The progressive movement of society. The political status of the individual

Progress is understood as the direction of development, which is characterized by the progressive movement of society from lower and simpler forms public organization to higher and more complex ones. A number of thinkers assessed progress by the state of public morality. G. Hegel linked progress with the degree of consciousness of freedom. Marxism also proposed a universal criterion for progress - the development of productive forces. Seeing the essence of progress in the ever greater subordination of the forces of nature to man, K. Marx reduced social development to progress in the production sphere. He considered progressive only those social relations that corresponded to the level of productive forces, opened up space for human development. The goal, and not the means of any social progress, is to create conditions for the comprehensive and harmonious development of man.

Therefore, the criterion of progress should be the measure of freedom that society is able to provide. The degree of progressiveness of this or that social system must be assessed by the conditions created in it to satisfy all the needs of the individual, for the free development of man.

The concept of socio-economic formation (SEF). Formation theory and real social process. Modern discussions on the problem of formational and civilizational approach to world history.

Society is a self-developing system, it is in change and development. OEF - social system, consisting

of interconnected elements and in a state of unstable equilibrium.

The formation includes productive forces and production relations, which constitute its material basis; certain social subjects represented by various historical forms of community of people: clans and tribes, estates and classes, nationalities and nations, political parties and public organizations. Criticism of formation theory: 1) Marx developed this theory on the basis of the development of Zap. Europe and

decided that his laws are universal for all societies.2) considers the socio-economic. factor as the main 3) society is based on one foundation, but any reduction to one is untenable. Civilization (C) - large self-sufficient communities of countries and peoples, identified by sociocultural basis and retaining their originality and uniqueness over long periods of historical time, despite all the changes and influences to which they are subjected.

Criteria for the selection of civilizations: religion, history, language, custom. For C, self-determination is characteristic of its own destiny, it has developed. just out of yourself. Civilization approach: 1 C is created by people 2. The study of the influence of forms of culture. 3. Horizontal analysis (C that exists today) 4 Culturological. analysis (certain forms of the spirit of life). 5. The history of the development of society-va-outside it. Formation approach: 1 History is a natural process. 2. This is an existential analysis of history - it is necessary to find the fundamental principle of history. Vertical analysis - from antiquity to the present day.4. Sots-economnch analysis of society.5 Attention is focused on internal sources of development. 6. More research into what separates people.

43. Concepts of "technological determinism". Industrial and post-industrial society. Post-industrial perspective and possibilities of survival of other regional types.

Technological determinism (60-70 years of the XX century) - reflects the idea that the development of society is determined by the development of technology, i.e. development of technology. 3 stages of development: traditional, industrial, post-industrial.

Characteristics of the industrial area:

1) High level of development of technology - a source of development of society

2) Mass production

3) Energy consumption has increased, instead of natural sources, artificially created

4) New means of communications

5) Break with tradition

Key values ​​of the industrial community:

1) The value of achievement and success

2) Individualism

3) The value of activity and labor

4) Faith in progress

Changes in the industrial community:

1) an important role in the general acquires information and information Technology- key change

2) dramatically age the role of the economy and services;

3) production has become science-intensive (using a large number of discoveries, studies). The post-industrial society considers investment in a person as an important part of its development, in its health and education.

Characteristics of the post-industrial community:

1) the basis of life - inform technology;

2) a person is a carrier of knowledge;

3) the basic principles of the industrial society are preserved in the post-industrial; 4) quantitative growth, but no depth of growth

3rd stage - post-industrial (D. Bell), or technotronic (A. Toffler), or technological (3. Brzezinski).

At the first stage, the main area of ​​economic activity is Agriculture, on the second - industry, on the third - the service sector. Each of the stages has its own, special forms of social organization and its own social structure.

Although these theories, as already indicated, were within the framework of a materialistic understanding of the processes of social development, they had a significant difference from the views of Marx and Engels. According to the Marxist concept, the transition from one socio-economic formation to another was carried out on the basis of a social revolution, which was understood as a radical qualitative change in the entire system. public life. As for the theories of industrial and post-industrial society, then they are within the framework of a current called social evolutionism: according to them, the technological upheavals taking place in the economy, although they entail upheavals in other areas of public life, are not accompanied by social conflicts and social revolutions.

