therefore it is not receptive to innovations. The behavior of individuals in such a society is regulated by customs, norms, and social institutions. Customs, norms, institutions, consecrated by traditions, are considered unshakable, not allowing even the thought of changing them. Carrying out their integrative function, culture and social institutions suppress any manifestation of individual freedom, which is a necessary condition for the gradual renewal of society.

The term industrial society was introduced by A. Saint-Simon, emphasizing its new technical basis. Industrial society -(in modern terms) is a complex society, with an industry-based way of managing, with flexible, dynamic and modifying structures, a way of socio-cultural regulation based on a combination of individual freedom and the interests of society. These societies are characterized by a developed division of labor, the development of mass media, urbanization, etc.

Post-industrial society(sometimes it is called informational) - a society developed on an information basis: the extraction (in traditional societies) and processing (in industrial societies) of natural products are replaced by the acquisition and processing of information, as well as preferential development (instead of agriculture in traditional societies and industry in industrial ) the service sector. As a result, the structure of employment and the ratio of various professional and qualification groups are changing. According to forecasts, already at the beginning of the 21st century in advanced countries, half of the workforce will be employed in the field of information, a quarter - in the field of material production, and a quarter - in the production of services, including information.

The change in the technological basis also affects the organization of the entire system of social ties and relations. If in an industrial society the mass class was made up of workers, then in a postindustrial society it was white-collar workers and managers. At the same time, the significance of class differentiation is weakening, instead of a status ("grainy") social structure, a functional ("ready-made") structure is being formed. Instead of leadership, the principle of governance is being replaced by coordination, and representative democracy is being replaced by direct democracy and self-government. As a result, instead of a hierarchy of structures, a new type of network organization is created, focused on rapid change depending on the situation.

True, at the same time, some sociologists pay attention to the contradictory possibilities, on the one hand, to ensure a higher level of individual freedom in the information society, and on the other, to the emergence of new, more hidden and therefore more dangerous forms of social control over it.

In conclusion, we note that, in addition to those considered, there are other classifications of societies in modern sociology. It all depends on what criterion will be used as the basis for this classification.

Social structure of society "

Completed: 3rd year student

evening department

Zakhvatova G.I.

Teacher: Vukolova T.S.

1. Introduction …………………………………………………… 3

2. The concept of the social structure of society ………………. 4

3. Social stratification ……………………………… ..6

4. Social mobility: ……………………………… 11

4.1. Group mobility ……………………………… .11

4.2. Individual mobility ……………………… ..13

5. Features of social stratification in Russia …… ..15

5.1. Prospects for the formation of a middle class ... ... ... 15

6. Conclusion ………………………………………………… 19

7. List of used literature ……………………… ..21

1. Introduction.

In the study of social phenomena and processes, sociology is based on the principles of historicism. This means that, firstly, all social phenomena and processes are considered as systems with a certain internal structure; secondly, the process of their functioning and development is being studied; thirdly, specific changes and patterns of their transition from one qualitative state to another are revealed. The most general and complex social system is society. Society is a relatively stable system of connections and relations between people, formed in the process of the historical development of mankind, supported by customs, traditions and laws, based on a certain method of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material and spiritual benefits. The elements of such a complex social system are people whose social activity is determined by a certain social status that they occupy, the social functions (roles) they perform, social norms and values ​​adopted in this system, as well as individual qualities (social qualities of a person, motives , value orientations, interests, etc.).

Social structure means the objective division of society into separate strata, groups, different in their social status.

Any society strives to preserve inequality, seeing in it an ordering principle, without which the reproduction of social ties and the integration of the new are impossible. The same property is inherent in society as a whole. The theory of stratification is called upon to reveal the basic principles of the hierarchical structure of society.

The inviolability of the hierarchical structure of society does not mean that changes do not occur within it. At different stages, growth of one layer and contraction of another layer is possible. These changes cannot be explained by natural population growth. There is either a rise or fall of significant groups. And even the relative stability of social strata does not exclude the vertical migration of individual individuals. These vertical movements, while maintaining the very stratification structure, we will consider as social mobility.

2.The concept of the social structure of society

Interaction in society usually leads to the formation of new social relationships. The latter can be thought of as relatively stable and independent ties between individuals and social groups.

In sociology, the concepts of "social structure" and "social system" are closely related. A social system is a set of social phenomena and processes that are in relationships and connections with each other and form a kind of integral social object. Individual phenomena and processes act as elements of the system. The concept of "social structure of society" is part of the concept of a social system and combines two components - social composition and social ties. Social composition is a set of elements that make up a given structure. The second component is a set of links between these elements. Thus, the concept of social structure includes, on the one hand, the social composition, or a set of different types of social communities as system-forming social elements of society, on the other hand, the social connections of the constituent elements that differ in the breadth of their action, in their significance in the characteristics of social structure of society at a certain stage of development.

The social structure of society means the objective division of society into separate strata, groups, different in their social status, in their relation to the mode of production. It is a stable connection of elements in a social system. The main elements of the social structure are such social communities as classes and class-like groups, ethnic, professional, socio-demographic groups, socio-territorial communities (city, village, region). Each of these elements, in turn, is complex. social system with their subsystems and connections. The social structure of society reflects the peculiarities of social relations of classes, professional, cultural, national-ethnic and demographic groups, which are determined by the place and role of each of them in the system of economic relations. The social aspect of any community is concentrated in its connections and mediations with production and class relations in society.

Social structure as a kind of framework for the entire system of social relations, that is, as a set of economic, social and political institutions that organize social life. On the one hand, these institutions set a certain network of role positions and regulatory requirements in relation to specific members of society. On the other hand, they represent certain rather stable ways of socialization of individuals.

The main principle for determining the social structure of society should be the search for real subjects of social processes.

Subjects can be both individual individuals and social groups of various sizes, distinguished for different reasons: youth, working class, religious sect, and so on.

From this point of view, the social structure of society can be represented as a more or less stable ratio of social strata and groups. The theory of social stratification is called upon to study the diversity of hierarchically located social strata.

Initially, the idea of ​​a stratum representation of social structure had a pronounced ideological connotation and was intended to neutralize Marx's idea of ​​the class idea of ​​society and the dominance of class contradictions in history. But gradually the idea of ​​isolating social strata as elements of society was established in social science, because it really reflected the objective differences between different groups of the population within a particular class.

Theories of social stratification arose in opposition to the Marxist-Leninist theory of classes and class struggle.

3 social stratification

The term "stratification" comes from the Latin stratum - layer, layer and facere - to do. Thus, social stratification is the determination of the vertical sequence of the position of social strata, strata in society, and their hierarchy. Social stratification is "the differentiating ranking of individuals of a given social system", it is "a way of considering individuals as occupying a lower or higher social place relative to each other in some socially important aspects." Thus, the social structure arises about the social division of labor, and social stratification - about the social distribution of the results of labor, that is, social benefits.

Sociologists are unanimous in the opinion that the basis of the stratification structure is the natural and social inequality of people. However, the way inequality was organized could be different. It was necessary to isolate those foundations that would determine the appearance of the vertical structure of society.

So, for example, K. Marx introduced the only basis for the vertical stratification of society - the possession of property. Therefore, its stratification structure was actually reduced to two levels: the class of owners (slave owners, feudal lords, the bourgeoisie) and a class deprived of ownership of the means of production (slaves, proletarians) or having very limited rights (peasants). Attempts to present the intelligentsia and some other social groups as intermediate layers between the main classes left an impression of ill-considered general scheme social hierarchy of the population.

M. Weber increases the number of criteria that determine belonging to a particular stratum. In addition to economic - the attitude towards property and the level of income - he introduces criteria such as social prestige and belonging to certain political circles (parties). Prestige was understood as the acquisition by an individual from birth or due to personal qualities of such a social status that allowed him to take a certain place in the social hierarchy.

The role of status in the hierarchical structure of society is determined by such an important feature of social life as its normative value regulation. Thanks to the latter, only those whose status corresponds to the ideas of the importance of his title, profession, as well as norms and laws functioning in society, always rise to the "upper rungs" of the social ladder.

The allocation of political criteria of stratification by M. Weber still looks insufficiently reasoned. P. Sorokin speaks about this more clearly. He unambiguously points out the impossibility of giving a single set of criteria for belonging to any stratum and notes the presence in society of three stratification structures: economic, professional and political.

In the 1930s and 1940s, American sociology attempted to overcome the multidimensionality of stratification by asking individuals to determine their own place in the social structure. But this kind of research gave a different result: they showed that, consciously or intuitively, people feel, realize the hierarchy of society, feel the main parameters, principles that determine a person's position in society.

So, society reproduces, organizes inequality according to several criteria: according to the level of wealth and income, according to the level of social prestige, according to the level of possession of political power, and also according to some other criteria. It can be argued that all these types of hierarchy are significant for society, since they allow regulating both the reproduction of social ties and directing personal aspirations and ambitions of people to acquire statuses that are significant for society.

The introduction of such a criterion as the level of income led to the fact that, in accordance with it, it was possible to distinguish formally an infinite number of strata of the population with different levels of well-being. And the appeal to the problem of social and professional prestige gave grounds to make the stratification structure very similar to the social and professional one. This is how the division into: 1) the upper class - professionals, administrators; 2) mid-level technicians; 3) commercial class; 4) the petty bourgeoisie; 5) technicians and workers performing management functions; 6) skilled workers; 7) unskilled workers. And this is not the longest list of the main social strata of society. There was a danger of losing a holistic vision of the stratification structure, which was increasingly replaced by the desire of researchers to distribute individuals on the "levels" of the social hierarchy.

In our opinion, when developing the most general idea of ​​the social hierarchy of society, it is sufficient to single out three main levels: higher, middle, and lower. The distribution of the population by these levels is possible on all grounds of stratification, and the significance of each of them will be determined by the values ​​and norms prevailing in society, social institutions and ideological attitudes. In modern Western society, which values ​​freedom, the degree of which is determined, alas, not only by political and legal acts, but also by the thickness of the wallet, which provides wider access, for example, to education and, therefore, to a prestigious status group, the criteria are highlighted, ensuring this freedom: material independence, high income, etc.

As noted above, the primary cause of the hierarchical structure of society is social inequality generated by the objective conditions of the life of individuals. But each society seeks to organize its inequality, otherwise people, driven by a sense of injustice, will destroy in righteous anger everything that in their minds is associated with infringement of their interests.

The hierarchical system of modern society is devoid of its former rigidity. Formally, all citizens have equal rights, including the right to occupy any place in the social structure, rise to the top rungs of the social ladder, or be “below”. The sharply increased social mobility, nevertheless, did not lead to the "erosion" of the hierarchical system. Society still maintains and protects its hierarchy.

It has been observed that the profile of the vertical slice of society is not constant. Karl Marx once suggested that its configuration would gradually change due to the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and significant impoverishment of the bulk of the population. The result of this tendency will be the emergence of serious tension between the upper and lower layers of the social hierarchy, which will inevitably result in a struggle for the redistribution of the national income. But the growth of wealth and power at the top is not unlimited. There is a saturation point beyond which society cannot move without the risk of a major catastrophe. As we approach this point in society, processes begin to curb the pernicious tendency, either reforms are carried out to redistribute wealth through the tax system, or deep revolutionary processes begin, in which broad social strata are involved.

The stability of society is associated with the profile of social stratification. Excessive "stretching" of the latter is fraught with serious social cataclysms, uprisings, bringing chaos, violence, hindering the development of society. Thickening of the stratification profile, primarily due to the "truncation" of the top of the cone, is a recurring phenomenon in the history of all societies. And it is important that it is carried out not through uncontrolled spontaneous processes, but through a consciously pursued state policy.

The described process also has a downside. The compaction of the stratification profile should not be excessive. Inequality is not only an objective fact of social life, but also an important source of social development. Equation in income in relation to property. Power deprives individuals of an important internal stimulus to action, to self-realization, self-affirmation, and society - the only energetic source of development.

The idea that the stability of the hierarchical structure of society depends on specific gravity and the role of the middle class or class. Occupying an intermediate position, the middle class performs a kind of connecting role between the two poles of the social hierarchy, reducing their opposition. The more (in quantitative terms) the middle class, the more chances it has to influence the policy of the state, the process of shaping the fundamental values ​​of society, the worldview of citizens, while avoiding the extremes inherent in opposite forces.

