Class. Large social groups

Using the criteria accepted in the sociological literature, we typologize:

Types of social groups according to the degree of formalization:

• formal where the norms of behavior are fixed, as a rule, in writing;
• informal;

Types of social groups by size:

• where a small number of members provides the possibility of constant, direct personal mutual influence and therefore there is no need for mandatory formal fixing of institutionalized rules of conduct;
• large(large), where there is no possibility of constant direct personal mutual influence, therefore, when describing them, one cannot do without some kind of abstraction;

Large social group- a quantitatively unlimited social community that has stable values, norms of behavior and socio-regulatory mechanisms (parties, ethnic groups, industrial and industrial and public organizations).

Types and characteristics of large social groups

Target social groups that are created to perform functions associated with a particular activity. For example, university students can be considered a formal target social group (the goal of its members is to get an education);

Territorial(local) social groups are formed on the basis of ties that have developed on the basis of proximity to the place of residence. A particularly important form of territorial community is ethnos- a set of individuals and groups related to the sphere of influence of a state and interconnected special relationship(community of language, traditions, culture, as well as self-identification).

Society - the largest social group, which as a whole is the main object of theoretical or empirical research.

Among large groups it is also customary to single out such social groups as the intelligentsia, employees, representatives of mental and physical labor, the population of cities and villages.

Intelligentsia is a social group professionally engaged in skilled mental work that requires special education (in the West, the term "intellectuals" is more common). Sometimes in the literature there is also a rather broad interpretation of the intelligentsia, including all intellectual workers, including employees- secretaries, bank controllers, etc.

The role of the intelligentsia in society is determined by its performance of the following functions:

• scientific, technical and economic support of material production;
• professional management of production, society as a whole and its individual structures;
• development of spiritual culture;
• socialization;
• ensuring the mental and physical health of the population.

Usually, the intelligentsia are scientific, industrial, pedagogical, cultural and artistic (representatives of creative professions), medical, managerial, military, etc.

People of mental and physical labor, considered as separate social groups, differ markedly: in terms of the content and working conditions, in terms of education, qualifications, and cultural and everyday needs.

City population and village population, which still remain the main types of human settlement, differ by place of residence. Their differences are expressed in the scale, concentration of the population, the level of development of production, saturation with cultural and community facilities, transport, and means of communication.

Psychology of large social groups

Large groups are structurally and functionally organized. They should not be confused with mass communities (youth, adolescents, women, men, professional communities).

Socio-psychological regulators of the life of large groups - group consciousness, customs and traditions. A large group is characterized by a certain mental make-up, has a group psychology.

In each large group, a group consciousness (party, class, national), a system of group ideals, value orientations, and emotional preferences are formed. Separate stereotyped elements of consciousness pass into the sphere of the group subconscious ("class instinct"). These group factors significantly influence the formation of the corresponding personality type- typical representatives of a class, party, nation, etc. These individuals become carriers of group attitudes and stereotypes, suggested patterns of behavior.

Funds mass communication large groups form public opinion - group aspirations and feelings; conduct propaganda, encouraging members of the group to certain value orientations and actions.

The main social value is public good. The concept of the public good was introduced by Aristotle ("Politics"); it consists of the idea of ​​justice, social unity in achieving the most significant social goals that ensure the well-being of society. Under the slogan of the public good, the first bourgeois revolutions. The public good was the main subject of the ideologists of liberalism and democracy. In the XIX and XX centuries. the basic formula of the public good was developed: "The good of society cannot be common if someone is not covered by it." The concepts of “quality of life”, “standard of living”, “living standards”, “welfare of the nation” (protection of the territory, organization of security, supply, communications, transport, healthcare, cultural sphere, education, etc.) ). The degree of social orientation of the political leadership of society is determined by its focus on ensuring the public good. Along with general social values, there are values ​​of large social groups.

Among the variety of large social groups, two of them are the subjects of the historical process - ethnic groups and classes.

ethnic group or ethnos(Greek ethnos - tribe, people) - a stable social community that has historically formed in a certain territory, possessing stable features of culture, language, mental makeup, behavioral features, consciousness of its unity and difference from others similar formations. In the process of historical development, ethnic groups may lose the unity of the territory, but retain their language, norms of behavior, customs, habits, and culture. Ethnic groups are distinguished by cultural integrity, have ethnic identity, the basis of which is the idea of ​​the common origin of all representatives of a given ethnic group, of the joint historical experience of their ancestors. At the highest stage of development, many ethnic groups form a stable socio-economic integrity - nation(lat. natio - people).

In psychology ethnic communities the mental make-up of the ethnos, its character, temperament, mores, customs, stable ethnic (national) feelings are distinguished.

Interethnic interaction is characterized by stereotypes of perception, due to the historical past. Estimates of the merits of ethnic groups based on common stereotypes are usually extremely superficial. Often they are conditioned by ethnocentrism - giving reference qualities to one's ethnic group.

In the consciousness of the ethnos is formed ethnic picture of the world- a special worldview orientation that determines the features of his interaction with the environment, the readiness to perceive the phenomena of ethnic and interethnic life in a certain way, stereotyped, in the light of preconceived ideas about the mental qualities of other ethnic communities. Based on these ideas, impulsive behavioral reactions arise, leading in some cases to interethnic conflicts, polarization of social communities along ethnic lines.

The source of interethnic conflicts in most cases are not ethnic, but socio-economic and political contradictions. However, the growth of interethnic conflict inevitably includes negative ethnic stereotypes, increasing ethnocentrism, and the nationalist ideology is actualized. At the same time, the settlement of interethnic conflicts is sharply hampered. This settlement is possible only with urgent satisfaction of the basic interests of the conflicting parties, the peacekeeping position of national leaders, and the reduction of the significance of the object of interethnic conflict.

According to the place of large social communities in the system of social production, public classes(lat. classis - category). The existence of classes is conditioned by the social division of labor, the differentiation of social functions, and the separation of organizing and performing activities.

The difference between classes is manifested in their way of life, socio-psychological warehouse, typical standards of behavior. Along with this, large groups are included in a single society and carry the general features of a particular society, functioning on the principle social partnership all social structures.

The subjects of mass out-of-group behavior are the public and the masses.

Public- a large group of people with common episodic interests, subject to a single emotional-conscious regulation with the help of generally significant objects of attention (participants in a rally, demonstrations, lecturers, members of cultural societies). Various extreme events can cause her emotional-impulsive regulation on the basis of mental infection.