3. Formational and civilizational approaches to the study of society

The most developed approaches in Russian historical and philosophical science to explaining the essence and characteristics of the historical process are formational and civilizational.

The first of them belongs to the Marxist school of social science. His key concept is the category of "socio-economic formation"

The formation was understood as a historically defined type of society, considered in the organic interconnection of all its aspects and spheres, arising on the basis of a certain mode of production. wealth. In the structure of each formation, an economic basis and a superstructure were distinguished. Basis (otherwise it was called relations of production) - a set of social relations that develop between people in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods (the main among them are the ownership of the means of production). The superstructure was understood as a set of political, legal, ideological, religious, cultural and other views, institutions and relations not covered by the base. Despite relative independence, the type of superstructure was determined by the nature of the basis. He also represented the basis of the formation, determining the formation affiliation of a particular society. The relations of production (the economic basis of society) and the productive forces constituted the mode of production, often understood as a synonym for the socio-economic formation. The concept of "productive forces" included people as producers of material goods with their knowledge, skills and labor experience, and means of production: tools, objects, means of labor. The productive forces are a dynamic, constantly developing element of the mode of production, while the relations of production are static and inert, not changing for centuries. At a certain stage, a conflict arises between the productive forces and production relations, which is resolved in the course of the social revolution, the destruction of the old basis and the transition to a new stage of social development, to a new socio-economic formation. The old relations of production are being replaced by new ones, which open up scope for the development of the productive forces. Thus, Marxism understands the historical process as a natural, objectively determined, natural-historical change of socio-economic formations.

In some works of K. Marx himself, only two large formations are singled out - primary (archaic) and secondary (economic), which includes all societies based on private property. The third formation will be communism. In other works of the classics of Marxism, the socio-economic formation is understood as a specific stage in the development of the mode of production with its corresponding superstructure. It was on their basis that in Soviet social science by 1930 the so-called “five-term” was formed and received the character of an indisputable dogma. According to this concept, all societies in their development alternately go through five socio-economic formations: primitive, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist and communist, the first phase of which is socialism. The formational approach is based on several postulates:

1) the idea of ​​history as a logical, internally conditioned, progressive, progressive, world-historical and teleological (directed towards the goal - the construction of communism) process. The formational approach practically denied the national specificity and originality of individual states, focusing on the general that was characteristic of all societies;

2) decisive role material production in the life of society, the idea of ​​economic factors as basic for other social relations;

3) the need to match production relations with the productive forces;

4) the inevitability of the transition from one socio-economic formation to another.

On present stage development of social science in our country, the theory of socio-economic formations is experiencing an obvious crisis, many authors have brought to the fore the civilizational approach to the analysis of the historical process.

The concept of "civilization" is one of the most complex in modern science: many definitions have been proposed. The term itself comes from the Latin word for civil. IN broad sense civilization is understood as a level, a stage in the development of society, material and spiritual culture, following barbarism, savagery. This concept is also used to refer to the totality of unique manifestations of social orders inherent in a certain historical community. In this sense, civilization is characterized as a qualitative specificity (originality of material, spiritual, social life) of a particular group of countries, peoples at a certain stage of development. The well-known Russian historian M. A. Barg defined civilization as follows: “... This is the way in which a given society resolves its material, socio-political, spiritual and ethical problems.” Different civilizations are fundamentally different from each other, since they are based not on similar production techniques and technologies (like societies of the same Formation), but on incompatible systems of social and spiritual values. Any civilization is characterized not so much by a production basis as by a way of life specific to it, a system of values, vision and ways of interconnection with the outside world.

IN modern theory civilizations, both linear-stage concepts (in which civilization is understood as a certain stage of world development, opposed to "uncivilized" societies), and the concepts of local civilizations are widespread. The existence of the former is explained by the Eurocentrism of their authors, who represent the world historical process as the gradual introduction of barbarian peoples and societies to the Western European system of values ​​and the gradual advancement of mankind towards a single world civilization based on the same values. Proponents of the second group of concepts use the term "civilization" in plural and proceed from the idea of ​​the diversity of ways of development of various civilizations.