4.Social mobility

Social mobility is a mechanism of social stratification, which is associated with a change in a person's position in the system of social statuses. If a person's status is changed to a more prestigious, better one, then we can say that there was upward mobility. However, a person as a result of job loss, illness, etc. can also move to a lower status group - in this case, downward mobility is triggered. In addition to vertical movements (downward and upward mobility), there are horizontal movements, which consist of natural mobility (moving from one job to another without changing status) and territorial mobility (moving from city to city).

4.1. Group mobility

Group mobility introduces large changes in the stratification structure, often affects the ratio of the main social strata and, as a rule, is associated with the emergence of new groups, whose status ceases to correspond to the existing hierarchy system. For example: by the middle of the twentieth century, managers of large enterprises had become such a group. It is no coincidence that on the basis of generalization of the changed role of managers in Western sociology, the concept of a "revolution of managers" is emerging, according to which the administrative stratum begins to play a decisive role not only in the economy, but also in social life, supplementing and even supplanting the class of owners.

Group movements along the vertical are especially intensive in times of economic restructuring. The emergence of new prestigious, highly paid professional groups promotes mass movement up the hierarchical ladder. The decline in the social status of the profession, the disappearance of some of them provoke not only a downward movement, but also the emergence of marginal strata that unite people who are losing their usual position in society, losing the achieved level of consumption. There is a "erosion" of socio-cultural values ​​and norms that previously united them and predetermined their stable place in the social hierarchy. In periods of acute social cataclysms, radical changes in socio-political structures, an almost complete renewal of the highest echelons of society can occur.

Economic crises, accompanied by a massive drop in the level of material well-being, an increase in unemployment, and a sharp increase in the income gap, become the primary cause of the numerical growth of the most disadvantaged part of the population, which always forms the basis of the pyramid of the social hierarchy. In such conditions, movement along the descending line covers not single individuals, but entire groups. The fall of a social group can be temporary, or it can become sustainable. In the first case, the position of the social group is "straightened out", it returns to its usual place as it overcomes economic difficulties. In the second, the descent is final. The group changes its social status and begins a difficult period of its adaptation to a new place in the social hierarchy.

So, mass group movements vertically are connected, Firstly, with profound serious changes in the socio-economic structure of society, causing the emergence of new classes, social groups striving to conquer a place in the social hierarchy corresponding to their strength and influence. Secondly, with a change in ideological guidelines, a system of values ​​and norms, and political priorities. In this case, there is a movement "upward" of those political forces that were able to catch the changes in the mentality, orientations and ideals of the population.

4.2 Individual social mobility.

In a steadily developing society, vertical movements are not group but individual. That is, it is not economic, political or professional groups that go up and down the steps of the social ladder, but their individual representatives, more or less successful, striving to overcome the attraction of the familiar sociocultural environment. The fact is that an individual who has set off on the difficult path "upward" goes independently. And if successful, it will not only change its position in the vertical hierarchy, but also change its social professional group. The circle of professions with a vertical structure, such as in the artistic world - stars with millions of states, and artists, interrupted by odd jobs; limited and not of fundamental importance for society as a whole. A worker who has successfully shown himself in the political field and has made a career, reaching the ministerial portfolio, breaks with his place in the social hierarchy and with his professional group. A bankrupt entrepreneur falls "down", losing not only a prestigious place in society, but also the opportunity to do his usual business.

In society, social institutions regulate the vertical movement, the originality of culture, the way of life of each stratum, allow testing each nominee "for strength", for compliance with the norms and principles of the stratum in which he falls. So, the education system provides not only the socialization of the individual, her education, but also plays the role of a kind of "social lift", which allows the most capable and gifted to rise to the "higher levels" of the social hierarchy. Political parties and organizations form the political elite, the institution of property and inheritance strengthens the class of owners, the institution of marriage allows movement even in the absence of outstanding intellectual abilities.

However, the use of the driving force of any social institution to ascend “upward” is not always enough. To gain a foothold in a new stratum, it is necessary to accept its way of life, organically fit into its socio-cultural environment, and build one's behavior in accordance with the accepted norms and rules. A person is often forced to say goodbye to old habits, to revise his entire system of values, at first to control his every act. Adaptation to a new socio-cultural environment requires high psychological stress, which is fraught with loss of connection with one's previous social environment. A person may forever turn out to be an outcast in the social stratum where he aspired, or in which he found himself by the will of fate, if we are talking about a downward movement.

The phenomenon of finding a person, as it were, between two cultures, associated with his movement in social space, is called marginality in sociology.

A marginal person, a marginal person, is an individual who has lost his former social status, deprived of the opportunity to engage in his usual activities, and, moreover, found himself unable to adapt to the new socio-cultural environment of the stratum within which he formally exists. His individual value system, formed in a different cultural environment, turned out to be so stable that it does not lend itself to being replaced by new norms, principles, and rules.

In the minds of many people, success in life is associated with reaching the heights of the social hierarchy.

5. Features of social stratification in Russia.

The "erosion" of the middle stratum, which is possible during periods of economic crises, is fraught with serious shocks for society. Impoverishment in the context of price liberalization and falling production of the bulk of the population of Russia sharply violated the social equilibrium in society, led to the advancement of the demands of the Lumpen part of the population, which, as experience shows, carries a large destructive charge, aimed mainly at redistribution, and not to create national wealth.

5.1 Prospects for the formation of the middle class.

What are the prospects for the formation of a middle class in our country today? In many ways, they depend on the successful adaptation of the population, the formation of productive models of socio-economic behavior, adequate to the current economic situation. The characteristics of the adaptation process are now clear. First of all, the previously dominant hopes for the state are being replaced by a significantly greater orientation of the population towards their own strengths and capabilities. Rigid and organic types of socio-economic behavior give way to a variety of types of social action. Direct and direct power economic and ideological control is being replaced by such universal regulators as money and legal regulations. New ways and standards of behavior are conditioned by different sources of formation, although they are often not corrected by either stable moral norms or legal sanctions.

Lack of demand for qualified personnel or being in demand only with the necessary connections deforms the chain: education - qualifications - income - long-term savings - the level of consumption, which ensures the formation and development of the middle class. Education does not guarantee a job with growth prospects. Work does not guarantee income: the salaries of representatives of the same profession in the private and public sectors differ by an order of magnitude. Income does not guarantee status as many sources of high income are illegal. And the inconsistency of the legislation, the imperfection of the tax system turn almost any enterprise into a delinquent and force the owners of enterprises, when hiring workers, to pay attention not only to their professional and business qualities, but also to the factors confirming their unconditional "reliability." Interestingly, the savings factor did not benefit from any of the groups. Today, only one third of the population answered positively to the question: "Do you have a certain margin of safety that will allow you to hold out if the economic situation worsens?" Twice as many respondents answered negatively to this question.

Studies have shown that with an increase in the volume of savings, their share in cash increases. In the responses received in the course of focused interviews, instability in the country and unreliability of banks are indicated as the main reasons for reducing private investment potential. The respondents believe that society has not left the period of instability, and a sharp change in the principles of financial policy is not excluded. Lack of trust in the government and its financial institutions deprives the potential middle class of the opportunity to build long-term strategies for increasing prosperity and transfers a significant part of possible savings to the consumption sphere.In general, the data presented in the literature indicate the limited scope of adaptation processes and crisis phenomena in the process of adaptation, and in a subjective way. the worst situation turned out to be the generation of 40-50 year olds, i.e. people who are in active working age and, thanks to experience and qualifications, have sufficiently high social ambitions. In this group of respondents, either disappointment with the reforms or their rejection is growing. This generation, which usually constitutes the core of the middle class - the layer of social stability - did not become such, but, on the contrary, turned into a major destabilizing group.

Poorly adapted strata in half of the cases consider their social status as average, which first of all testifies to the lack of realization of the educational and professional-qualification potential in the process of adaptation: the status positions formed in the past are not confirmed by the practice of adaptation, but remain in the minds of the respondents. The “success group” is more likely to be characterized by an underestimation of social status (about 10% of the respondents consider their social status to be below average). In our opinion, the main reason for the underestimated social self-esteem here is the fact that the methods of adaptation (for example, sources of income that form a "decent financial position") are not prestigious by the standards previously adopted in society.

Thus, the imbalance in the relationship between status-role positions and social identity, which "results" in unstable forms of social behavior, also speaks of the crisis nature of adaptation. The impossibility of the majority of the population realizing their socio-economic aspirations, raising or at least maintaining social status will block progress in all other areas of transformation, create social tension.

We cannot ignore the political self-identification of the potential middle class, which, in principle, should reflect its orientation towards the stability of the political situation. Political self-identification consists, first of all, in the delegation of power in the form of electoral behavior. Once in the sphere of interaction of various political parties and movements, an individual must make a "conscious choice" in favor of a political organization that most expresses his interests. In conditions when the traditional political scale of the Western European type does not "work" and rational pragmatism is not institutionalized, the task of finding a "working" indicator of political identification arises.

The results of our research clearly indicate the existence of a social base that supports pragmatic reformers who have the levers of real power. For this part of the population of the electorate, it is not so much the ideological context and populist rhetoric that is important as a guarantee of stability and continuity of power, ensuring the preservation of the rules by which a significant part of the population has already learned to live.

This is an extremely important issue, because the success of the reforms, the creation of a new democratic society with a market mechanism, largely depends on the possibilities of forming a middle class. According to some data, today about 15% of the population employed in the national economy can be attributed to this social category, but it is likely that its social maturation to the "critical mass" will take a lot of time. Already, there is a tendency towards the formation of certain social strata belonging to the middle class - businessmen, entrepreneurs, managers, certain categories of scientific and technical intelligentsia, highly qualified workers who are interested in implementing reforms. However, this tendency is very contradictory, since the common socio-political interests of various social strata, potentially forming the middle class, are not supported by the processes of their convergence according to such an important criterion as the level of income and the prestige of professions.

6. Conclusion.

Based on all of the above, we can say that the middle class in Russian society is not large enough and its boundaries are strongly "blurred".

The emergence of the middle class is accompanied by a change in the entire social structure of society. Traditional classes and layers lose their clear outlines, blurred. A highly skilled worker can be a representative of both the working class and the middle class at the same time. According to some signs, spheres of life, his belonging to his own class, to his stratum in it, and according to other signs - to the middle class may turn out to be "stronger". A kind of second social structure appears, despite the fact that the first (traditional class) also has not yet lost its significance. Leaving aside the question of the functions of the middle class, let us dwell on the obstacles that the process of the formation of the middle class in Russia is currently facing. These obstacles are:

The lack of a layer of modern highly qualified workers, specialists, managers, etc., there are relatively few of them in Russia, the quality of an employee cannot significantly exceed the quality of the material and technical base on which he works;

The lack of demand by society and what is, due to the deep economic crisis accompanying the transition of the economy to market relations;

Low living standards, low incomes of those groups that could in the future make up the middle class;

The instability of the statuses of most social groups, including new ones, is caused not only by the crisis and transition, but also by the fact that property is not yet secured by a system of social institutions that ensure its protection and normal functioning.

The formation of a middle class is apparently a necessary stage in the development of a socially oriented market economy. However, the period of its rather definite existence in the social structure of post-industrial society may turn out to be rather short. If the tendency to equalize the position of different classes, groups, strata is strong enough, then the boundaries of the middle class will gradually become less clear.

Thus, the structural formation of the middle class is possible in the presence of a consistent and complementary set of internal and external factors... The internal ones include the development of autonomous activity, a clear delineation of the circle of social interests, group identification, the formation of a system of sociocultural values, norms and sanctions, and the external ones include the stabilization of socio-economic and political institutions and the ability of society to reproduce this stability, under which it follows to understand not the conservation of the existing order, but the predictability and openness of the actions of the authorities.

Social inequality and stratification

Completed by a student

2nd year Faculty of Economics

Oksana Kulkova

Checked: ______________

Ryazan

Introduction

1. The essence of social inequality and its causes.

2. The system of social stratification. The main class systems in an industrial society.

3. Dynamics of social stratification in Russia

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The history of all sociology as a science, as well as the history of its most important special discipline, the sociology of inequality, has a century and a half.