Weight- a set of a large number of people who make up an amorphous formation, who usually do not have direct contacts, but are united by common stable interests. In the mass there are specific socio-psychological phenomena: fashion, subculture, mass hype and others. The mass acts as a subject of broad political and sociocultural movements, an audience of various mass media, and a consumer of works of mass culture. Mass communities are formed at all levels of the social hierarchy and are distinguished by considerable diversity (large and small masses, stable and situational, contact and dispersion).

1) relatively stable social groups with common interests and values ​​(for example, the peasantry, the working class, the bourgeoisie, the middle class, etc.). The concept of classes and class struggle became widespread in Europe in the 19th century. (Saint-Simon, O. Thierry, F. Guizot and others). K. Marx and F. Engels associated the existence of classes with certain modes of production, considered the struggle of classes to be the driving force of history, and assigned to the proletariat the historical mission of forcibly overthrowing the bourgeoisie and creating a classless society (Marxism, socialism). Various criteria are put forward for dividing society into classes and social groups (age, economic, professional, a system of rights and obligations, social status etc.) (stratification, class, status). In modern society, in the process of social differentiation and integration associated with the division of social labor, property relations and other factors, numerous layers and groups are formed, between which relations of cooperation, competition or conflict develop, which are increasingly regulated on the basis of democratic principles;

2) one of the main types of social stratification (elements social structure) along with caste and estate. In theoretical sociology, three approaches to the analysis of classes can be distinguished: two of them originate in the works of K. Marx and M. Weber, who considered various economic factors as class-forming; There is also an alternative approach, presented by some modern social stratification studies, in which class is not defined purely economically. K. Marx considered the class from the point of view of ownership of capital and means of production, dividing the population into property owners and the have-nots, into the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. IN AND. Lenin defined classes as large groups of people, differing from each other in their place in the system of social production and role in the social organization of labor, their attitude to the means of production and the possibility of appropriating the labor of another group, the method of obtaining and the size of the share of social wealth. M. Weber divided the population into classes in accordance with economic differences in market position. One of the bases of a market position is capital, and the others are qualifications, education, and status (social respect). Weber distinguished four classes: (1) the class of owners; (2) a class of intellectuals, administrators and managers; (3) the traditional petty-bourgeois class of small proprietors and merchants; (4) working class. Sociologists who develop alternative approaches to class analysis believe that individuals in modern society can be classified on the basis of non-economic factors such as profession, religion, education, ethnicity.