Various historians distinguish many local civilizations, which may coincide with the borders of states (Chinese civilization) or cover several countries (ancient, Western European civilization). Civilizations change over time, but their "core", due to which one civilization differs from another, remains. The uniqueness of each civilization should not be absolutized: they all go through stages common to the world historical process. Usually the whole variety of local civilizations is divided into two large groups- Eastern and Western. The former are characterized by a high degree of dependence of the individual on nature and the geographical environment, a close connection between man and his social group, low social mobility, dominance among the regulators of social relations of traditions and customs. Western civilizations, on the contrary, are characterized by the desire to subordinate nature to human power by the priority of individual rights and freedoms over social communities, high social mobility, democratic political regime and the rule of law.

Thus, if the formation focuses on the universal, general, repetitive, then civilization - on the local-regional, unique, original. These approaches are not mutually exclusive. IN modern social science there are searches in the direction of their mutual synthesis.

4. Social progress and its criteria

It is fundamentally important to find out in which direction a society is moving in a state of continuous development and changes.

Progress is understood as the direction of development, which is characterized by the progressive movement of society from lower and simpler forms of social organization to higher and more complex ones. The concept of progress is opposed to the concept of regress, which is characterized by a reverse movement - from higher to lower, degradation, a return to obsolete structures and relationships. The idea of ​​the development of society as a progressive process appeared in antiquity, but it finally took shape in the works of the French enlighteners (A. Turgot, M. Condorcet, and others). They saw the criteria for progress in the development of the human mind, in the spread of enlightenment. This optimistic view of history changed in the 19th century. more complex representations. Thus, Marxism sees progress in the transition from one socio-economic formation to another, higher one. Some sociologists considered the essence of progress to be the complication social structure, the growth of social heterogeneity. in modern sociology. historical progress is associated with the process of modernization, i.e., the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one, and then to a post-industrial one.

Some thinkers reject the idea of ​​progress in social development, either considering history as a cyclical cycle with a series of ups and downs (J. Vico), predicting the imminent "end of history", or asserting ideas about the multilinear, independent of each other, parallel movement of various societies (N (J. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee). So, A. Toynbee, abandoning the thesis of the unity of world history, singled out 21 civilizations, in the development of each of which he distinguished the phases of emergence, growth, breakdown, decline and decay. O. Spengler also wrote about the “decline of Europe”. K. Popper's "anti-progressiveism" is especially bright. Understanding progress as movement towards some goal, he considered it possible only for an individual, but not for history. The latter can be explained both as a progressive process and as a regression.

Obviously, the progressive development of society does not exclude return movements, regression, civilizational dead ends and even breakdowns. And the very development of mankind is unlikely to have an unambiguously straightforward character; both accelerated leaps forward and rollbacks are possible in it. Moreover, progress in one area of ​​social relations can be the cause of regression in another. The development of labor tools, technical and technological revolutions are clear evidence of economic progress, but they have brought the world to the brink of an ecological catastrophe, depleted Natural resources Earth. Modern society accused of the decline of morality, the crisis of the family, lack of spirituality. The price of progress is also high: the conveniences of city life, for example, are accompanied by numerous "diseases of urbanization." Sometimes the costs of progress are so great that the question arises: is it even possible to talk about the movement of mankind forward?

In this regard, the question of the criteria for progress is relevant. There is no agreement among scientists here either. The French enlighteners saw the criterion in the development of the mind, in the degree of rationality of the social order. A number of thinkers (for example, A. Saint-Simon) assessed the movement forward by the state of public morality, its approximation to early Christian ideals. G. Hegel linked progress with the degree of consciousness of freedom. Marxism also proposed a universal criterion for progress - the development of productive forces. Seeing the essence of progress in the ever greater subordination of the forces of nature to man, K. Marx reduced social development to progress in the production sphere. He considered progressive only those social relations that corresponded to the level of productive forces, opened up scope for the development of man (as the main productive force). The applicability of such a criterion is disputed in modern social science. The state of the economic basis does not determine the nature of the development of all other spheres of society. The goal, and not the means of any social progress, is to create conditions for the comprehensive and harmonious development of man.