Throughout the ages, many scientists have pondered the nature of relations between people, the plight of most people, the problem of the oppressed and oppressors, the justice or injustice of inequality.

Even the ancient philosopher Plato reflected on the stratification of people into rich and poor. He believed that the state is like two states. One is made up of the poor, the other is the rich, and they all live together, plotting all sorts of intrigues for each other. Plato was “the first political ideologue to think in terms of classes,” says Karl Popper. In such a society, people are haunted by fear and insecurity. A healthy society should be different.

The essence of social inequality and its causes.

A variety of relationships, roles, positions lead to differences between people in each particular society. The problem boils down to somehow ordering these relationships between categories of people that differ in many aspects.

What is inequality? In its most general form, inequality means that people live in conditions in which they have unequal access to limited resources of material and spiritual consumption. To describe the system of inequality between groups of people in sociology, the concept of "social stratification" is widely used.

When considering the problem of social inequality, it is quite justified to proceed from the theory of socio - economic heterogeneity of labor. Performing qualitatively unequal types of labor, satisfying social needs to varying degrees, people sometimes find themselves engaged in economically heterogeneous work, for such types of labor have different assessments of their social utility.

It is the socioeconomic heterogeneity of labor that is not only a consequence, but also the reason for the appropriation by some people of power, property, prestige and the absence of all these signs of advancement in the social hierarchy of others. Each of the groups develops its own values ​​and norms and is based on them, if they are placed according to a hierarchical principle, then they are social strata.

In social stratification, positions tend to be inherited. The operation of the principle of inheritance of positions leads to the fact that not all capable and educated individuals have an equal chance to occupy positions of power, high principles and well-paid positions. There are two selection mechanisms at work here: unequal access to truly quality education; unequal opportunities for gaining positions by equally trained individuals.

Social stratification has a traditional character. Since, with the historical mobility of the form, its essence, that is, the inequality of the position of different groups of people, persists throughout the history of civilization. Even in primitive societies, age and gender, combined with physical strength, were an important criterion for stratification.

Given the dissatisfaction of members of society with the existing system of distribution of power, property and conditions for individual development, one still needs to keep in mind the universality of inequality of people.

Stratification, like any other science, has its own forms. Until now, we have spoken about inequality without taking into account its form. Meanwhile, the intensity of stratification also depends on the form. Theoretical possibilities here fluctuate from such an extreme, when the same amount of both is attributed to any status. There were no extreme forms of stratification in any historical object.

Let us compare the situation when there are numerous social strata in society, the social distance between which is small, the level of mobility is high, the lower strata make up a minority of members of society, rapid technological growth constantly raises the “bar” of meaningful work in the lower tiers of production positions, social protection of the weak, among other things, guarantees the strong and advanced calmness and realization of potencies. It is difficult to deny what society is, such inter-layer interaction is more likely in its own way an ideal model than an everyday reality.

Most modern societies are far from this model. Or the concentration of power and resources in a numerically small elite is inherent. The concentration of such status attributes as power, property and education among the elite impedes social interaction between the elite and other strata, leads to an excessive social distance between it and the majority.This means that the middle class is small and the top is deprived of connection with other groups. Obviously, such a social order fosters destructive conflicts.

The system of social stratification. The main class systems in an industrial society.

In his work "The State" Plato argued that the correct state can be scientifically substantiated, and not groping, fearing, believing and improvising.

Plato assumed that this new, scientifically engineered society would not only implement the principles of justice, but also ensure social stability and internal discipline. This is how he imagined a society led by rulers (overseers).

Aristotle in Politics also addressed the issue of social inequality. He wrote that today in all states there are three elements: one class is very rich; the other is very poor; the third is the middle one. This third is the best, since its members, according to the conditions of life, are most ready to follow the rational principle. It is from the poor and the rich that some grow up to be criminals, and others as swindlers.

Reflecting realistically about the stability of the state, Aristotle noted that it is necessary to think about the poor, for a state where many poor people are excluded from government will inevitably have many enemies. After all, poverty gives rise to rebellion and crime where there is no middle class and the vast majority of the poor, complications arise, and the state is doomed to ruin. Aristotle opposed both the rule of the dispossessed poor and the selfish rule of the wealthy plutocracy. The best society is formed from the middle class, and the state, where this class is more numerous and stronger than the other two combined, is best governed, because social equilibrium is ensured.

In the opinion of sociologists of all ideological trends, no one in the history of social thought so definitely as K. Marx emphasized that the source of social development is the struggle between antagonistic social classes. According to Marx, classes arise and compete on the basis of different positions and different roles performed by individuals in the production structure of society.

But K. Marx himself rightly noted that he did not owe the merit of discovering the existence of classes and their struggle among themselves. Indeed, since the time of Plato, but, of course, especially since the time when the bourgeoisie imperiously entered the stage of history in the 18th century, many economists, philosophers, historians have firmly introduced the concept of social class into the social science of Europe (Adam Smith, Etienne Condillac, Claude Saint - Simon, Francois Guizot, Auguste Mignet and others).

However, no one before Marx had given such a deep substantiation of the class structure of society, deriving it from a fundamental analysis of the entire system of economic relations. No one before him had given such a comprehensive disclosure of class relations, the mechanism of exploitation in the capitalist society that existed in his time. Therefore, in the majority of modern works on the problems of social inequality, stratification and class differentiation, both the supporters of Marxism and the authors who are far from the positions of K. Marx give an analysis of his theory of classes.

Of decisive importance for the formation of modern ideas about the essence, forms and functions of social inequality, along with Marx, was Max Weber (1864 - 1920) - the classic of world sociological theory. The ideological basis of Weber's views is that the individual is the subject of social action.

In contrast to Marx, Weber, in addition to the economic aspect of stratification, took into account aspects such as power and prestige. Weber viewed property, power, and prestige as three separate, interacting factors that underlie hierarchies in any society. Differences in property give rise to economic classes; power differences give rise to political parties, and prestige differences give rise to status groupings or strata. From here he formulated his idea of ​​the “three autonomous dimensions of stratification”. He emphasized that "classes", "status groups" and "parties" are phenomena related to the distribution of power within the community.

The main contradiction between Weber and Marx is that, according to Weber, a class cannot be the subject of action, since it is not a community. In contrast to Marx, Weber linked the concept of class only with capitalist society, where the market is the most important regulator of relations. Through it, people satisfy their needs for material goods and services.

However, in the marketplace, people occupy different positions or are in different “class situations”. Everybody buys and sells here. Some sell goods, services; others are labor. The difference here is that some own property, while others do not.

Weber does not have a clear class structure of capitalist society, so different interpreters of his work provide mismatched lists of classes.

Given his methodological principles and summarizing his historical, economic and sociological works, one can reconstruct the Weberian typology of classes under capitalism as follows:

1. A working class deprived of property. He offers his services on the market and is differentiated according to the level of qualifications.

2. The petty bourgeoisie is a class of small businessmen and merchants.

3. Deprived white collar workers: technicians and intellectuals.

4. Administrators and managers.

5. Owners who also strive through education to the advantages that intellectuals have.

5.1 Ownership class, i.e. those who receive rent from owning land, mines, etc.

5.2 "Commercial class", i.e. entrepreneurs.

Weber argued that property owners are a "positively privileged class." At the other extreme, the “negatively privileged class” included those who had neither the property nor the qualifications to offer on the market.

There are many stratification criteria by which any society can be divided. Each of them is associated with special ways of determining and reproducing social inequality. The nature of social stratification and the way it is affirmed in their unity form what we call a stratification system.

When it comes to the main types of stratification systems, a description is usually given of caste, slave, estate and class differentiation. At the same time, it is customary to identify them with the historical types of social structure observed in the modern world or have already irrevocably gone into the past. We adhere to a slightly different approach, considering that any particular society consists of combinations of various stratification systems and many of their transitional forms.

Therefore, we prefer to speak of “ideal types, even when we use elements of traditional terminology.

Below, nine types of stratification systems are proposed, which, in our opinion, can be used to describe any social organism, namely:

Physical - genetic;

Slave-owning;

Caste;

Estates;

Ectaratic;

Social - professional;

Class;

Culturally - symbolic;

Culturally - normative;

The first type of physical and genetic stratification system is based on the differentiation of social groups according to “natural” socio-demographic characteristics. Here, the attitude towards a person or a group is determined by gender, age and the presence of certain physical qualities - strength, beauty, dexterity. Accordingly, the weaker, with physical disabilities are considered flawed and occupy a degraded social position.

Inequality in this case is affirmed by the existence of the threat of physical violence or its actual use, and then fixed in customs and rituals.

This "natural" stratification system dominated the primitive community, but continues to reproduce to this day. It manifests itself especially strongly in communities struggling for physical survival or expansion of their living space. The greatest prestige here is possessed by the one who is able to carry out violence against nature and people or to resist such violence: a healthy young man is a breadwinner in a peasant community living on the fruits of primitive manual labor; courageous warrior of the Spartan state; a true Aryan of the National Socialist army, capable of producing healthy offspring.

The system that ranks people according to their ability to physical violence is in many ways a product of the militarism of ancient and modern societies. At present, although devoid of its former significance, it is still supported by military, sports and sexually - erotic propaganda. The second stratification system - slaveholding - is also based on direct violence. But the inequality of people here is determined not by physical, but by military-physical coercion. Social groups differ in the presence or absence civil rights and property rights. Certain social groups are completely deprived of these rights and, moreover,, along with things, are turned into an object of private property. Moreover, this position is most often inherited and thus fixed in generations. Examples of slave systems are very diverse. This is ancient slavery, where the number of slaves sometimes exceeded the number of free citizens, and slavery in Russia during the "Russian Truth", this is plantation slavery in the south of the North American United States before the Civil War of 1861-1865, this is, finally, the work of prisoners of war and deported persons on German private farms during the Second World War.

The methods of reproduction of the slave system are also characterized by significant diversity. Ancient slavery was maintained mainly through conquests. For early feudal Russia, there was more debt, enslaving slavery. The practice of selling one's own children in the absence of the opportunity to feed them existed, for example, in medieval China. All sorts of criminals (including political ones) were also turned into slaves. This practice was practically reproduced much later in the Soviet GULAG (although private slavery was carried out here in latent extra-legal forms).

The third type of stratification system is caste. It is based on ethnic differences, which, in turn, are reinforced by religious order and religious rituals. Each caste is a closed, as far as possible, endogamous group, which is assigned a strictly defined place in the social hierarchy. This place appears as a result of the isolation of the special functions of each caste in the system of the division of labor. There is a clear list of occupations that members of this caste can engage in: priestly, military, agricultural. Since the position in the caste system is inherited, the possibilities for social mobility here are extremely limited.

And the more pronounced caste, the more closed this society turns out to be. India is rightfully considered a classic example of a society dominated by a caste system (this system was legally abolished only in 1950). Today, although in a smoother form, the caste system is reproduced not only in India, but, for example, in the clan system of the Central Asian states. In the middle of the twentieth century, clear features of caste were affirmed by the policy of the fascist states (the Aryans were assigned the position of the highest ethnic caste, called upon to rule over the Slavs, Jews, etc.). In this case, nationalist ideology assumes the role of cementing theological doctrines.

The fourth type is represented by the estate stratification system. In this system, groups differ in legal rights, which, in turn, are rigidly linked to their responsibilities and are directly dependent on these responsibilities. Moreover, the latter imply obligations to the state, enshrined in legislation. Some estates are obliged to carry out military or bureaucratic service, others - "tax" in the form of taxes or labor duties.

Examples of developed estate systems are feudal Western European societies or feudal Russia. The estate is, first of all, a legal, and not, say, ethnic - religious or economic division. it is also important. that belonging to the estate is inherited, contributing to the relative closeness of the system.

Some similarity with the estate system is observed in the ectaratic system representing the fifth type (from French and Greek - "state power"). In it, differentiation between groups occurs, first of all, according to their position in the power-state hierarchies (political, military, economic), according to the possibilities of mobilizing and distributing resources, as well as the prestige they feel, are connected here with the formal ranks that these groups occupy in their respective power hierarchies.