public) (from lat. classis - group, category). The most complete and comprehensive definition of the essence of class division and K. antagonistic. "Classes are large groups of people who differ in their place in a historically defined system of social production, in their relationship (for the most part fixed and formalized in laws) to the means of production, in their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, according to the methods of obtaining and the size of the share of social wealth that they dispose of. Classes are such groups of people from which one can appropriate the labor of another, due to the difference in their place in a certain way of social economy "(Lenin V. I., Soch., vol. 29, p. 388). The starting point of this definition of capitalism is the recognition of the dependence of the class division of society on historically determined methods of production (thus, for example, slaves and slave owners are the capitalist capitalist societies, proletarians and bourgeois are capitalist societies). With the change in the mode of production, the class division of society also changes. The main and always are such K., the existence of which follows from the mode of production prevailing in a given society. Non-basic K. are connected with the existence of more or less means. remnants of the previous or embryos of the subsequent production method, represented by special ways of x-va. Transitional and called such K., to-rye, being generated by one way of production, are preserved with another, which has replaced its method of production. At the same time, their place and role in society change: the non-basic society can become the main one (for example, the peasantry with the replacement of the slave-owning society by the feudal one; the working peasantry after the overthrow of capitalism), the main society can become non-basic (for example, the bourgeoisie in the transition period from capitalism to socialism), the oppressed K. - the dominant (for example, the proletariat in the same period). K. are not eternal, they arose on a definite basis. stage of development of society and with the same inevitability must disappear. For the complete abolition of capitalism, "... it is necessary not only to overthrow the exploiters, landowners and capitalists, not only to abolish their property, it is also necessary to abolish private ownership of the means of production, as a distinction between town and country, so is the difference between people of physical and people of mental labor" (ibid.). K. are preserved in the first phase of communism - under socialism, since these differences have not yet been eliminated, but the essence of K. changes radically. This is no longer K. in the proper sense of the word, not such societies. groups, of which one can live by the labor of the other; private ownership of the means of production has been abolished, and, consequently, class antagonism has been eliminated; Relations in a society divided into K. are, first of all, relations between K., occupying a different place in society. production Main production sides. relations correspond to the signs of K.: attitude to the means of production, role in society. organization of labor, methods of obtaining and the size of that share of societies. the wealth they have. The defining feature is the attitude to the means of production. The form of ownership of the means of production determines both the relationship between people in the process of production and the form of distribution between them of the products produced. Marxism-Leninism rejects attempts to put forward in the first place such characteristics of culture, considered in isolation from the whole, as their role in the organization of societies. production [so-called. organizational theory (A. Bogdanov)], or the methods of obtaining and the amount of their income (the so-called distribution theory of K., which was followed, for example, by K. Kautsky, Tugan-Baranovsky). Marx noted when characterizing the bourgeoisie: "A capitalist is not a capitalist because he manages industrial enterprise On the contrary, he becomes the leader of industry because he is a capitalist. The highest power in industry becomes an attribute of capital, just as in the feudal era the highest power in military affairs and in court was an attribute of landed property" ("Capital", vol. 1, 1955, p. 339). In the "Introduction" and in the last chapters of the 3rd volume of "Capital" Marx emphasized that it is not the method of distribution, but the mode of production that determines the class structure of society. "The main sign of the difference between classes is their place in social production, and therefore their relationship to the means of production" ( Lenin, V.I., Soch., vol. 6, p. how the division into capitalism is determined by the nature of economic relations, above all relations of ownership of the means of production. The confusion of these categories by certain bourgeois sociologists and the concept of "class", eliminate the very idea of ​​the class struggle" (ibid., vol. 5, p. 175). Marxism-Leninism considers k. not only as an economic, but also as a broader social category. Taking shape on the basis of economic relations, the class division of society also permeates the sphere of politics and ideology, is reflected in societies. consciousness, in the spiritual life of society. The differences between classes also cover the area of ​​everyday life, are reflected in their way of life, in their family relationships , in their psychology, morality, etc. The formation of capitalism is an objective process determined by the development of economics. relations. The conditions of life of each class determine its interests, their relationship to the interests of other classes. On the basis of the commonality of fundamental class interests and their opposition in the course of the class struggle to the interests of others, opposite to the class, the members of this class are consolidated. As Marxism-Leninism teaches, class " ... develops in struggle and development" (ibid., vol. 30, p. 477). In the process of constituting a class, a subjective factor also plays a huge role - the awareness of the class of the class and the awareness of the class of the class. K., which objectively has already taken shape, but has not yet realized its fundamental interests, Marx called K. "in itself." Realizing his fundamental interests and organizing himself, he turns into a K. "for himself" (see Class "in itself" and class "for himself"). The unification of the most conscious is of decisive importance in this process. elements of K. in certain class organizations, among which the most important are political. parties. The Historical Development of the Concept of K. The idea that society is divided into K. appeared long before the emergence of Marxism, but the sociology that preceded historical materialism was unable to create a scientific theory of K.. In pre-capitalist formations, the class division of society was covered with religious-class or estate shells. This made it difficult to understand the class structure and its relationship with the economic. the structure of society. A big obstacle for science. The analysis of K. was the desire of the ideologists of the ruling K. to prove the naturalness, inviolability, and eternity of the existing order. People have long seen that society is divided into rich and poor, noble and humble, free and not free, but could not explain the reasons for this inequality. In the beginning, the tendency was to explain social gradations by the dictates of God or nature. In antique world slavery was seen as natural. phenomenon. The division of free citizens into various estates was also regarded in the same way. Plato saw the weakness of the modern. he states that in every city "no matter how small it may be, there are always two mutually hostile cities in it: one city of the poor, the other of the rich ..." ("State" IV 422 E - 423 A ; Russian translation, St. Petersburg, 1863). However, he did not seek to abolish the estates, but to streamline the relationship between them. In the "ideal state" of Plato, there remains a division into 3 classes: philosophers, or rulers, guards (warriors), farmers and artisans; the division of labor between them is based, according to Plato, on the natural. basis. "... Each of us is born ... different in nature, and is appointed to perform a certain work" (ibid., II 370 B), some from birth are "able to lead", others to be "farmers and other artisans" (ibid. same, III 415 A). Aristotle also recognized the naturalness of slavery: "some people, by nature, are free, others are slaves, and it is useful and fair for these latter to be slaves" ("Politics" I 2, 1254 in 24 - 1255 a 19; Russian translation, St. Petersburg, 1911). Criticizing the "ideal state" of Plato, Aristotle gave preference to the middle strata of slave owners. "In every state we meet three classes of citizens: the very wealthy, the extremely poor, and the third, standing in the middle between the two." People of the first category, according to Aristotle, mostly become insolent and big scoundrels; people of the second category - scoundrels and petty scoundrels. "Average prosperity is the best of all goods, it gives rise to moderation in people" (ibid., IV 9, 1295 a 23 - in 18). The emergence of democracy or oligarch. building, Aristotle explained the struggle between the common people and the wealthy class: "... whichever of them manages to defeat the enemy, he introduces not a common and equal state system for mutual interests," but pulls the state. order to his side (ibid., IV 9, 1296 a 16 - in 19). In the era of feudalism, the existing class-estate structure of society was declared a divine institution. Only in the era of breaking the feuds. system and the formation of capitalism, which simplified the class structure of society, the prerequisites arose for the development of the very concept of K. On the eve and during the French. bourgeois revolutions of the 18th century philosophers and publicists came out with a sharp condemnation of the feuds. building. J. Mellier attributed to K. the rich - feud. nobility, the clergy, bankers, tax-farmers, and others, and to another K. - the peasantry. “It’s as if two races of people live in the same society,” Mellier says: one does nothing, enjoys and commands, the other works, suffers and obeys (quoted from the book: Volgin V.P., French Utopian Communism, 1960, p. 28). Some thinkers (for example, G. Mably) are already looking for the foundations for the division into property. "... Property divides us into two classes - the rich and the poor" (Mabli G., Izbr. prod., M.