Progress is understood as the direction of development, which is characterized by the progressive movement of society from lower and simpler forms of social organization to higher and more complex ones. The concept of progress is opposed to the concept of regress, which is characterized by a reverse movement - from higher to lower, degradation, a return to obsolete structures and relationships. The idea of ​​the development of society as a progressive process appeared in antiquity, but finally took shape in the writings of the French Enlightenment (A. Turgot, M. Condorcet and etc.). They saw the criterion of progress in the development of the human mind, in the spread of enlightenment. This optimistic view of history changed in the 19th century. more complex representations. Thus, Marxism sees progress in the transition from one socio-economic formation to another, higher one. Some sociologists considered the complication of the social structure and the growth of social heterogeneity to be the essence of progress. In modern sociology, historical progress is associated with the process of modernization, i.e., the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one, and then to a post-industrial one.

Some thinkers reject the idea of ​​progress in social development, considering history as a cyclical cycle with a series of ups and downs. (J. Vico), predicting the imminent "end of history" or asserting ideas about the multi-linear, independent of each other, parallel movement of various societies (N. Ya. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee). So, A. Toynbee, abandoning the thesis of the unity of world history, singled out 21 civilizations, in the development of each of which he distinguished the phases of emergence, growth, breakdown, decline and decay. O. Spengler also wrote about the “decline of Europe”. Especially bright "anti-progressive" K. Popper. Understanding progress as movement towards some goal, he considered it possible only for an individual, but not for history. The latter can be explained both as a progressive process and as a regression.

Obviously, the progressive development of society does not exclude return movements, regression, civilizational dead ends and even disruptions. And the very development of mankind is unlikely to have an unambiguously straightforward character; both accelerated leaps forward and rollbacks are possible in it. Moreover, progress in one area of ​​social relations may be accompanied by, and even be the cause of, regression in another. The development of labor tools, technical and technological revolutions are clear evidence of economic progress, but they have put the world on the brink of an ecological catastrophe and depleted the Earth's natural resources. Modern society is accused of the decline of morality, the crisis of the family, lack of spirituality. The price of progress is also high: the conveniences of city life, for example, are accompanied by numerous "diseases of urbanization." Sometimes the costs of progress are so great that the question arises whether it is even possible to talk about the movement of mankind forward.

In this regard, the question of the criteria for progress is relevant. There is no agreement among scientists here either. The French enlighteners saw the criterion in the development of the mind, in the degree of rationality of the social order. Some thinkers (for example, A. Saint-Simon) assessed the progress of the state of public morality. G. Hegel associated progress with the degree of consciousness of freedom. Marxism also proposed a universal criterion for progress - the development of productive forces. Seeing the essence of moving forward in the ever greater subordination of the forces of nature to man, K. Marx reduced social development to progress in the industrial sphere. He considered progressive only those social relations that corresponded to the level of productive forces, opened up scope for the development of man (as the main productive force). The applicability of such a criterion is disputed in modern social science. The state of the economic basis does not determine the nature of the development of all other spheres of society. The goal, and not the means of any social progress, is to create conditions for the comprehensive and harmonious development of man.

Consequently, the criterion of progress should be the measure of freedom that society is able to provide to the individual in order to maximize the disclosure of its potential. The degree of progressiveness of this or that social system must be assessed by the conditions created in it to satisfy all the needs of the individual, for the free development of a person (or, as they say, according to the degree of humanity of the social structure).

Under the political status of the individual is understood the position of a person in the political system of society, the totality of his political rights and obligations, opportunities to influence political life countries.

Regardless of the degree of participation of a particular person in politics, from his role in the political process, all citizens democratic states have a number of political rights and freedoms that allow them to actively participate in political activities: the right to elect and be elected, freedom of speech, press, meetings and rallies, unions, the right to send personal and collective appeals (petitions) to the authorities. Everyone has the right to take part in the management of public affairs, both directly and through their representatives, and is potentially an active subject of the political process. In societies with totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, a person is actually and sometimes formally deprived of any political rights, being an object of state policy.

But to determine the political status of an individual, not only the socio-political reality in which he is included is important, but also those political functions, roles, which she performs in it. In political science, there are several classifications of the political roles of the individual, which are understood as political functions, normatively approved images of political behavior expected from everyone who occupies this position. Depending on the degree of involvement of the individual in the politics of his political roles roles can be:

1) an ordinary member of society who has no influence on politics, is not interested in it and is almost exclusively the object of politics;

2) a person who is a member of a public organization or movement, indirectly involved in political activities, if this follows from his role as an ordinary member political organization;

3) a citizen who is a member of an elected body or is an active member of a political organization, purposefully and voluntarily included in the political life of society, but only to the extent that it is reflected in the internal life of this political organization or body;

4) a professional politician, for whom political activity is not only the main occupation and source of existence, but also constitutes the meaning of life;

5) a political leader - a person capable of changing the course of political events and the direction of political processes.