All other differences - demographic and religious - ethnic, economic and cultural - play a derivative role. The scale and nature of differentiation (the scope of power) in the ectaratic system are under the control of the state bureaucracy. At the same time, hierarchies can be formalized - legally - through bureaucratic tables of ranks, military charters, assignment of categories to state institutions, or they can remain outside the sphere of state legislation (a clear example is the system of the Soviet party nomenclature, the principles of which are not spelled out in any laws). The formal freedom of members of society (with the exception of dependence on the state), the absence of automatic inheritance of positions of power also distinguish the etacratic system from the system of estates.

The etakratic system is revealed with the greater force, the more authoritarian the state rule takes. In ancient times, societies of Asian despotism (China, India, Cambodia), located, however, not only in Asia (but for example, in Peru, Egypt), were a striking example of the etacratic system. In the twentieth century, it is actively establishing itself in the so-called socialist societies and, perhaps, even plays a decisive role in them. It must be said that the allocation of a special ectaratic system is not yet traditional for work on stratification typologies.

Therefore, we would like to draw attention to both the historical significance and the analytical role of this type of social differentiation.

This is followed by the sixth, social - professional stratification system. Here the groups are divided according to the content and conditions of their work. A special role is played by the qualification requirements for a particular professional role - the possession of relevant experience, skills and abilities. The approval and maintenance of hierarchical orders in this system is carried out with the help of certificates (diplomas, ranks, licenses, patents), fixing the level of qualifications and the ability to perform certain types of activities. The effectiveness of qualification certificates is supported by the power of the state or some other sufficiently powerful corporation (professional workshop). Moreover, these certificates are most often not inherited, although there are exceptions in history.

Social - professional division is one of the basic stratification systems, various examples of which can be found in any society with any developed division of labor. This is the structure of craft workshops in the medieval city and the category grid in modern state industry, a system of certificates and diplomas for obtaining education, a system of scientific degrees and titles that open the way to more prestigious jobs.

The seventh type is represented by the popular class system. The class approach is often opposed to the stratification one. But for us, class division is only a special case of social stratification. Of the many interpretations of the concept of "class", in this case, we will focus on the more traditional - socio-economic. In this interpretation, classes represent social groups of free in political and legally citizens. Differences between groups primarily in the nature and size of ownership of the means of production and the product produced, as well as in the level of income received and personal material well-being. Unlike many previous types, belonging to classes - bourgeois, proletarians, independent farmers, etc. - is not regulated by the highest authorities, is not established by law and is not inherited. In its pure form, the class system does not contain any internal formal barriers at all (economic prosperity automatically transfers you to a higher group).

Economically egalitarian communities, where class differentiation is completely absent, is a rather rare and unstable phenomenon. But throughout most of human history, class divisions are still subordinate in nature. They come to the fore, perhaps, only in bourgeois Western societies. And the class system reaches its greatest heights in the United States of America imbued with the spirit of liberalism.

The eighth type is culturally symbolic. Differentiation arises here from differences in access to socially significant information, unequal and opportunities to filter and interpret this information, the ability to be a carrier of sacred knowledge (mystical or scientific). In ancient times, this role was assigned to priests, magicians and shamans, in the Middle Ages - to the ministers of the church, who make up the bulk of the literate population, interpreters of sacred texts, in modern times - to scientists, technocrats and party ideologists. expression of public interest has existed always and everywhere. And a higher position in this respect is occupied by those who have the best opportunities to manipulate the consciousness and actions of other members of society, who are better than others who can prove their rights to true understanding and own the best symbolic capital.

Simplifying the picture somewhat, we can say that theocratic manipulation is more characteristic of pre-industrial societies; for industrialists - partocratic; and for post - industrial - technocratic.

The ninth type of stratification system should be called cultural - normative. Here the differentiation is built on the differences of respect and prestige arising from the comparison of lifestyles and norms of behavior that should be followed. this person or group. Attitudes towards physical and mental work, consumer tastes and habits, communication manners and etiquette, a special language (professional terminology, local dialect, criminal jargon) - all this forms the basis of social division. Moreover, there is not only a distinction between “friends” and “aliens," but also a ranking of groups (“noble-not-noble”, “decent-not-decent,” “elite-ordinary people”). The concept of elites is surrounded by a kind of mysterious flavor. They talk a lot about him, but often, they do not outline any clear denoting boundaries.

Elite is not just a category of politics. V modern society there are many elites - political, military, economic, professional. Somewhere these elites intertwine, somewhere they compete with each other. It can be said that there are as many elites as there are areas of social life. But whichever area we take, the elite are a minority opposed to the rest of society. its middle and lower layers as a kind of "mass". At the same time, the position of the elite as the upper class or caste can be fixed by a formal law or religious code, or it can be achieved in a completely informal way.

Elitist theories arose and took shape to a large extent as a reaction to radical and socialist teachings and were directed against various currents of socialism: Marxist, anarcho-syndicalist. Therefore, the Marxists, in fact, were very skeptical about these theories, did not want to recognize them and apply them on the material of Western societies. For this would mean, firstly, the recognition that the lower strata are a weak or not at all organized mass, which must be controlled, a mass incapable of self-organization and revolutionary action, and secondly, the recognition, to some extent, of inevitability and The “naturalness” of such a sharp inequality. As a result, it would be necessary to radically revise the views on the role and nature of the class struggle.

But the elitist approach is directed against democratic parliamentarism. It is generally anti-democratic by nature. Democracy and accessories presupposes majority rule and universal equality of people as independent citizens, sufficiently organized to realize their own goals and interests. And because of this, the champions of democracy treat any attempts at elite rule rather coldly.

Numerous approaches to the concept can be conditionally divided into two main groups - power and meritocratic. According to the first, the elite are those who have decisive power in a given society, and according to the second, those who have certain special virtues and personal qualities, regardless of whether they have power or not.

In the latter case, the elite is distinguished by talent and merit. Sometimes authoritative and meritocratic approaches are conventionally referred to as "Lassuela line" and "Pareto line". (Although the first approach may just as well be called the "Mosca line" or "Mills line".)

One group of researchers understands the elite as the layers with the highest positions of power or the highest formal power in organizations and institutions. Another group refers to the elite of charismatic personalities, God-inspired, capable of leadership, representatives of the creative minority.

In turn, power approaches are subdivided into structural and functional. Those who choose a structural approach that is simpler from an empirical point of view consider the circle of persons holding senior positions in the institutions under consideration (ministers, directors, military commanders) as an elite

Those who stop at the functional approach set themselves a more difficult task: to single out the groups that have real power in making socially important decisions (many representatives of these groups, of course, may not occupy any prominent public posts, remain in the "shadow") ...

Let us dwell briefly on the positions of the classics of the imperious and meritocratic approaches.

4. Social mobility.

The study of social mobility was started by P. Sorokin, who published the book “Social Mobility, Its Forms and Fluctuation” in 1927.

He wrote: “Social mobility is understood as any transition of an individual or social object (value), ie. all that is created or modified by human activity, from one social position to another. There are two main types of social mobility: horizontal and vertical. Horizontal social mobility, or displacement, means the transition of an individual or social object from one social group to another located at the same level. Moving an individual from a Baptist to a Methodist religious group, from one citizenship to another, from one family (both husband and wife) to another during divorce or remarriage, from one factory to another, while maintaining their professional status - these are all examples of horizontal social mobility. They are the movement of social objects (radio, car, fashion, the idea of ​​communism, Darwin's theory) within one social layer, like moving from Iowa to California or from some place to any other. In all these cases, "displacement" can occur without any noticeable changes in the social position of the individual or social object in the vertical direction.

Vertical social mobility refers to those relations that arise when an individual or social object moves from one social stratum to another. Depending on the direction of movement, there are two types of vertical mobility: upward and downward, i.e. social ascent and social descent. In accordance with the nature of stratification, there are downward and upward currents of economic, political and professional mobility, not to mention other less important types. Upward currents exist in two main forms: the penetration of an individual from a lower formation into an existing higher formation; the creation of a new group by such individuals and the penetration of the entire group into a higher layer to the level with the already existing groups of this layer. accordingly, the downward currents also have two forms: the first consists in the fall of the individual from a higher initial group to which he previously belonged; another form manifests itself in the degradation of the social group as a whole, in the lowering of its rank against the background of other groups, or in the destruction of its social unity. In the first case, the fall reminds us of a person who fell from the ship, in the second - the immersion in the water of the ship itself with all the passengers on board or the wreck of the ship when it crashes to smithereens.

Social mobility can be of two types: mobility as voluntary movement or circulation of individuals within the social hierarchy; and mobility driven by structural change (eg industrialization and demographic factors). With urbanization and industrialization, there is a quantitative growth of professions and corresponding changes in the requirements for qualifications and vocational training. As a consequence of industrialization, there has been a relative increase in the labor force, employment in the “white collar” category, and a decrease in the absolute number of agricultural workers. The degree of industrialization actually correlates with the level of mobility, as it leads to an increase in the number of high-status occupations and to a drop in employment in the lower-rank occupational categories.

It should be noted that many comparative studies have shown: under the influence of forces of change in stratification systems. First of all, social differentiation is increasing. Advanced technology is giving impetus to the emergence of a large number of new professions. Industrialization aligns professionalism, training and remuneration. In other words, individuals and groups are characterized by a tendency towards relatively stable positions in the ranked stratification hierarchy. As a result, social mobility increases. The level of mobility increases mainly as a result of the quantitative growth of occupations in the middle of the stratification hierarchy, i.e. due to forced mobility, although voluntary mobility is also becoming more active, since an orientation toward achievement gains great weight.

Equally, if not to a greater extent, the system of social organization influences the level and nature of mobility. Scientists have long drawn attention to the qualitative differences in this respect between open and closed societies. In an open society, there are no formal restrictions on mobility and almost no abnormal ones.

A closed society, with a rigid structure that prevents an increase in mobility, thereby resists instability.

It would be more correct to call social mobility the reverse side of the same problem of inequality, because, as M. Buttle noted, “social inequality is intensified and legitimized in the process of social mobility, the function of which is to divert to safe channels and curb discontent.

In a closed society, upward mobility is limited not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively, therefore, individuals who have reached the top, but do not receive the share of social benefits that they expected, begin to view the existing order as an obstacle to achieving their legitimate goals and strive for radical changes. Among the people whose mobility is directed downward, in a closed society there are often those who are more prepared for leadership than the bulk of the population by education and abilities - they form the leaders of the revolutionary movement at a time when the contradictions of society lead to a conflict of classes in it ...

In an open society, where there are few barriers to progress upward, those who rise upward tend to move away from the political orientation of the class into which they moved. The behavior of those who lower their position looks similar. Thus, those who rise to the highest stratum are less conservative than the permanent members of the highest stratum. On the other hand, the “thrown down” are more left-wing than the stable members of the lower stratum. Consequently, the movement as a whole contributes to stability and at the same time the dynamism of an open society.

Dynamics of social stratification in Russia

The nineties of the twentieth century, most likely, will go down in the history of Russia as the era of three revolutions, or, perhaps, three stages of one revolution, rigidly predetermining each other. The first, political, ended in August 1991; the second, economic, gives the first tangible results. However, in parallel with it and overtaking it, the third will gain momentum - the social revolution, which will become a reality very soon, but will finally change the face of Russia only at the end of the millennium.

Such an arrangement of priorities is quite natural: politics and economics are hot topics, and the focus of the day today is the task of "feeding the people." There is nothing more obvious from the point of view of common sense. According to the assurances of some politicians, the government can quickly implement its declarations: to stabilize the market, strengthen financial system and balance the state budget. The dream of the reformers will come true: the people will be "fed" (that is, they will satisfy the critical minimum of their needs) without rebelling.

It is obvious, however, that for this idyll, in all likelihood, the country will have to pay long and painfully. The blows of the ax, which are used to build a bright market tomorrow, will inevitably have something to do with our destiny: the future tends to take cruel revenge for the lightness with which the problems of the present are solved.

The worst result of the reforms will be a crushing blow to the social structure inherited from the Soviet era. This structure turned out to be so stable and shock-resistant that it withstood the fall of "real socialism." society precisely on the basis of the possession of power. The fall of the partocratic elite was relatively mild, since other features stratifying an industrial-type society (income, ownership of property, education, profession, social prestige, etc.) in Soviet society were not significant to the extent that, inevitably, causes severely conflicting relations social strata.