–L., 1950, pp. 109–10). A deep understanding of the opposition between the rich and the poor permeates the works of J.P. Marat, who considered the revolution as a manifestation of the struggle of K. In the works of bourgeois. economists of the late 18th - early. 19th centuries (partly F. Quesnay and ch. arr. A. Smith and D. Ricardo) made important step to the knowledge of economics. anatomy K. Instead of the usual in the era of the French. bourgeois revolutions of dividing society into two capitals - rich and poor - they divide it into three capitals. In Quesnay, this division is not yet clear: he sees in society: 1) capital owners (landowners, clergy), who does not invest in the production of societies. product, but by virtue of ownership, appropriates all net income and performs management functions; 2) K. manufacturers, ch. arr. capitalist farmers; 3) K. barren or unproductive (merchants, industrialists, workers, artisans, etc.). A. Smith gives a much clearer description of K. bourgeois. society: he distinguishes K. landowners, capitalists and workers. Societies. the product, according to Smith, is divided into three parts and "... constitutes the income of three different classes of people: those who live on rent, those who live on wages, and those who live on profit from capital. These are the three main , basic and primary classes in every civilized society..." ("Research on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations", vol. 1, M.–L., 1935, pp. 220–21). Considering labor as a common source of income, Smith comes to an understanding of the contradictory interests of capitalists and workers: "The workers want to get as much as possible, and the owners want to give as little as possible" (ibid., p. 62). However, Smith does not consistently pursue this view, since sometimes claims that income is the source of value. This inconsistency was eliminated by Ricardo, who considered labor as a unity. source of value and established the opposite wages and profits. Ricardo believed that wages always rise at the expense of profit, and when it falls, profit always rises (see Soch., vol. 1, M., 1955, pp. 98–111). Justifying the contradictory interests of the main. K. capitalist. society, Ricardo openly defended the need for high profits as a condition for the rapid development of production. According to Ricardo, the interests of the landowners are in conflict with the interests of all other kingdoms and hinder the development of society. English economists have moved forward in understanding the class structure of the capitalist. society, however, they associated the class division of society only with distribution relations, and not production, and considered it not historically, but as natural and eternal. According to Marx, for Ricardo capitalist. the mode of production with its class opposites was "... a natural form of social production" ("Capital", vol. 1, 1955, p. 519). In contrast to the ideologists of the bourgeoisie, utopian. socialists tried to prove unreasonable and historical. the doom of a society built on the exploitation of man by man. Already early representatives of utopian. Socialism, and especially the ideologists of the revolutionary plebeians (for example, T. Müntzer in the 16th century, H. Babeuf in the 18th century), put forward demands for the abolition of private property and class distinctions. In the future, some of the utopian. Socialists (for example, Saint-Simon) came close to understanding the historical process as a struggle of social capitalism. However, Saint-Simon did not single out worker capitalism from the general industrial capitalism, which included the bourgeoisie. In addition, the implementation of socialism was conceived by Saint-Simon and Fourier as the result of the "rapprochement" of the C., the establishment of harmony between them. This narrowness of views tried to overcome some utopian. socialists. An important role in the development of the theory of k. was played by Russian. revolutionary democrats and utopians. socialists, especially Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky, from whose works, in the words of Lenin, "... breathes the spirit of the class struggle" (Soch., vol. 20, p. 224). Behind the opposing forces in the history of mankind, they saw various estates, K. with their conflicting material interests. “In terms of benefits, the entire European society,” Chernyshevsky wrote, “is divided into two halves: one lives on the labor of others, the other on its own; the first prospers, the second is in need ... This division of society, based on material interests, is also reflected in political activity "(Poln. sobr. soch., v. 6, 1949, p. 337). However, Chernyshevsky was not yet able to give a strictly scientific. definitions K. He, for example, spoke of the agricultural class and the common people as one whole, did not single out worker K. from total weight exploited and did not see his particular historical. roles. Only the founders of Marxism, who acted as the ideologists of the most revolutionary communist party, the proletariat, were able to create a truly scientific theory K. Describing the difference between his theory of K. from all previous ones, Marx wrote: “As for me, I do not own either the merit that I discovered the existence of classes in modern society, or that I discovered their struggle among themselves. Bourgeois historians long before me, the historical development of this class struggle was outlined, and the bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of classes.What I did new was to prove the following: 1) that the existence of classes is connected only with the definition fixed and historical phases of the development of production, 2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, 3) that this dictatorship itself constitutes only a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a society without classes" (K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Letters, 1953, p. 63). The emergence of K. K. arose during the period of decomposition of the primitive communal system, which took place among different peoples at different times. A class society developed at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. in the valleys of the rivers Nile, Euphrates and Tigris, in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. in India, China and other countries, in the 1st millennium BC. in Greece and then in Rome. The emergence of K. - long. process. Its most common premise was the development of manufactures. forces, which led to the emergence of a surplus product, division of labor, exchange and the emergence of private ownership of the means of production. The appearance of a surplus product created an economical. the possibility of the existence of some people at the expense of the labor of others. The rise of private property made this possibility a reality. When in communities as a result of development produces. forces, private ownership of the means of production was born, when the place of the former, collective production was taken by individual production, by the forces of the department. families, it became inevitable and economical. inequality between people. This created the prerequisites for the class stratification of society. The formation of culture, as Engels showed in Anti-Dühring, took place in two ways: 1) by singling out an exploiting elite within the community, which initially consisted of the tribal nobility; 2) by enslaving prisoners of war, and then impoverished fellow tribesmen who fell into debt bondage. These are two sides of a single process, which leads to the fact that on the ruins of the tribal system, as a rule, a society arises, divided into three groups: 1) slave owners, who first represented the ruling elite of the tribal nobility, and then a wider layer of wealthy people; 2) free community members - farmers, pastoralists, artisans, who usually fell into dependence on the former; 3) slaves. The founders of Marxism associated the formation of culture with the development of societies. division of labor. As Engels noted, "...the division into classes is based on the law of the division of labor" (Anti-Dühring, 1957, p. 265). The first major society. the division of labor is associated with the separation of cattle-breeding tribes from the total mass. tribes; it leads to the emergence of exchange between pastoralists and farmers, to the growth of societies. wealth and more widespread use slave labor. The second major society. the division of labor is associated with the separation of handicrafts from agriculture; it contributes to the penetration of exchange into the community and the strengthening of the economic. inequality, the emergence