But a person is not born with a pre-assimilated political experience and with a pre-accepted role, they are acquired throughout a person's life. The process of mastering socio-political knowledge, norms, values ​​and activity skills by an individual, as a result of which he assumes a certain political role, is called political socialization of the individual. There are several stages in this process:

1st stage - childhood and early adolescence, when the child forms his initial Political Views and patterns of political behavior;

2nd stage - the period of study in high school and university, when the information side of the worldview is formed, one of the existing systems of political norms and values ​​is transformed into the inner world of the individual;

3rd stage - start of active social activities the individual, including him in the work of state bodies and public organizations, when a person is transformed into a citizen, the formation of a full-fledged subject of politics;

4th stage - the whole subsequent life of a person, when he constantly improves and develops his political culture.

The result of political socialization is the acceptance and performance of any political role. There is also another periodization of the process of political socialization of the individual: in accordance with the degree of independence of political participation, primary and secondary socialization are distinguished. The first characterizes the process of political education of children and youth, and the second falls on adulthood and is manifested in the active interaction of the individual with political system on the basis of previously obtained value attitudes and orientations.

Political socialization occurs both objectively, due to the involvement of a person in social relations, and purposefully, by means of state institutions(including schools), public organizations, funds mass media etc. And the person himself can actively participate in political socialization (political self-education).

Along with political roles, political science identifies various types of participation of the individual in politics: unconscious (for example, the behavior of a person in a crowd), semi-conscious (political conformism - understanding the meaning of one's role in unconditional submission to the requirements of one's social environment as something given, undeniable, even in cases of disagreement with it) and conscious participation (in accordance with one's own consciousness and will, the ability to change one's role and one's position).

It is fundamentally important to find out in which direction a society is moving, which is in a state of continuous development and change.

Progress is understood as the direction of development, which is characterized by the progressive movement of society from lower and simpler forms of social organization to higher and more complex ones. The concept of progress is opposed to the concept regression, which is characterized by a reverse movement - from higher to lower, degradation, return to obsolete structures and relationships. The idea of ​​the development of society as a progressive process appeared in antiquity, but it finally took shape in the works of the French enlighteners (A. Turgot, M. Condorcet, and others). They saw the criteria for progress in the development of the human mind, in the spread of enlightenment. This optimistic view of history changed in the 19th century. more complex representations. Thus, Marxism sees progress in the transition from one socio-economic formation to another, higher one. Some sociologists considered the complication of the social structure and the growth of social heterogeneity to be the essence of progress. in modern sociology. historical progress is associated with the process of modernization, i.e., the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one, and then to a post-industrial one.

Some thinkers reject the idea of ​​progress in social development, either considering history as a cyclical cycle with a series of ups and downs (J. Vico), predicting the imminent "end of history", or asserting ideas about the multilinear, independent of each other, parallel movement of various societies (N (J. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee). So, A. Toynbee, abandoning the thesis of the unity of world history, singled out 21 civilizations, in the development of each of which he distinguished the phases of emergence, growth, breakdown, decline and decay. O. Spengler also wrote about the “decline of Europe”. K. Popper's "anti-progressiveism" is especially bright. Understanding progress as movement towards some goal, he considered it possible only for an individual, but not for history. The latter can be explained both as a progressive process and as a regression.

Obviously, the progressive development of society does not exclude return movements, regression, civilizational dead ends and even breakdowns. And the very development of mankind is unlikely to have an unambiguously straightforward character; both accelerated leaps forward and rollbacks are possible in it. Moreover, progress in one area of ​​social relations can be the cause of regression in another. The development of labor tools, technical and technological revolutions are clear evidence of economic progress, but they have put the world on the brink of an ecological catastrophe and depleted the Earth's natural resources. Modern society is accused of the decline of morality, the crisis of the family, lack of spirituality. The price of progress is also high: the conveniences of city life, for example, are accompanied by numerous "diseases of urbanization." Sometimes the costs of progress are so great that the question arises: is it even possible to talk about the movement of mankind forward?