The strong cohesion of heterogeneous strata under Soviet conditions took place not only due to the short social distance between them, but also due to such a phenomenon as a certain mutual balance of statuses: low salary and the absolute powerlessness of the intellectual devalued his high educational rank and relative freedom in the eyes of the worker, who had at least a more substantial income, which did not allow latent ill will to grow into open hatred. On the contrary, the representative of mental labor compensated for his humiliation by the consciousness of the prestige of higher education and an intellectual profession, career prospects and greater freedom to manage his working time.

In other words: the financial situation was not the dominant factor of stratification; it was counterbalanced by no less significant - non-economic - parameters.

It is these foundations of social integration that are rapidly coming to an end before our very eyes. The transfer of control over property from the state to the citizens threatens to go according to the worst scenario: a huge part of the national product is irresistibly transferred not even to the disposal, but to the legal property of the new and old economic elites, and a disproportionately small part flows through the fingers of the majority of the population. Income level becomes the main parameter of stratification, not balanced by any counterbalance. There is an equalization of statuses in terms of income, which means that the most unstable type of class society threatens to replace a highly integrated, stable social structure.

A society of this type is doomed to constantly balance on the brink of social war. The sharper and more one-dimensional social stratification, the higher the charge of negative public sentiments (hatred, envy, fear) experienced by different layers towards each other, the deeper their mutual rejection. In this sense, the future social peace in the country depends on whether the government will be able to prevent the monstrous imbalances in the distribution of former state property between various socio-economic groups, which are growing like an avalanche in the process of spontaneous privatization.

In Western societies, the trend towards a reduction in social distance takes place precisely due to the strong position and long-term growth of the middle class, which thereby smoothes out the sharpness of social stratification and is the main guarantor of stability. On the contrary, in the Third World countries the colossal gap in incomes, in the level and style of consumption, in the very way of life between the upper and the poorest strata of the population is colossal, and the share of the middle strata is incomparably (with the West) low.

The new stratification may turn out to be social dynamite that will blow up society, because if it fails to provide a minimum required level income, volume and influence of the middle class, the most dangerous from the point of view of stability variety of social identification - class identification - will inevitably prevail in society. The beginning of this disintegration of society into class identifications will most likely take place not before, but after the stabilization of the market (and, let's not forget, stabilization at a very low level). By this time, a huge number of people, having lost their hopes for a change in their personal situation, warmed up in a period of economic chaos and uncertainty, will understand that power outages are not the worst tragedy in this life - and with the sobriety of disappointment, they realize the rigid framework of their social rank ...

In this situation, each of the main three classes will carry a potential threat to stability in its own way. The upper class (large entrepreneurs and owners, shareholders of monopoly enterprises, bureaucracy associated with the public sector and the comprador bourgeoisie serving ties with the world market), having concentrated enormous wealth in their hands, will turn out to be a red rag for almost the entire society. Demonstrative consumption oriented to Western consumer standards, which our nouveau riche cannot refuse today, will fuel the inextinguishable rage of the lower strata.

On the other hand, the gap that will lie between the rich and the middle classes will prevent the former from counting on parties that have a social base in the person of the latter.

The most active part of the poor class (workers of ruined and unprofitable enterprises, former collective farmers who did not become farmers, the unemployed, as well as the vast majority of people who were unable to rationally use the opportunities of the privatization era) - will become the supplier of "extras" for various kinds of revolutionary movements.

But even without all this, a large poor stratum in itself will create an unbearable burden on the economy. High taxes, the necessary assistance to the poor (not to help means rebellion and blood) are unlikely to become an incentive for the development of business activity. The government, forced to burden other classes with them, will not deserve gratitude from the lower and will become an enemy in the eyes of the upper and middle classes, which will bear the brunt of taxes.

The middle class - small and medium entrepreneurs, the prosperous part of the intelligentsia, workers of profitable enterprises, new owners who have benefited from privatization - in a situation of sharp stratification will experience double frustration: fear of an angry lower class and hatred of the unattainable upper class. The saddest possible result of privatization is the creation of a layer of "frustrated owners" - this potential base of fascism (which, according to Seymour Lipset's definition, is middle-class extremism).

The fate of a society dominated by a one-dimensional assessment perspective is sad. The more the distribution of wealth coincides with the distribution of social prestige, the greater the likelihood of mutual rejection of strata - lower, middle and higher, the closer and more acute the danger of disintegration with its varieties from revolution to civil war.

Of course, there is no country in the world where the poor do not dislike the rich. But this natural dislike can be intensified or weakened, depending on factors of a socio-cultural rather than an economic nature. If the representatives of the low-income strata learn that they have no chance of society promoting their "non-commodity" merits, this will lead not only to frightening moral degradation, but also to an explosive exacerbation of class hatred. On the contrary, where society, along with the commercial scale of assessment, cultivates any other (for example, ethical, cultural ..) - the social hatred of the poor for the rich can be balanced by the desire of the former to moral (aesthetic, etc.) superiority over the latter. Having no chance of getting rich, he can achieve recognition and honor in a completely different field.

Conclusion

Social policy is a policy of regulating the social sphere, aimed at achieving welfare in society. The social sphere of public relations includes the forms of regulation of labor relations, the participation of workers in the management of the production process, collective agreements, the state system of social security and social services (unemployment benefits, pensions), the participation of private capital in the creation of social funds, social infrastructure (education, health care, housing, etc.), as well as the implementation of the principle of social justice.

Thus, the subject of social policy (social groups with power in the social sphere), ensuring the achievement of well-being in society - a set of historically established forms of joint activities of people - implements the principle of social justice, which, as the most general, is the goal of the social sphere. public relations.

SOCIAL-CLASS ORGANIZATION OF THE SOCIETY- the whole set of social-class relations between individuals, united into social classes, social-class groups and into elementary professional, property and legal groups and these individuals themselves. S.-K.O. covers a wider range of social relations than the social-class structure. The first includes not only stable, essential, non-random, regularly recurring, but also unstable, random, irregular relationships.

For a long time, in addition to epistemological reasons, the complexity of the study of social relations in Soviet society was imprinted by the party approach to the study of all phenomena of social life, which prevailed until the Communist Party lost its leading position in society. At the same time, it should be noted that, to the credit of domestic social scientists in the 1960s-1980s, despite the ideological circumstances that complicate an impartial analysis of the social-class structure, they made a significant contribution to the development of ideas about the nature of social relations and structures. At the same time, many scientific problems associated with social-class structuring in modern domestic (as well as foreign) literature have not been disclosed at all. It should be especially noted that one cannot speak of any significant separation between Western sociology and Russian sociology. In modern foreign social science, there is a huge variety of mutually exclusive ideas about social and socio-class structures. Western authors traditionally put very different meanings into this concept.

Some researchers consider social structure as a system of social inequality, others define it as a set of groups of associations and institutions, others consider it a system of statuses and roles, reducing the analysis to functional interdependence between them, etc. As the leading French sociologist P. Ansart writes in his book "Contemporary Sociology": "On the whole, from 1945 to the 1970s, in France, Italy, as well as in the FRG and the USA, many researchers in the field of social sciences do not dogmatically associate themselves with individual details of Marx's provisions, extracted the most essential from them with the intention to overcome the boundaries of narrow economism (Sartre, 1960) or in order to undermine the authority of functionalist conservative models (Mills, 1967; Habermas, 1968) ". However, this author further notes, "The 1970s and 1980s were marked by a departure from this substantive side of Marxism in the social sciences, which was due to various reasons in which historical events played an important role." Today, domestic social scientists are ahead of Western ones in a number of substationary issues related to the study of social relations. Therefore, highlighting the specifics of social relations, it is logical to refer specifically to domestic developments.

Patriarch of Russian sociology M.N. Rutkevich in substantiating the expediency of identifying the social-class structure in modern conditions for him (the work was published in 1979) put forward the following main arguments: first, the social structure of society, while remaining class and under socialism, also includes other types of social structures of this type. At the same time, the social-class structure should in no way be confused with the national-ethical, socio-demographic, socio-territorial, professional and other types of social structure of this type. However, since the first is, according to this author, the most important of all the listed types of social structure and leaves its mark on any of them, in the literature it is often referred to simply as social structure. Second, overcoming the essential differences between the two forms of socialist property — public and collective-farm cooperative — and, at the same time, between the working class and the collective farm peasantry does not exhaust the tasks of building a classless society. The term "social-class structure" has that advantage, according to M.N. Rutkevich, which focuses on overcoming not only the differences between the two "friendly classes" of Soviet society, but also a whole series of social differences as necessary for "achieving a classless society."

Close to this point of view and understanding of social and class differences, set out in the monograph "Problems of Changing the Social Structure of Soviet Society", where they mean - "a category that characterizes those phenomena in the system of social relations that are eliminated during the transition to communism, which are a rudiment class antagonistic society ".

The work "The Social Structure of a Developed Socialist Society in the USSR" also states that "since there are often attempts to present the class structure of a socialist society in the USSR only as a division of society into two friendly classes, without taking into account other differences inherited from the class antagonism of society. , insofar as it seems justified to use the term "social-class structure", which focuses on the isolation of the structure under consideration from the social structure of society in the general sense. "

The above approach, which was quite typical at that time, is characterized by the following errors: 1) The authors do not give a clear criterion for social and socio-class structures, they do not show the ratio of these categories. Hence, the social-class, professional, demographic, property and other types of social structures are considered as one-order, which is methodologically incorrect, since the social-class structure includes a number of structures (professional, property, etc.) that these researchers put with it. in one row as one-order categories. Based on the principles of the systematic approach, it should be recognized that it is obviously erroneous to recognize social phenomena of the same order, some of which are completely part of the others. 2) The need to highlight the social-class structure is associated with the ultimate goal of the development of socialism - the construction of a classless society. In this regard, the authors tried to consider the social-class structure as a relic of capitalism (i.e., in any case, they try to appeal to the period either before or after socialism).

Today in the social sciences it has become axiomatic both the impossibility of building a Marxist model of communism and the recognition of the fact that the society built in the USSR was not socialist. Naturally, in the light of these new theoretical principles, the appeals to the postulates of the theory of "scientific communism" are obviously absurd. To the credit of Russian social scientists, attempts were made (sometimes quite successful in methodological terms) already at that time to examine the real social structures of Soviet society. It was noted that our society developed on its own basis and its social structure was formed according to the laws inherent exclusively to itself (Gerasimov N.V.). Accordingly, it was concluded that the social-class structure is also formed according to the laws inherent in Soviet society. “However, the overwhelming part of modern studies of the social structure of Soviet society,” notes M.H. Titma, “especially its social-class structure, is devoted to the study of ways to achieve social one-sidedness. But in the nearest historical perspective it is difficult to expect the complete disappearance of even simple physical labor. It is all the more inappropriate to consider mental labor as socially homogeneous. "

Thus, already within the framework of Marxist theory, Soviet social scientists realized the need to look for differences between the concepts of "social structure" and "social-class structure" in the phenomena inherent in real society. In domestic literature, if we leave aside the actual identification by some authors of social relations with social relations in general (Selunskaya V.M.), we can distinguish three main points of view on the specifics of social relations.

A number of researchers share the suggestion put forward by M.N. Rutkevich's understanding of social relations as "equality and inequality of various groups of people and, above all, social classes according to their position in society." We must agree with A.K. Belykh and V.M. Alekseeva, who believed that the specifics of social relations are not revealed in the above point of view: "These types of relations encompass all social relations. Indeed, economic, political and spiritual-ideological relations are all relations between people, their communities represented by nations, classes , social groups, work collectives.And the relations of equality and inequality also function in all public spheres- equality and inequality, economic, social, political and spiritual-ideological. "These authors believed that" the methodological criterion for isolating a particular type of social relations is the object about which relations between people develop. " objections today.

According to A.K. Belykh and V.M. Alekseeva, social relations are "relations between people, their collectives as carriers of qualitatively different types of labor, various labor functions." "And the social structure," notes A.K. Belykh, "is the diversity of social and labor subjects." R.I. Kosolapov, who writes that the social structure is based on the social division of labor. "The social structure is a natural reflection of the division of labor in the guise of groups of people belonging to various specialized spheres of production and social life, in the relations of these groups to each other ..." G.V. Mokronosov also concluded that "the social division of labor and the social structure of society essentially coincide, since we are talking about the same thing - the place of groups, classes in the system of production relations."