along with the division into free and slave differences between the rich and the poor. Further development of societies. the division of labor leads to the separation of minds. labor from the physical, to the transformation of minds. labor into the monopoly of a small minority - the ruling K., who concentrated in their hands the management of production, the management of societies. affairs, etc., while the vast majority of society is doomed to bear the entire burden of heavy physical. labor. Thus, Marxism sees the reasons for the emergence of coercion not in deceit and violence, as do, for example, supporters of the theory of violence, although there is no doubt that violence played its own role in this process, and moreover, a considerable one. The emergence of K. is the result of a natural economic. development of society; violence only contributed to this process and consolidated the created economic. development of class differences. Political violence itself is a product of economics. development. The main types of class division of society. With all the differences in the class structure, antagonistic. societies, their common feature is the appropriation by the ruling K. of labor directly. manufacturers. “Wherever a part of society has a monopoly on the means of production,” Marx pointed out, “the worker, free or not free, must add to the labor time necessary for his maintenance, excess labor time in order to produce the means of subsistence for the owner of the means of production, whether this owner is an Athenian ... (aristocrat), an Etruscan theocrat ... (Roman citizen), a Norman baron, an American slave owner, a Wallachian boyar, a modern landlord or capitalist" ("Capital", vol. 1, p. 240). In a class society, the means of production always belong to the ruling class. However, what kind of means of production become the object of class monopolization (land, tools, or the worker himself, considered as a means of production), it depends on the specific historical. conditions, from features this method production Along with the change in the distribution of means of production, the methods of exploitation also change. “That specific economic form in which unpaid surplus labor is pumped out of the immediate producers determines the relation of domination and enslavement as it grows directly out of production itself, and in turn has a determinative rebound effect on the latter. And on this the whole structure is based economic society... that grows out of the very relations of production, and at the same time its specific political structure"(ibid., vol. 3, 1955, p. 804). "Slavery is the first form of exploitation inherent in the ancient world; - writes Engels, - he is followed by: serfdom in the Middle Ages, wage labor in modern times. These are the three great forms of enslavement characteristic of the three great epochs of civilization..." (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 21, p. 175). All these forms of exploitation were already encountered in antiquity. In the era of the decomposition of the primitive communal system, along with slavery, relations of wage labor arose (for example, day laborers-fetes in Homeric Greece) and the first embryos of serf relations (see F. Engels, ibid., vol. 24, 1931, p. 605– 06).However, these relations did not then become dominant.Slavery, serfdom, wage labor differ from each other not only in the degree of exploitation, but also various positions directly manufacturer. Under slavery and serfdom, the producer is personally dependent. This is one of the reasons why the class division of society appears here in the form of a division into estates. The position of each class in society is legally fixed with the help of the state. authorities. In the slave in society, the slave represented the property of the slave owner, which in Ancient Greece and Rome did not differ from ownership of a thing, an instrument of production. Rome. writer Varro (1st century BC) in a treatise on s. x-ve divided the tools, by which the fields are cultivated, into three parts: "... talking tools, tools that make inarticulate sounds, and dumb tools; slaves belong to the speakers, oxen to those who make inarticulate sounds, carts to the dumb" (quoted from the book: "The ancient method of production in the sources", L., 1933, p. 20). The slave was not considered a man: in most cases, the law allowed the slave owner not only to sell, but also to kill him. A slave could not, at least in principle, own property, had no family. In Greece, the slave did not even have a name, but only a nickname. The method of exploitation of the labor of slaves and the sources of their replenishment - war, sea robbery, etc. - necessitated non-economic coercion as a characteristic feature of the slave-owner. building. With a relatively slow development produces. forces, with crude and primitive tools of production, in the absence of a slave's interest in the results of his labor, it was impossible to achieve regular production of a surplus product otherwise than by means of direct physical. coercion. This, in turn, is associated with extremely crude and cruel forms of exploitation. The life expectancy of a slave in itself did not matter to the slave owner, who sought to extract from the slave the greatest possible mass of labor in the most possible short term. Therefore, the mortality of slaves was very high. With this method of exploitation of slave labor, there was no regular reproduction of the labor force within the country; the need for slaves was covered by Ch. arr. through imports from outside. In general, it was considered more profitable to buy an adult slave than to raise the offspring of slaves on your own farm (see A. Wallon, History of slavery in the ancient world. Greece, vol. 1, M., 1936, p. 56). Exploitation acquired its most cruel character where commercial capital appeared on the scene, where production had the aim of exchange. Along with the main K. - slave owners and slaves - in ancient world There were also small peasants and artisans. Many of them were forced out by slave labor and ruined, forming, for example, in Rome a mass of lumpen proletariat. In the last centuries of the existence of slave owners. society in Rome, in its depths, new relations began to emerge, preparing the transition to serfdom. Large slave owners latifundia were crushed and processed by columns, which were considered slaves of the earth; they could be transferred to another owner only together with the land. With a change in the method of production of the slave owner. the form of exploitation was replaced by feudalism. At the feud. In the system of x-va, the feudal lord, the landowner, was considered the owner of the land, who endowed the peasant with a plot of land, and sometimes with other means of production, and forced him to work for himself. Describing the serf. system of x-va, Lenin pointed out that "firstly, serfdom is a subsistence economy ... Secondly, in serfdom the instrument of exploitation is the attachment of the worker to the land, the his land ... In order to receive income (i.e., a surplus product), a feudal landowner must have a peasant on his land who owns an allotment, inventory, livestock. A landless, horseless, ownerless peasant is an unsuitable object for serf exploitation ... thirdly, the peasant endowed with land must be personally dependent on the landowner, for, having land, he will not go to the lordly work except under duress The economic system gives rise here to "non-economic coercion", serfdom, legal dependence, lack of full rights, etc." (Soch., v. 15, p. 66). Feud. the x-va system also assumed the personal dependence of the manufacturer, which, depending on the specific conditions, took various forms : from the most cruel serfdom, not much different from slavery, to a relatively light quitrent obligation. But, unlike the ancient a slave, a serf, firstly, was not considered the full property of the feudal lord; the latter could sell, buy, but, according to the law, could not kill him; secondly, the serf had his own household, owned some property and used a plot of land; thirdly, the serf was a member of the villages. community and enjoyed its support. These features of the feud. The x-va system was also determined by its inherent mode of exploitation: the appropriation of a surplus product in the form of a feud. rent. Marx pointed to 3 main. feudal forms. rent: labor rent, product rent, and cash rent, which were usually combined with each other. At various periods in the history of the feud. system, any one form prevailed, replacing another in a certain way. historical succession: labor rent was followed by rent in products, and after the latter, money rent. Compared to feudal slavery. the system was a historically progressive phenomenon. Feud. the way of production assumed a higher development of production. forces and created a certain interest of the producer in the results of his work. In addition, great opportunities arose for the class struggle of the oppressed masses. The place of the heterogeneous mass of slaves was taken by serfs, united in a community. Of great progressive importance was the emergence of cities, in which new societies grew. strata: artisans organized into workshops and corporations, merchants, etc. In the cities of the late Middle Ages, a new exploitative stratum grew out of the guild masters. Capitalist elements also emerged from the top of the peasantry. The capitalist way of production has replaced the feud. new, capitalist form of exploitation. The main constituencies of capitalist society are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (see Working class). The worker is considered legally