In this regard, the question of the criteria for progress is relevant. There is no agreement among scientists here either. The French enlighteners saw the criterion in the development of the mind, in the degree of rationality of the social order. A number of thinkers (for example, A. Saint-Simon) assessed the movement forward by the state of public morality, its approximation to early Christian ideals. G. Hegel linked progress with the degree of consciousness of freedom. Marxism also proposed a universal criterion for progress - the development of productive forces. Seeing the essence of progress in the ever greater subordination of the forces of nature to man, K. Marx reduced social development to progress in the production sphere. He considered progressive only those social relations that corresponded to the level of productive forces, opened up scope for the development of man (as the main productive force). The applicability of such a criterion is disputed in modern social science. The state of the economic basis does not determine the nature of the development of all other spheres of society. The goal, and not the means of any social progress, is to create conditions for the comprehensive and harmonious development of man.

Consequently, the criterion of progress should be the measure of freedom that society is able to provide to the individual for the maximum development of its potentialities. The degree of progressiveness of this or that social system must be assessed by the conditions created in it to satisfy all the needs of the individual, for the free development of a person (or, as they say, according to the degree of humanity of the social structure).

There are two forms of social progress: revolution And reform.

Revolution - this is a complete or complex change in all or most aspects of social life, affecting the foundations of the existing social order. Until recently, the revolution was seen as a universal "law of transition" from one socio-economic formation to another. But scientists could not find signs of a social revolution in the transition from a primitive communal system to a class one. It was necessary to expand the concept of revolution so much that it was suitable for any formational transition, but this led to the emasculation of the original content of the term. The "mechanism" of a real revolution could only be discovered in the social revolutions of modern times (during the transition from feudalism to capitalism).

According to Marxist methodology, a social revolution is understood as a radical change in the life of society, changing its structure and signifying a qualitative leap in its progressive development. The most general, deepest cause of the advent of the era of social revolution is the conflict between the growing productive forces and the established system of social relations and institutions. The aggravation of economic, political and other contradictions in society on this objective basis leads to a revolution.

A revolution is always an active political action of the popular masses and has as its first aim the transfer of the leadership of society into the hands of a new class. The social revolution differs from evolutionary transformations in that it is concentrated in time and the masses directly act in it.

The dialectic of the concepts of "reform - revolution" is very complex. Revolution, as a deeper action, usually "absorbs" the reform: the action "from below" is supplemented by the action "from above".

Today, many scholars call for abandoning the exaggeration in history of the role of the social phenomenon that is called “social revolution”, from declaring it an obligatory regularity in solving urgent historical problems, since the revolution was by no means always the main form of social transformation. Much more often, changes in society occurred as a result of reforms.

Reform - it is a transformation, a reorganization, a change in some aspect of social life that does not destroy the foundations of the existing social structure, leaving power in the hands of the former ruling class. Understood in this sense, the path of gradual transformation of existing relations is opposed to revolutionary explosions that sweep away the old order, the old system, to the ground. Marxism considered the evolutionary process, which preserved for a long time many remnants of the past, too painful for the people. And he argued that since reforms are always carried out "from above" by forces that already have power and do not want to part with it, the result of reforms is always lower than expected: the transformations are half-hearted and inconsistent.

The scornful attitude to reforms as forms of social progress was also explained by V. I. Ulyanov-Lenin's famous position about reforms as a "by-product of the revolutionary struggle." Actually, K. Marx already noted that “social reforms are never due to the weakness of the strong, they must be and will be brought to life by the strength of the“ weak ”. The denial of the possibility that the “tops” have incentives at the beginning of the transformations was strengthened by his Russian follower: “The real engine of history is revolutionary struggle classes; reforms are a by-product of this struggle, a by-product because they express unsuccessful attempts to weaken, to stifle this struggle.” Even in those cases where the reforms were clearly not the result of mass actions, Soviet historians explained them by the desire of the ruling classes to prevent any encroachment on the ruling system in the future. The reforms in these cases were the result of the potential threat of the revolutionary movement of the masses.