With this approach, the actual identification of social and labor relations is allowed, the reduction of the former to the social division of labor loses its meaning in the selection of the very category of "social relations", tk. it can be completely replaced by the category "social division of labor". This leads to the fact that family, age, religious, political and many other relations drop out of social relations and only labor relations remain.

Other authors adhere to the views of V.P. Tugarinov, according to which the area of ​​social relations includes classes, estates, nations, nationalities, professions and categories reflecting its various relationships between these human collectives. This point of view gives a fairly accurate idea of ​​the specifics of social relations. At the same time, with this approach, relations between individuals are excluded from social relations, which leads to an artificial narrowing of their sphere of activity. Having supplemented the above list with relations between individuals, we will consider all subject-subject relations as social relations. This point of view corresponds to the views on the specifics of social relations M. Weber ( cm.), who, considering all the diversity of these relations, always had in mind "... only a certain type of behavior of individuals." He also noted that "social" we call an action that, according to the supposed actor or actors, the meaning correlates with the action of other people or is oriented towards it. "

It should be noted that in social science two approaches to the study of social structures coexist for a long time. With one of them, exclusively social strata are considered as the main components of this structure, which does not allow the researcher to reveal real socio-economic, political, ethnic and other social contradictions, as well as to determine real, and not imaginary (abstract) trends in the development of society and factors, their defining. In the second approach, classes are taken as the main components of the social structure, and within this direction itself there are fundamentally different approaches.

First, when the adherents of class theory emphasize that social structure is primarily associated with differentiation between individuals. In this case, first of all, it is not the occupation of people that is considered, but their professional position, not the income of people, but the distribution of income between the subjects, which makes it possible to reveal social inequality. At the same time, the need to disclose and explain the historical forms and degrees of differentiation and the influence of the latter on social evolution is proclaimed as a theoretical goal. An obvious drawback of this narrow approach is the narrowing, which negates its methodological significance, of the content that is put into the concept of "social structure of society" only to differentiation between individuals. In fact, the named structure also includes demographic, moral and many other relationships.

Secondly, when researchers interpret the concept of "class structure" broadly, actually talking about "the same hierarchies of social groups as those of the representatives of the stratification approach itself" (Radaev V.V., Shkaratan O.I.).

Third, when researchers recognize that the category "social-class structure" is narrower than the concept of "social structure" and that the first structure is fully included in the second (integration approach). At the same time, there is a real opportunity both to delimit the named structures and to give them clear, internally not contradictory definitions.

Any society is a complex social aggregate, consisting of a set of interacting subjects that break up not directly into individuals, but into two or more social communities, which, in turn, are already subdivided into individuals. The selection of a particular social structure is based on the functional or causal relationship of interacting individuals. Depending on the degree of intensity of this connection, it becomes possible for a number of structures to exist in the same population of people.

The nature of such a connection will show the opposite and intersecting coexistence of social groups. "The degree of intensity of the functional connection and its nature, - wrote Sorokin ( cm.), - this is the basis for the possibility of coexistence of a number of collective unities in the same population. "He further points out that the social variety of interaction processes or the nature of connections" entails a variety of collective unities formed by differently combining individuals - on the one hand, on the other - the belonging of each individual not to one, but to a number of real aggregates. "All social groups, depending on the number of their combined features, can be defined as elementary or cumulative (integral)." Under an elementary or simple collective unity / social group. - S.S./, - writes Sorokin, - I understand a real, and not an imaginary set of persons united into one interacting whole by some one sign, sufficiently clear and definite, not reducible to other signs. "Such signs can be: profession, race , the scope of rights, language, territorial affiliation, gender, etc. "Under the cumulative group ... of course, the totality of interacting individuals linked into one organized whole by links not one, but a number of elementary groups" (Sorokin).

Accordingly, the social structure formed on the basis of social groups differentiated according to one characteristic (sufficiently clear and definite, not reducible to other characteristics), can be defined by us as an elementary social structure (for example, a professional structure). A structure that combines several elementary structures is a cumulative, or integral, structure. Cumulative groups will act as elements of such a structure, which, in turn, will break up into elementary groups. The cumulative group, in particular, is the social class. Accordingly, characterizing the social-class structure, one can speak of it as a cumulative, or integral, social structure. A class in modern science means a concept that expresses a set of objects that satisfy any similar conditions or characteristics. There is nothing supernatural in this category, and since there are significant (in number and social status) subjective groupings in social structures that unite individuals on the basis of some similar characteristics, it is legitimate to describe the most significant of them using the concept of "social class".

Already in Medieval Western Europe, the Church Fathers attempted to divide humanity into certain categories (or classes). Initially, they understood the categories as groups of people with homogeneous political, social and professional characteristics, charismatic and corporate community. This "anthropological spiritualism", according to which the division into categories occurred from top to bottom, depending on the set of perfections predetermined by the Augustine exegesis of three characters in the Bible - Moses, Daniel and Job, embodying three types of human character: contemplative, religious and secular, caring only about the earthly. With this approach, even the feudal overlords did not have to count on any prominent place in the hierarchy. Therefore, along with the named traditional approach in 8 tbsp. there is a "sociological anthropology", which proposed a three-member division of society into: free, warriors and slaves. The above scheme, however, did not enjoy success, because, firstly, it ignored the activities of the clergy in society and, secondly, since the intermediate position of warriors between free and slaves was characteristic only of the empire. French authors (Adalbert Laonsky and others) proposed dividing society into "worshipers" (clergy), "soldiers" and "unarmed people" (working people). The latter sociological scheme later became generally accepted. In the 17th century. science has established the existence of social classes (C. Fourier, A. Smith, physiocrats, O. Thierry, and others). In the subsequent period, the role and significance of these social formations were described in the works of A. Smith, D. Ricardo, utopian socialists, K. Marx ( cm.), M. Weber, P.A. Sorokin. Interesting considerations on the contradictory nature of social and class interests were expressed by Lenin ( cm.).

For all the differences in the views of these thinkers on social classes, their points of view were similar in terms of the methodology of class differentiation of society. They were unanimous that social-class stratification is based on the social division of labor ( cm.) and socio-economic inequality of individuals. By itself, this scientific approach has not lost its epistemological significance today. As already noted, in modern Western social science there are significant differences in the interpretation of social classes and socio-class structure. "The concept of classes, - pointed out R. Dahrendorf ( cm.), is one of the most vivid illustrations of the inability of Western researchers to reach at least a minimum of agreement on this range of problems. "

However, with all the diversity of views on the social-class structure, there are a number of dominant trends. This is due to the fact that all the authors of Western concepts to one degree or another resorted to one of two sources - the works of M. Weber or P. Sorokin.

According to M. Weber, social classes - categories that differ in economic characteristics, in other words, are groups of people who are in a similar economic situation, or have the same "life chances". This author proposes a three-term model of social structure, which includes classes, status groups and parties. The largest number of Western sociological studies are devoted to Weberian status groups, although different authors interpret them in different ways. Thus, R. Dahrendorf singles out classes based on the proximity or remoteness of certain groups to the system of power. There is also a sociological differentiation of social subjects according to the volume-legal criterion. This approach rightly emphasizes the importance of social differentiation depending on the volume of power prerogatives, but it incorrectly ignores such fundamental criteria of social-class stratification as ownership of economic goods and other elements of economic relations.

In the period before the loss of the leading position in society by the CPSU, practically all Soviet scientists emphasized the use of Lenin's definition of classes as a general methodological premise for defining the categories of "social class" and "social-class relations." As you know, under the social classes V.I. Lenin understood "large groups of people, differing in their place in a historically defined system of social production, in their relation (for the most part enshrined and formalized in laws) to the means of production, in their role in the social organization of labor, and consequently in the methods of obtaining and the size of that the share of social wealth that they have. Classes are such groups of people, of which one can appropriate the labor of another due to the difference in their place in a certain structure of the social economy. " However, when interpreting Lenin's definition of classes, when interpreting its individual points, when assessing the place and role of class-forming attributes, their subordination, in the question of the degree of applicability of the Leninist criterion apparatus to modern society for that time, a number of researchers managed to overcome the narrow framework of the dogmas of Lenin's theory of classes. Often the latter was replaced by interpretations of social classes based on the traditions of the Russian and American sociological schools.

So, T.I. Zaslavskaya ( cm.), considering as criteria for the selection of classes: 1) attitude to the means of production; 2) the role in the social organization of labor and 3) the share of social wealth, notes that "the peculiarity of classes is that they differ simultaneously according to all the above criteria. But each of these criteria, considered independently of the others, also has a considerable socially differentiating force and allows you to single out groups, although not of a class nature, but playing an important role in the social functioning of society. " The last statement, in fact, lies in the context of the views of P.A. Sorokin. These groups, singled out according to one of the criteria ("united into one interacting whole by any one feature" - Sorokin), are elementary collective unities, and social classes act as cumulative (integral) groups.

To determine the essence of social-class relations, it is necessary to consider social classes from two sides: 1) from the point of view of their place and functional role in society; 2) through the contradiction of social and class interests. The essence of one of the sides of social-class relations lies in the contradiction of interests, first of all, of economic, of certain social groups (which will arise mainly from the possibility of some social groups to appropriate the labor of others). The presence of a conflict of interests (primarily economic) as a criterion for distinguishing social classes does not in itself cause controversy in Russian social science (another matter, the presence of discrepancies in its application to real social systems). When considering social classes according to their place and functional role in society, there is still no consensus. To a large extent, this was predetermined by the long-existing fundamental position on the direct application of Lenin's criteria when considering social classes and groups in society.

This was due to: firstly, the lack of an unambiguous well-established view in modern economic science (and in social science in general) on what should be understood by "attitude to the means of production", by "role in the social organization of labor" and "by the method receiving and the size of the share of social wealth that they have. " In other words, in fact, in political economy, there was a definition of one unknown (social class) through other unknowns (that is, through categories of which there is no unambiguous and accurate representation). Secondly, there was a mutual discrepancy between the criteria for distinguishing social classes in V.I. Lenin. As a working definition of social classes according to their place and functional role in society, the definition given by P.A. Sorokin. In his opinion, the social class "is a cumulative, normal, solidary, semi-closed, but approaching open, typical for our time group, made up of the cumulation of three main groupings: 1) professional; 2) property; 3) volume-legal".

In other words, a social class can be defined as a solidary set of individuals who are similar in profession, in property status, in the scope of rights, and, therefore, have identical professional-property-socio-legal interests. The professional structure determines the existence of professional groups united by the type of labor activity, possessing a complex of special theoretical knowledge and practical skills acquired as a result of special training and work experience. Dismemberment by profession deals with the formation of various groups in society, which are divided primarily not by the difference in mutual relations to each other, but by the difference in their relations to the object of activity. This kind of technical stratification can reach a huge number of species, subspecies, various small subdivisions, and social inequality is already formed among an infinite number of these subdivisions. The profession is the usual long-term occupation of the individual, which gives him a livelihood. This professional occupation, as a rule, is also the main activity. In other words, "... the source of income and the social function of the individual are linked to each other and form a profession in their totality" (Sorokin). This qualification and professional differentiation will generate social inequality. It is the different specialties, different qualifications in the labor process that lead to social differences between individuals.

The formation of social classes is based on enlarged professional groups (genetic aspect). At the same time, in a socially-class-differentiated society, representatives of the same profession can be included in different social-class formations (functional aspect). The property structure (or grouping according to the degree of wealth and poverty), regardless of whether it approaches the type of more closed or less closed groups in a given country, causes stratification of the entire society into groups of rich and poor. Moreover, the wealth and poverty of an individual do not entirely depend on his will. "Members of the same property group ... fatally become solidary in many respects, members of different property groups fatally antagonists" (Sorokin). The similarity of property status leads to a spontaneous organization of similar property individuals. Persons belonging to the same profession, depending on the amount of their income, may belong to different groups with opposite interests. The volume-legal structure (or grouping according to the volume of rights and obligations), not coinciding with the previous two structures, splits into two main groups: the privileged, constituting the highest social rank, and the disadvantaged, giving the lowest social rank. The privileged constitute a solidary collective unity; the “deprived” (Sorokin) form the same unity. At the same time, in any society with developed social structures, the real differentiation of individuals and groups, depending on the scope of their rights and obligations, is much more complicated than the above.