free, but is in the economy. dependence on the capitalists. Being deprived of all the means of production and owning only his labor power, he is forced to sell it to the capitalists - the owners of the means of production. Capitalist the mode of exploitation is characterized by the appropriation by the capitalists of the surplus value created by the labor of hired proletarian workers. With the abolition of personal dependence directly. manufacturers and replacing it economically. dependence eliminates the need to divide society into classes. Therefore, unlike the slave owner. and feud. societies, K. capitalist. societies no longer act as estates. However, the vestiges of class division still have an impact on societies. the life of a number of capitalist countries. Capitalism does not exist in any country in a "pure" form. Next to the capitalist relationships everywhere exist more or less mean. remnants of relationships inherited from previous formations. Therefore, along with the main K. in the capitalist. countries, there are also non-core ones. Among them belong, for example, in a number of countries the landlords. During the transition from feudalism to capitalism in some countries, landlordism was eliminated. In other countries (Germany and others), the landowner economy was gradually transformed into a capitalist economy, and the landowner peasantry into a stratum of the agrarian bourgeoisie. Finally, in less developed countries, where the means were preserved. remnants of feudalism (Russia before the October Revolution, etc.), the landowners continued to exist as a special landowner. time K. landowners represents means. strength in the retarded, dependent countries where imperialism supports them as its mainstay. Among the neosn. K. capitalist. society also includes the petty bourgeoisie, especially the peasantry, which in all countries, with the exception of England, is a mean. mass, and in some less developed countries even the majority of the population. Peasantry, artisans and other small-bourgeois. As capitalism develops, the strata are eroded, stratified, singling out a few from their midst. capitalist the top and the mass of poor proletarians and semi-proletarians. In developed capitalist countries, the peasantry is increasingly being exploited by the monopolies and banks, which enmesh it in networks of bondage. Not being the main K. capitalist. society, the peasantry, however, due to its role in the page - x. production, that means. size (even in capitalist Europe, about a third of the population) and ties with the working class can become a great force in the class struggle against capitalism. Main forces on which the course of the class struggle in the capitalist depends. countries, the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie (especially the peasantry), and the proletariat come out (see V. I. Lenin, Soch., vol. 30, p. 88). The class structure of the modern capitalist society a. Contrary to the assertions of the reformists, in the class structure of the capitalist. Societies over the past hundred years have not experienced such fundamental changes that could smooth out the opposition of classes. Marx's conclusion that the accumulation of wealth at one pole of society is accompanied by an increase in proletarianization at the other remains in full force. The proportion of the bourgeoisie in the capitalist population. countries has decreased over the past decades (for example, in the USA from 3% in 1870 to 1.6% in 1950; in England from 8.1% in 1851 to 2.04% in 1951), and at the same time its wealth and power. The monopoly stood out. the top of the bourgeoisie, which united in its hands both economic and political. power. Burzh. the state turned into a committee for managing the affairs of the monopolistic. bourgeoisie as a tool for its enrichment. A handful of billionaires and millionaires rises not only above society, but also above all other sections of the capitalist class. The dominance of monopolies intensifies the process of absorption of small and medium-sized farms by large ones. Thus, the interests of the monopolies are in conflict with the interests not only of the working people, but also of small and even part of medium-sized entrepreneurs. In the conditions of modern capitalism, the process of ruining the peasantry, artisans, handicraftsmen, small shopkeepers, etc., is accelerating. The proportion of these old "middle strata" in the population is falling. So, for example, in the USA from 1910 to 1954 the share of the population of the so-called. "independent" decreased from 27.1% to 13.3%; in Zap. Germany number self. owners decreased from 33.8% in 1907 (data for the whole of Germany) to 24.5% in 1956. Along with the displacement of the "middle strata" from production " whole line"middle strata" are inevitably re-created by capitalism (an appendage of the factory, work at home, small workshops scattered throughout the country due to the requirements of the large, for example, bicycle and automobile industries, etc.). These new small producers are also inevitably thrown back into the ranks of the proletariat "(Lenin V.I., Soch., vol. 15, pp. 24-25). Such processes occur not only in the sphere of production, but even more so in the sphere trade and services.As a result of the reduction in the number of independent small producers, the share of people working for hire in the population is growing.According to the International Labor Organization, the proportion of people employed by workers increased: in West Germany in 1882-1956 from 64.7% to 75 4% of the self-employed population, in France in 1851–1954 from 54.6% to 64.9%, in the USA in 1940–50 from 78.3% to 82.2%, in Australia in 1911–54 from 74, 3% to 81.3%.In the composition of wage laborers, the number of employees and intelligentsia, especially engineering and technical, is growing.The increase in the proportion of these strata, which are often called the new "middle strata", is regarded by bourgeois sociologists, as well as right-wing socialists as an indicator of the "deproletarianization" of the population. In reality, the class composition of the civil servants and the intelligentsia is some of them can be attributed to the "middle strata"; the top of the civil servants and intelligentsia (big officials, managers, etc.) merges with the bourgeoisie, while the majority merges in their position with the working class or directly adjoins it. In modern capitalist society, especially in the most developed countries, the overwhelming majority of employees have lost their former privileged position and have turned or are turning into a "white-collar proletariat." As far as engineering and technical intelligentsia, then in connection with the automation of production means. part of the engineers and technicians, by the nature of their work, approaches the bulk of the workers, losing at the same time the function of managing and supervising the workers. In developed capitalist countries, such as the USA, all more engineers and technicians turns out to be ordinary participants in production. processes employed at working machines. Thus, there is not a "deproletarianization" of the population, but, on the contrary, the proletarianization of those strata that previously occupied a more or less privileged position in society. Main the mass of the proletariat is still made up of physical workers. labor. But the socio-economic the boundaries of the proletariat in modern. capitalist society expanded and entered its ranks and means. layers of hired workers, busy minds. labor (see "Exchange of opinions. What changes are taking place in the structure of the working class?", in the journal: "Problems of peace and socialism", 1960, No 5, 9, 12; 1961, No 4, 5, 6, 9). The growth of the working class is taking place not only in the national, but also in the international. scale. K ser. 20th century in developed capitalist countries were concentrated more than half of the total number of workers and employees of all non-socialist. countries (over 160 million) and 3/4 ind. proletariat (about 85 million). In economically underdeveloped countries over the past decades, there have also been numerous. working class. In Asian countries, Lat. America and Africa, there are now St. 100 million workers and employees - St. 30% of the total number of people employed in the non-socialist. the world. In the conditions of modern capitalism continues to grow the proportion of prom. workers also the share and number of pages - x is reduced. the proletariat. There is a growing trend towards a worsening of the position of the worker K., which is expressed, in particular, in wages lagging behind the cost of labor power, in mass unemployment, and so on. The development of automation is ousting part of the workers from production, and in a number of production areas it is leading to the replacement of skilled workers with low-skilled workers who have undergone short-term training. The change in the ratio between skilled and trained workers, the convergence of the levels of their pay give rise in a number of capitalist. countries tend to narrow the layer of the labor aristocracy. This is facilitated by the collapse of the colonial system of imperialism, which reduces the sources, due to which monopolistic. the bourgeoisie in the countries of imperialism bribes the top of the working class. However, this process proceeds inconsistently; in some countries (USA and others) the labor aristocracy retains its privileged position and even grows. State. monopolistic capitalism "... not only does not change the position of the main classes in the system of social production, but also deepens the gulf between labor and capital, between