Gradually, Russian scientists freed themselves from traditional nihilism in relation to evolutionary transformations, recognizing at first the equivalence of reforms and revolutions, and then, changing signs, attacked revolutions with crushing criticism as extremely inefficient, bloody, replete with numerous costs and leading to dictatorship. path.

Today great reforms (i.e. revolutions "from above") are recognized as the same social anomalies as great revolutions. Both of these solutions social contradictions opposed to the normal, healthy practice of "permanent reform in a self-regulating society." The dilemma "reform - revolution" is replaced by the clarification of the relationship between permanent regulation and reform. In this context, both the reform and the revolution “treat” an already neglected disease (the first with therapeutic methods, the second with surgical intervention), while constant and possibly early prevention is necessary. Therefore, in modern social science, the emphasis is shifted from the antinomy of "reform - revolution" to "reform - innovation". Innovation is understood as an ordinary, one-time improvement associated with an increase in the adaptive capabilities of a social organism in given conditions.

Progress is understood as the direction of development, which is characterized by the progressive movement of society from lower and simpler forms of social organization to higher and more complex ones. The concept of progress is opposed to the concept of regress, which is characterized by a reverse movement - from higher to lower, degradation, a return to obsolete structures and relationships. The idea of ​​the development of society as a progressive process appeared in antiquity, but finally took shape in the works of the French Enlightenment (A. Turgot, M. Condorcet, etc.) - they saw the criterion of progress in the development of the human mind, in the spread of enlightenment. This optimistic view of history changed in the 19th century. more complex representations. Thus, Marxism sees progress in the transition from one socio-economic formation to another, higher one. Some sociologists considered the complication of the social structure and the growth of social heterogeneity to be the essence of progress. In modern sociology, historical progress is associated with the process of modernization, i.e., the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one, and then to a post-industrial one.
Some thinkers reject the idea of ​​progress in social development, considering history as a cyclic cycle with a series of ups and downs (J. Vico), predicting the imminent "end of history" or asserting ideas about a multi-linear, independent of each other, parallel movement of various societies (N. Ya Danilevsky, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee). So, A. Toynbee, abandoning the thesis of the unity of world history, singled out 21 civilizations, in the development of each of which he distinguished the phases of emergence, growth, breakdown, decline and decay. O. Spengler also wrote about the “decline of Europe”. K. Popper's "anti-progressism" is especially bright. Understanding progress as movement towards some goal, he considered it possible only for an individual, but not for history. The latter can be explained both as a progressive process and as a regression.
Obviously, the progressive development of society does not exclude return movements, regression, civilizational dead ends and even breakdowns. And the very development of mankind is unlikely to have an unambiguously straightforward character; both accelerated leaps forward and rollbacks are possible in it. Moreover, progress in one area of ​​social relations may be accompanied by, and even be the cause of, regression in another. The development of labor tools, technical and technological revolutions are clear evidence of economic progress, but they have put the world on the brink of an ecological catastrophe and depleted the Earth's natural resources. Modern society is accused of the decline of morality, the crisis of the family, lack of spirituality. The price of progress is also high: the conveniences of city life, for example, are accompanied by numerous "diseases of urbanization." Sometimes the costs of progress are so great that the question arises: is it even possible to talk about the movement of mankind forward?
In this regard, the question of the criteria for progress is relevant. There is no agreement among scientists here either. The French enlighteners saw the criterion in the development of the mind, in the degree of rationality of the social order. A number of thinkers (for example, A. Saint-Simon) evaluated the movement forward according to the state of public morality. G. Hegel linked progress with the degree of consciousness of freedom. Marxism also proposed a universal criterion for progress - the development of productive forces. Seeing the essence of progress in the ever greater subordination of the forces of nature to man, K. Marx reduced social development to progress in the production sphere. He considered progressive only those social relations that corresponded to the level of productive forces, opened up scope for the development of man (as the main productive force). The applicability of such a criterion is disputed in modern social science. The state of the economic basis does not determine the nature of the development of all other spheres of society. The goal, and not the means of any social progress, is to create conditions for the comprehensive and harmonious development of man.
Consequently, the criterion of progress should be the measure of freedom that society is able to provide to the individual in order to maximize the disclosure of its potential. The degree of progressiveness of this or that social system must be assessed by the conditions created in it to satisfy all the needs of the individual, for the free development of a person (or, as they say, according to the degree of humanity of the social structure).