Thus, the following are distinguished as signs of social classes: 1) professional; 2) property; 3) volumetric legal. As soon as stable professional, property and legal-scale groups are formed in the society; as soon as they acquire a certain strength (as a social combination), immediately begins interaction between society, taken as a whole, and between individual social groups, with each of the parties affecting the nature of the other. Earlier it was noted that the profession, property status and scope of rights have a huge impact on individuals. If belonging to each of these groups very strongly determines the behavior of people, then this conditioning will be much stronger when the influence of all these three structures merges. Individuals united by all three ties will have similar economic interests, which acts as a material condition for their unification into social classes, in order to more successfully implement and protect their interests. Social groups that differ sharply from each other in the three given characteristics at once will be repelled and opposed much more strongly than groups that differ in only one characteristic.

At the same time, speaking about the unification of social groups into social classes, it is necessary to take into account the entire system of socio-economic relations as an exhaustive characteristic of the social class. So, Yu.S. Polyakov, emphasizing this, points out that "it is obvious that only the entire set of production relations that develop in the process of production, exchange, distribution and consumption of material goods gives an exhaustive political and economic characterization of the class." Since all social groups in society interact with each other and at the same time strive for the most optimal realization of their interests (primarily economic), the whole society should objectively disintegrate into some large groups of people opposing each other depending on the degree of coincidence (opposition) of them interests (primarily economic). What will predetermine this coincidence (opposition)? In our opinion, this is still the same opportunity for some social groups to appropriate the labor of others (which depends on their place and functional role). To protect their economic interests, there is a spontaneous unification of both into social classes. Such a union acts as the economic basis for the formation of social classes.

Dahrendorf in his work "Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society" (1957) wrote in this regard that "class is a category that is used to analyze the dynamics of social conflict and its structural roots." At the same time, the social class is not only economic, but also social, political, spiritual and ideological education. Karl Marx in The Poverty of Philosophy writes: "The economic conditions first turned the mass of the population into workers. The domination of capital created for this mass the same position and common interests. Thus, this mass is already classes in relation to capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle ... this mass rallies, it is constituted as a class for itself. The interests it protects become class interests. " It is clearly seen from this quote that in the process of the emergence and development of social classes, according to K. Marx, there is such a form when people who are in a position determined by the above criteria (place and role in the system of functional labor relations, property relations, management relations and special economic interests), are not yet connected by the internal connection of conscious (ideological) relations, but only by the connection of subjective relations and objective dependencies that exist within the framework of production relations. Then we say that they form a "class in themselves", which, however, is not a simple aggregate, since it is connected by a system of objective relations, but it does not yet represent a class "for itself," that is, does not yet have a fully developed consciousness of its class economic and political interests. Moreover, the objective class interests are reflected in the subjective class consciousness by no means mirrored. Awareness of one's essential, true interests, without which the transformation of "class into oneself" into "a class for oneself" is impossible, inevitably occurs through a system of psychological attitudes given by previous historical experience. A social class can become a "class for itself" only by developing its own ideology.

On the basis of all this, its organizational design takes place. Let us especially note that under the influence of this Marx's thesis on the "class for oneself" M. Weber proposed to distinguish between "class" and "social class" in the social-class structure. By class, this author understood a social community associated only with the similarity of economic interests, the "economic position" of a given category of subjects. By the category "social class" M. Weber showed that the highest manifestation of class community is the awareness of one's class economic and political interests and goals that mobilizes and encourages collective action.

The modern classic of French sociology P. Bourdieu ( cm.) also proposed to distinguish between possible (logical) and real social classes. This author writes that on the basis of knowledge of economic and other relations, it is possible to "single out classes in the logical sense of the word, i.e. classes as a set of agents occupying a similar position, which, being placed in similar conditions and subject to similar conditions, have all the chances for possessing similar dispositions and interests, and, therefore, to develop similar practices and take similar positions. " P. Bourdieu rightly believes that this class "on paper" has a theoretical existence, "it allows one to explain and foresee the practices and properties of the classified and ... behavior leading to their unification into a group / into a real social class. - S.S./ "." ... This is only a possible class, since it is a set of agents that will objectively offer less resistance if necessary to "mobilize" them than any other set of agents. "The transformation of a logical class into a real social class, writes it is further possible only through the development in its members of a sense of the position "occupied in the social space" / social-class relations. S.S./. I. Kraus also writes: "Classes ... are conflict groups that, uniting, challenge the existing distribution of power, advantages and other opportunities ... classes are formed when a set of individuals defines their interests as similar to the interests of others from the same population and as different and opposing interests of another set of persons ". This researcher emphasizes the important role in the formation of a social class that the latter has its own ideology.

Thus, objective class interests are not reflected in the subjective class consciousness in a mirror image. Awareness of one's essential, true interests, without which the transformation of "class into oneself" into "a class for oneself" is impossible, inevitably occurs through a system of psychological attitudes given by previous historical experience. A social class can become a "class for itself" only by developing its own ideology. On the basis of all this, its organizational design takes place. In connection with the non-reducibility of all components of the social-class structure of society only to social classes and elementary professional, property and legal groups, it is epistemologically necessary, proceeding from the goal of a more or less adequate reflection in the theory of the diversity of corporate social subjects, to introduce for a meaningful description of the named structure a number of categories, as well as supplement the above definition of the social class of P.A. Sorokin.

A social class in modern science is understood as a cumulative, normal, solidary, semi-closed, but with an approach to open, associated with positive social-class complementarity, a group made up of the cumulation of three main groups: 1) professional; 2) property; 3) volumetric legal. The concept of positive (negative) complementarity was introduced by L.N. Gumilev to characterize the ethnosphere. It was understood as “the feeling of subconscious mutual sympathy (antipathy) among members of ethnic groups, which determines the division into“ friends ”and“ aliens. " and the defining division into “us” and “foes.” Positive social-class complementarity is what (in the terminology of P. Bourdieu) distinguishes “real social class” from “possible (logical) class”.

It seems epistemologically promising to introduce a number of concepts into social philosophy that fix a certain stage in the development of a social-class community - this is "class-layer", "class-estate", "distracho-class", "syncretic class". It is also advisable to single out socio-economic categories that show the intra-class differentiation of subjects: "social-class group", "marginal social-class group" and "caste social-class group". Why is the introduction of the concept "class-layer" promising? The fact is that modern sociology not only lacks clear criteria for distinguishing between the categories "class" and "stratum", but also, as O.I. Shkaratan "for many authors they are generally synonyms".

Today in social science, the typical idea is that any modern society consists of groups or a multitude of individuals who have or bear certain characteristics. Moreover, these characteristics are considered as classification criteria, which can be one- or, more often, multidimensional (in our terminology, these are elementary or cumulative structures). With this approach, the researcher's attention is traditionally shifted from production to distribution, without comprehending the objective relations between them. This situation has led today to the fact that, as V.V. Radaev and O.I. Shkaratan: "in a significant part of the research, the same features are used to distinguish both classes and layers." And from this follows the widespread opinion among social scientists that the category of class covers heterogeneous social subjects, depending on the epistemological context that various scientists put into this term. “The meaning is also different,” as OI Shkaratan notes, “put by different authors in the term“ social stratum. ”Most sociologists use this term to designate social differentiation within a hierarchically organized society. "class." In the same cases when these concepts are distinguished, the term "stratum" denotes groups within "classes", distinguished on the same grounds as the "classes." Therefore, it is promising in scientific terms to introduce into circulation instead of the category "the concept of" class-layer ", which makes it possible to emphasize that the named state of the social-class community is one of the stages of the life of a social class and at the same time makes it possible to clearly distinguish the specifics of this stage." Class-layer "is a community that differs from the social class lack of positive complementarity, that is, in essence close to the "possible class" of Bourdieu. constituting a class-stratum, the level of their awareness of their common needs and interests (primarily economic), the degree of their cohesion and organization is less than that of representatives of the social class. To characterize intraclass groups, the category "social class group" is used. The named groups are understood as such intraclass groups that partially differ from each other in one (or two) basic cumulations: either professional, or property, or volume-legal; for the other two (or one) they completely coincide with other subjects of a given social class.

To analyze the process of evolution of the social-class structure of society, the category of social "distracho-class" (from the Latin word - distractor - torn to pieces) is often used today. This class is understood as a cumulative, semi-closed, but approaching open, group, made up of the cumulation of three main groups: 1) professional; 2) property; 3) volumetric legal, and characterized by an increased degree of fragmentation and looseness of internal structures. The distracho-class is a social class in the process of strengthening the autonomization of its intra-class (social-class) groups, leading in the long run to its disintegration into several new social classes. As a rule, the aforementioned social-class community is characterized by even less opportunity for joint action than the class-layer; there is no unified ideological position among the subjects of its constituents.

Recognition of the expediency of using the category "social distracho-class" in modern social science required the introduction of the concept of "embryonic (syncretic) social class" (or, for short, "syncretic class") into scientific circulation. The named social community is a social-class group that is part of the distracho-class, in the process of its transformation into a social class proper. The syncretic class is distinguished by its fusion, indivisibility due to the initial underdevelopment of the state.

In recent years, in the philosophical and sociological literature, much attention has been paid to such a phenomenon as marginality, which acts as one of the characteristics of the state of social, including social-class, structures. The named concept is usually used "... to denote relatively stable social phenomena that arise on the border/ highlighted by me. - S.S./ interaction of different cultures, social communities, structures, as a result of which a certain part of social subjects is outside them "(Popova I.P.). apparent simplicity definition of the named phenomenon and its more than seventy years of scientific history, up to the present time in the application of the category of "marginality" there is a large number of epistemological difficulties. We must agree with I.P. Popova that the reason for the named state of affairs is threefold: “Firstly, in the practice of using the term itself, several approaches have developed (in sociology, social psychology, cultural studies, political science, economics, etc.), which gives the concept a rather general, interdisciplinary character. Secondly, in the process of clarification and evolution of the concept in sociology, several meanings associated with various types of marginality have been established. Thirdly, its fuzziness, uncertainty makes it difficult to measure the phenomenon itself, its analysis in the context of social processes. " Thus, in modern social science, it is advisable to speak not about any abstract marginality of some unidentified social phenomenon, but only about the marginality of certain types (or classes) of phenomena and relations. The use of the concept of "marginality" in characterizing the components of the social-class structure brings to the fore such its attributive features as "borderline", "intermediate", "ambiguity" and "uncertainty" (which emphasizes the increased degree of entropy of marginal social-class subjects. In our opinion, it is impossible to describe the social-class organization and structure of society in modern systemic language without introducing the category "marginal social-class group" (or, for short, "marginal group"), which is a social-class group that is part of one social class , but according to a number of characteristics it is also close to another social class. This group occupies a specific "borderline" position in the social-class structure of society. The named group with a high degree of probability can be characterized as an entropic element at the group level.

A social class-estate (or, for short - "class-estate") is a semi-closed group, approaching a closed one; access to it is limited, including customs and traditions, its representatives have inherited rights and obligations. An example of such social-class communities is Japan in the second half of the 20th century. In this country, the system of inheritance of political power is widely developed, "when the sons, daughters and grandchildren of politicians of the older generations almost automatically take seats in parliament from the same electoral districts ( nisei or sansei giin). In the mid-1990s, these second- or third-generation parliamentarians held up to a quarter of the seats in the lower house and up to one-fifth in the upper house of the Japanese parliament. If we add to them spouses, brother-in-law, nephews and other relatives, as well as former secretaries of retired parliamentarians, then the scale of the phenomenon of inheritance of power will turn out to be even more impressive "(Kravtsevich A.I.) It should also be added that the Japanese cabinet of ministers ( supreme executive power) is formed from the acting politicians-parliamentarians from the ruling or ruling parties.At the same time, the real government of the country is not in the hands of ministers and their deputies (politicians elected by the people), who are traditionally replaced annually, but in the hands of a career bureaucracy. is also today a class-estate. The system of consultation meetings with government bodies, "combining the collective experience of the bureaucracy, business and academic circles, trade unions and consumers and designed to help achieve public consensus on the policy adopted" (Kravtsevich A.I.), in in more cases, it is a screen for making the appropriate the corresponding surroundings of decisions prepared by the bureaucracy.