As we have already mentioned, social groups are divided into small and large groups according to their size. Small - these are groups of several people (up to 10) who are well acquainted and regularly interact with each other personally, for example, a school class, a team of workers, etc.

Large groups are groups where personal contacts between all members are not possible, in this case, the relationship is purely formal, for example, school students, factory workers, etc. There are no close personal contacts, and communication takes place according to formal rules.

If we consider the historical development of society, it can be noted that in a traditional society leading value had small groups (family, clans), and in the modern - large (classes, professional groups).

G. Simmel believed that "the size of the group is closely correlated with the degree of development of the individuality of its representatives. The size of the group is directly proportional to the degree of freedom enjoyed by its members: the smaller the group, the more cohesive it should act, the closer to keep its members in order to protect their own integrity from the hostile influences of the external environment". Simmel G. Soziologie: Untersuchundeniiber die Formen der Vorgosellschaftung. 3. Aufl.Munchen; Leipzig, 1923, P. 534 As the group grows, the degree of freedom increases, the intellect, the ability of consciousness, is born.

Large social groups are not quantitatively limited social communities that have stable values, norms of behavior and socio-regulatory mechanisms (parties, ethnic groups, production and industry and public organizations). Enikeev M.I. General and social psychology. Textbook for high schools. - M.: Publishing group NORMA-INFRA-M, 1999, S. 227

Classification of large social groups according to different criteria: World of psychology. Psychology of a large group.

1. by the nature of intergroup and intragroup social ties:

objective - people are united by a common objective ties that exist independently of the consciousness and will of these people;

subjective-psychological - groups arise as a result of a conscious association of people;

2. by time of existence:

long-lived - classes, nations;

shortly existing-rallies, gatherings, crowds;

3. by the nature of organization:

organized - parties, unions;

unorganized - crowd;

4. by the nature of occurrence:

organized consciously - parties, associations;

arising spontaneously - the crowd;

5. according to the contact of group members:

conditional - created on a certain basis (gender, age, profession), people do not have direct contacts with each other;

real groups - real-life groups in which people have close contacts with each other (rallies, meetings);

6. by openness:

open;

closed - membership is determined by internal settings.

Large social groups can be divided into types: The concept and types of social groups.

1. Society is the largest social group, which is the main object of theoretical and empirical research.

2. Territorial groups are formed on the basis of connections established on the basis of the proximity of the place of residence.

3. Target-groups are created to perform functions related to a specific activity.

4. Intelligentsia - a social group professionally engaged in skilled mental work that requires special education. The intelligentsia is distinguished: medical, industrial, scientific, pedagogical, military, cultural and artistic, etc. Sometimes in the literature there is a rather broad interpretation of the intelligentsia, including all mental workers labor, including employees - secretaries, bank controllers, etc.

5. People engaged in mental and physical labor are considered as separate groups that differ markedly in terms of content, working conditions, level of education, qualifications, cultural and everyday needs.

6. The population of the city and the population of the village are the main types of human settlement, differing in the place of residence. Differences are expressed in the scale, concentration of the population, the level of development of production, saturation with cultural and community facilities, transport, and communications.

Among the variety of large groups, two can be distinguished, which are the subjects of the historical process - ethnic groups and classes.

An ethnic group, or ethnos, is a stable social community that has historically formed in a certain territory, possessing stable features of culture, language, mental makeup, behavioral characteristics, a consciousness of its unity and difference from other similar entities. At the highest stage of development, many ethnic groups form a stable socio-economic integrity - a nation. Enikeev M.I. General and social psychology. Textbook for high schools. - M.: Publishing group NORMA-INFRA-M, 1999, S. 276

Social classes are distinguished in the system of social production. Their existence is due to the division of labor, the differentiation of social functions, the separation of organizational and executive activities. Ibid., p. 277

The subjects of out-of-group behavior are the public and the masses. Ibid., p. 277

The public is a large group of people with common episodic interests, subject to a single emotional-conscious regulation with the help of generally significant objects of attention (meeting participants, lecturers).

Mass - a set of a large number of people who make up an amorphous formation, who do not have direct contacts, but are united by common stable interests (large and small masses, stable and situational, etc.).

In the historical development of society and the concrete development of groups, individual social communities go through several certain stages. They correspond to the level of development of the groups. According to the classification of Diligensky G.G. There are three such stages. Social psychology. Tutorial / Responsible. ed. A.L. Zhuravlev. - M.: "PER SE", 2002, S. 169

The first - low level- typological. It is characterized by the fact that the members of the group are objectively similar to each other in some way. These features may be of significant importance in the regulation of their individual behavior, but do not form the basis for the creation of a psychological community. United on these grounds, people represent a set of individuals, but do not constitute a unity.

The second level of development is characterized by the fact that its members are aware of their belonging to this group, identify themselves with its members. This is the identification level.

The third level involves the readiness of group members for joint action in the name of collective goals. They are aware of the commonality of their interests. The level of solidarity or the level of integration.

The level of development of the socio-psychological community of groups determines their real role in the socio-historical process as a whole, represents the psychological component of socio-historical phenomena.

In the structure of large social groups, two subtypes can be distinguished. The World of Psychology. Psychology of a large group.

The first is ethnic groups, classes, professional groups. They are distinguished by the duration of existence, the pattern of emergence and development.

The second is the public, the crowd, the audience. They are short-term and arose by chance, for some time they are included in the general emotional space.

The fundamental difference between large groups of the first and second subtypes lies in the mechanisms that regulate intragroup processes.

The so-called organized large groups are governed by specific social mechanisms: traditions, customs, mores. It is possible to isolate and describe a typical way of life for a representative of such groups, features of character, self-consciousness.

Unorganized large groups are controlled by socio-psychological mechanisms of an emotional nature: imitation, suggestion, infection. They are characterized by a commonality of feelings and moods at a certain point in time, which, however, does not indicate a deeper psychological commonality of the participants in this kind of social formations.

All identified large social groups are characterized by common signs that distinguish these groups from small groups.

1. Large groups have regulators social behavior- these are customs, customs, traditions. They characterize the lifestyle of the group. Within a certain way of life, the interests, values ​​and needs of the group acquire special significance.

2. An important role in the psychological characteristics is the presence of a specific language. For ethnic groups, this is an ordinary characteristic, for other groups, "language" acts as a certain jargon.

Common features that are characteristic of large groups cannot be absolutized. Each variety of these groups has its own peculiarity: one cannot line up a class, a nation, a profession, or youth.

The significance of each type of large group in the historical process is different, as are their features. Therefore, all the characteristics of large groups must be filled with specific content.

We examined a large social group, gave its characteristics, described the structure, now we will get acquainted with the psychological mechanisms of self-regulation in these groups.

(with minor additions from other journals). It was provoked by a discussion of Lenin's well-known article "The Great Initiative", in which, as if in passing, the definition of the concept of "class" that is now considered classic by Marxists is given.
So,

THE CONCEPT OF "CLASS"

Let me remind you - according to Lenin,

Classes are large groups of people who differ in their place in a historically defined system of social production, in their relationship (for the most part fixed 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 their share of the public wealth. Classes are such groups of people, of which one can appropriate the labor of another, thanks to the difference in their place in a certain way of social economy.

oleg_devyatkin

I consider the definition of classes given by Lenin in The Great Initiative extremely unfortunate, but nothing else, however, could be expected from an article written for kindergarten political studies.

spartako

And what?
Pretty clear and concise definition.

oleg_devyatkin

And how would you like this definition of "fruits": "fruits are such significant food groups that differ: in weight - heavy, light, in size - large, small, in color - red, green, in taste - sweet, sour "?