Caste social-class groups (or, for short, "castes") are social-class groups that occupy a certain (strictly ranked) place in the social hierarchy, are associated with rigidly fixed types of activity and are limited in communication with each other.

Thus, a social class is a real sociological category that allows us to single out a group of individuals in social and socio-economic relations, based on a number of (socio-economic) characteristics, who act in social and socio-economic relations as a large closed system with a certain dynamic algorithm of behavior and a specific internal structure that changes depending on from the stage of development of a class - from the degree of its "maturity" (class-stratum, social distracho-class, etc.).

In modern social science, a social class is understood as a cumulative, normal, solidary, semi-closed, but with an approach to open, associated with positive social-class complementarity, a group made up of the cumulation of three main groups: 1) professional; 2) property; 3) volumetric legal. Social-class complementarity is understood as the feeling of subconscious mutual sympathy (antipathy) among members of social classes, leading to the formation of a single ideology in them and defining the division into "friends" and "aliens." In the course of their life, social classes and social-class groups can unite into social-class groups ("social superclasses") with the aim of a joint struggle to optimize the conditions for the realization of their socio-economic interests. At the same time, the main condition for this integration is the temporary coincidence of the interests of the uniting subjects and an obvious contradiction to their socio-economic interests of other social classes. Such a combination of certain social-class subjects can take place for a certain, as a rule, rather short historical period. It should also be noted that the potential for this association is largely determined by the moral relations of a particular society (customs, traditions, moral norms, ideals, etc.).

Based on the above, it is possible to define social-class relations in a narrow sense as relations between individuals included in specific cumulative (integral) groups - social classes. Accordingly, social-class relations in a broad sense are understood as the relations between people united in elementary professional, property and volume-legal groups and cumulative (integral) groups - social class groups and social classes.

The social-class structure of society is a set of: 1) the most stable, essential, regularly recurring social-class relations that arise between individuals united into social classes, social-class groups and into elementary professional, property and volume-legal groups; 2) these individuals themselves, united into social classes and social-class elementary social groups. In any real society, there is, constantly reproducing or disappearing, a wide variety of social-class relations. If we assume that in any society all the named relations will be stable, essential, regularly recurring, that is, that there will be no chaotic social-class processes or phenomena, then in the named society there will be no dynamism and it will be doomed stagnant.

As already noted in the special literature (E.A. Sedov), for normal functioning and a more or less adequate response to changes in the surrounding socio-economic realities (that is, for the perception of information), chaotic processes should not only be present, but also occupy a fairly significant proportion in the totality of socio-economic relations. At the same time, if these chaotic processes go over a certain limit, that is, if the presence of non-chaotic processes becomes insufficient to maintain certain structures in society, then this society dies. At the same time, there is a degradation of the social-class structure. Therefore, to characterize real social-class relations, it is necessary to use the concept of "social-class organization of society," which covers a broader aspect of social relations than the social-class structure. The first includes not only stable, essential, non-random, regularly recurring, but also unstable, random, irregular relationships. Some changes in the social-class organization of society will act as a specific social "embryo" of the evolution of the social-class structure.

Thus, S.-K.O. a dynamic society is always a continuously changing social phenomenon, the dynamics of which cannot be fully described in the language of modern mathematics, even using "mathematical chaos" as a means. At the same time, it seems theoretically possible with a sufficient degree of probability to describe the social-class organization of society for a certain period of time. To fix this state, it is legitimate to use the category "social-class fractal". The named concept refers to a certain static social configuration that acts as an instant statistical (mathematical) "snapshot" of the social-class organization. In a somewhat simplified way, the real existence of the social-class organization of society can be represented as an infinite number of social-class fractals continuously replacing each other. The category "social-class structure of society", as noted above, does not describe the entire diversity of social-class relations and does not carry an evolutionary potential.

In other words, if we imagine that all the diversity of social-class relations in a certain socio-economic system has been reduced only to the most stable, essential, regularly recurring, i.e. to non-random deterministic relations, then such a system could exist only under constant external conditions (stable natural and climatic conditions, constant sources of raw materials, the absence of scientific and technological progress or regression, a frozen demographic structure with a constant population, etc.), i.e. .e. it is, in principle, not vital. In order to respond to changes in external conditions in a socio-economic system, entropy (entropy is a measure of the uncertainty of stochastic processes) social-class relations must necessarily exist.

All real, not imaginary, social-class relations are divided into two types: 1) stable, substantial, regularly recurring - forming the social-class structure and being in this case the expression of structural information; 2) unstable, random, stochastic - which are the embodiment of entropic processes leading to the transformation of the social-class structure and allowing the latter to adequately respond to changes in the socio-economic system. It is the totality of all these relations (stable and unstable, statistical and stochastic, etc.) that is described by the term "S.-K.O." In S.-K.O. in any real society, there will be elements that are not part of the social-class structure - individuals who can unite into certain, fairly stable groups. In turn, in any social class there will also be entropic elements - ensuring the possibility of its change, and structural and informational elements - ensuring the possibility of its self-preservation. (The distracho-class is the class with the maximum entropy, and the social class-estate is the class with the minimum entropy.) The actual level of diversity at the higher levels of the social-class structure can be ensured by its effective restriction at the lower levels.

Demographic processes in a social context

1. Russia entered the third millennium not in the best demographic shape. Unjustifiably high mortality, low fertility, population decline, and fading migration. All of this is taking place against a backdrop of deeper and more painful economic and social changes, and it is not surprising that public opinion tends to view negative demographic trends as a direct consequence of these changes.

2. The understanding of not only the demographic present, but also the demographic future of Russia depends on whether such a view is correct or incorrect. If we are really talking about a simple reaction to the economic and social crisis of the 90s, then one can hope that as this crisis is overcome, the demographic situation will also improve. If the main demographic trends have deeper causes and more ancient origins, then there is probably no reason for such optimism.

3. Although the author of the report is one of those demographers who view demographic processes as relatively autonomous in relation to other social processes, he certainly does not consider them completely independent of the social, economic or political context. Moreover, he believes that demographic trends in Russia should be viewed in two contexts: domestic and global. This applies to all major demographic processes: mortality, fertility and migration.

4. Trends in mortality in Russia can most reasonably be characterized as crisis, although they can in no way be associated only with the events of the last 10-15 years, they can be clearly traced at least from the mid-60s. The main reason is the preservation of conservative statist-paternalistic attitudes, which greatly limit the scope of individual activity and responsibility, including when it comes to protecting their own health and life. This is especially noticeable at the later stages of mortality modernization, when it is more dependent on individual behavior. Through its earlier and very important stages, the process of the extinction of generations in Russia in the twentieth century was quite successful. Nevertheless, the entire system of values ​​- both individual and social - still remains largely archaic, predetermines such a distribution of priorities in which both society and each individual sacrifice health and even life in the name of other, considered more important goals, protection health care is invariably financed on a "leftover principle", the due freedom of choice of a doctor, hospital, treatment method, insurance, etc. is not ensured. All this led to the fact that several decades ago modernization changes were blocked and the mortality situation stopped improving. This, in fact, is the long-term mortality crisis in Russia; the last decade has not brought any fundamental changes.

5. Oddly enough, but frankly crisis, long-term mortality trends worried Russian public opinion much less than fertility trends, which are much more difficult to give an unambiguous assessment. There is no doubt that, from the point of view of the domestic Russian context, the extremely low birth rate, the main reason for the decline in Russia's population, is extremely unfavorable for the country. However, unlike the very high mortality rate, it is not something exceptional; a similar birth rate is observed in many developed countries with completely different socio-economic conditions. This could be interpreted as a general crisis of the entire modern "post-industrial" civilization, the causes of which cannot be found and eliminated in one country. However, even with this approach, one cannot fail to see that the decline in the birth rate in post-industrial societies is associated with many changes that are commonly interpreted as positive attributes of modernization: the almost complete elimination of child mortality, the emancipation and self-realization of women, growing specific investment in children, the growth of education, etc. Taking this into account, perhaps we should not talk about the crisis, but about the internal contradictions of the modernization process, and maybe also about the fact that modernization objectively shifts the emphasis from quantitative to qualitative characteristics of social life.

However, the decline in fertility should be seen in a broader, global context. In this decline, one can see a systemic response to the global demographic crisis generated by the global population explosion and the growing pressure on the planet's limited resources. With this interpretation, the decline in the birth rate on a global scale below the level of simple reproduction for a sufficiently long period is a blessing, and the decline in the birth rate in Russia, as in the “West,” is just an episode of such a global turn. No matter how unpleasant it may be for all developed countries, and especially for Russia with its vast territory, nothing can be done about it, because the interests of preserving all of humanity are higher than the interests of individual countries.

6. The connection between internal migrations and the social context, mainly within the Russian one, is obvious. Throughout most of the twentieth century, multimillion-dollar movements rural population to the cities were one of the main tools and at the same time the results of modernization shifts that changed the face of the country. With the same shifts, in particular, with the industrial development of new regions, the creation of new cities, etc. inter-district, in particular, and inter-republican migrations of the Soviet period were also connected. At the same time, external migration was artificially blocked for most of this period.

Political changes at the end of the century, the collapse of the USSR and the emergence new Russia within borders that had never existed before, they greatly changed the general context and highlighted external migrations (especially since the potential of internal migrations by this time was largely exhausted).

The new internal Russian context in which external migrations now have to be viewed is contradictory. On the one hand, the apparent discrepancy between the declining Russian population and the vast territory of the country (larger than during the Soviet era) makes immigration desirable, and this is a demographic process that is much easier to manage than mortality or fertility. On the other hand, any immigration generates economic, social, and sometimes political tensions, problems of intercultural interaction, etc., which is inevitable in Russia, where anti-immigration and sometimes openly xenophobic sentiments still prevail. Therefore, one cannot count on Russians' overly benevolent attitude to immigration in the near future.

But there is also a global context, which is determined by the rapid increase in the number of inhabitants in poor developing countries and the growing demographic pressure on the developed countries. It manifests itself, in particular, in the growing legal and illegal migration to these countries, the search for political asylum in them, etc. The final result is formed under the influence of all components of both the domestic and global context, which makes this result difficult to predict.

7. Answering the question posed at the beginning of the report, it should be said that the main current demographic problems in Russia should hardly be associated with the economic and social development of the country in the last 10-15 years. Perhaps this period highlighted and exacerbated some problems, but at their core they have long historical and sociocultural roots. Moreover, most of these problems are immanent to the type of development that Russia chose more than one decade or even more than one century ago, when it embarked on the path of catch-up modernization. Any reasonable strategy of society should take into account the deep conditioning of the current Russian demographic trends, and not proceed from the illusory possibilities of their easy and quick change.

Youth as a socio-demographic group. The controversy between scientists about the definition of youth, the criteria for separating it into an independent group, age boundaries have a long history. In this context, one cannot consider, like some researchers, youth only as a demographic group, thereby emphasizing only its biologically given characteristics. After all, the age category is biosocial. This is not just a biological "counter" of human life, an indicator of physiological and psychological changes in personality, it affects the social status of a person, his place and role in the system of social division of labor, his performance of certain social roles, the availability of rights and obligations etc. Age changes the characteristics of a person's labor activity, her capacity for work, professional skill, creativity, mobility. With age, the structure of needs for the satisfaction of material and spiritual benefits is transformed. From this we can conclude that the age factor is undoubtedly a social phenomenon. In addition, young people play a specific social role in society, which is expressed in their social and innovative activities. It is not for nothing that sociologists introduced the concept of juvenization, which denotes such social changes and innovations that are the result of the vigorous activity of young people. This allows us to speak of young people not only as a demographic, but also as a social group. At the same time, the resource of social and innovative behavior and the group-forming factor is the "disposition capital" - a specific type of "cultural capital" that young people have and thanks to which they differ from other social groups. It is he who predetermines all the social functions of young people, determining their activities aimed at preparing and including in various spheres of social life, in the social mechanism, as well as a specific youth subculture, internal differentiation, which does not always coincide with the established forms of general social differentiation. Thus, one can speak of youth as a socio-demographic group, therefore. That the individuals belonging to it have a common social characteristic and perform the necessary function of juvenile society. And the main feature of a social group is the implementation of a socially significant function.