This objection would be acceptable if Lenin did not define class generally, but, say, specifically the class of feudal lords or the class of slaves.
But in the case under discussion, we are talking, rather, not about the definition of a certain object as such, but about highlighting the principles of classifying certain objects. "Large groups of people" can be classified according to various criteria, and Lenin only indicates under what principle of classification the distinguished "large groups of people" in the framework of Marxist theory will be called classes.
I think this is a perfectly acceptable approach.

oleg_devyatkin

Lenin's definition of classes.
4 signs are listed:

1. place in the system of social production;
2. attitude towards the means of production;
3. role in the social organization of labor;
4. the ability to appropriate the labor of another group of people.

Lenin also points out one more sign: "and therefore, according to the methods of obtaining and the size of the share of social wealth that they have." But, in principle, it is possible to modify the third feature in this way: "role in the social organization of labor (and, consequently, salary)". Salary here must be understood in a generalized sense: "the method of obtaining and the amount of that share of social wealth that you have."
Moreover, in relation to last sign(“the ability to appropriate someone else's labor”) it is said that it depends on the first one (“place in the system of social production”).
Hence, we can assume that the remaining features (1, 2, 3) are independent. If each sign has at least two gradations, then they should have 2 to the third or even two to the 4th degree of classes, that is, 8 or 16 classes. Where are they?
But the most important thing is that this definition is completely non-working, these signs themselves are not defined in any way. Many people remember the long debates of Soviet social scientists: “Is the intelligentsia a class or not a class?” Based on this definition alone, it is impossible to resolve this dispute.

Why does the theory need the concept of a class?

Marx himself defined in the "Manifesto" as follows: "The whole history of mankind is the history of class struggle." That is, Marx needed the concept of "class" to understand the historical process.

Lenin begins the paragraph in which he defines classes as follows:
“And what does it mean “destruction of classes”? All who call themselves socialists recognize this ultimate goal of socialism, but far from all ponder over its significance.
Lenin speaks of the "communist nature" of the subbotnik, he says: those who write about subbotniks do not pay enough attention to one thing. What? And in our memory of subbotniks, we confess, only that they are free and mostly physically difficult. What is "communist" about this? Communism means "destruction of classes".
In the articles he reprints on subbotniks, Lenin even marks in italics those passages that speak of a significant increase in labor productivity on subbotniks. It is not gratuitousness, and even more so not physical burden, that makes subbotniks communist, it is high labor productivity that makes them communist, or rather, the reason for this high productivity. And as such a reason, Lenin indicates the absence of the indicated fourth ghost: "the ability to appropriate the labor of another group of people."

Additional difficulties of the theory based on the "Great Initiative"

The theoretician who builds on Lenin’s work “The Great Initiative” will also encounter the following difficulties: it turns out that in order to “destroy classes”, it is also necessary to destroy the differences between city and country, between physical and mental labor, between masculinity and femininity (“between a man and a woman”) . How such divisions fit into these four features is not in the work.

In general, the main defect of Lenin's definition is its scientistic bias. (They used to say - "positivist", and even earlier - "objective" (remember this word in the "Theses on Feuerbach". It seems that then the concept of "object" still had the main meaning of this - "additional circumstances", so that the accused of "objectivism "was not accused of what he was talking about" outside world", but about the "outside world in relation to the merits".))

Compare with this definition of "musician":

"Musicians are people who differ in their place in historically established orchestras, in their attitude to musical instruments (mostly brought with them), in their reaction to the actions of the conductor, and, consequently, in salary. Musicians are such people, of which one can leave their mark on the actions of others, due to the difference in their place in a certain orchestra.

Thanks a lot for the comments!
In my head, it seems, something cleared up, but essence things just got messed up :-)
Roughly speaking, we are not talking about the principles of systematization of "large groups of people", but about meaningful side of the case; but in this case it is not entirely correct to speak of Lenin's theses as definition concept of "class".
That is, what is primary for us is not that denoting certain “ large groups of people"the term" class ", we are guided by the signs listed by Lenin; but primarily just that at any stage human history society is divided into large groups of people", the contradictions between which (denoted by the term " class struggle”) are the driving force of history, and it is such and only such"large groups of people" may be referred to as classes.
Lenin, in The Great Initiative, did not at all definition gave the concept of "class", but expressed a very controversial thesis about how classes can differ. That is, roughly speaking, he said something like this: if“large groups of people” are waging a class struggle among themselves, then they differ in the following ways: ___ ... And then he committed logical fallacy: flipped what was written “back to front”: began to reason as if the statement sounded like this: if"large groups of people" are distinguished by the following features: ___, then they are waging a class struggle among themselves.
Well, for example, as far as I understand, behind the words “communism is a classless society” lies only that, according to the assumption, under communism there will be no class struggle as an “engine of history”. And from the “inverted” Leninist “definition”, it follows that under communism not only the class struggle will be absent, but also the differences between “large groups of people” on the basis of “city-village”, “physical-mental”, etc.
By the way, similar difficulties with the systematics of the objects under study were observed at different stages of development in most sciences: let us recall the history of the "periodic system of elements" in chemistry or the struggle for a unified approach to the systematics of living organisms in biology that ended literally in the last decade (not yet fully completed). : now the basis of taxonomy is genetic relationship, the presence of a single common evolutionary ancestor, since it became clear that all other possible classification features are derived from this.
In sociology, the development of a clear approach to the classification of "large groups of people" in terms of their role and place in evolution human society, as far as I understand, is still a matter of the future.

oleg_devyatkin

Yes, that's it. To begin with a class struggle, in my opinion, is more natural.
I always quote a story about the Soviet logic (mathematician) Shanin, told to me by his students: Shanin said that in any conversation, you must first clearly discuss the “problem”. One can, for example, argue ad infinitum whether chess players are athletes or not - a completely different matter if one immediately finds out “what is the problem”. Thus, it is one thing if we are talking about a parade at the Olympiad and the question is whether it is necessary to include chess players in the column; Another thing is the distribution of vouchers to the sanatorium from the Ministry of Sports and whether it is necessary to allocate them to the chess section.
Before Lenin in the article was a peculiar task: to define what should be liquidated soon. The sender for weeding will not go into detailed taxonomic definitions of weeds, most likely he will say: “These two small round leaves are beets, everything else green is weeds.” From these remarks of Lenin "on the go" they made a "DEFINITION" and for half a century schoolchildren and students were tormented and tormented.

What should I do, who does not believe in the abolition of the class struggle? Or, in order not to use the vague term "class", I will say this: in my opinion, humanity will always have a struggle of all against all, in this struggle people will naturally unite in fairly long associations.

lenivtsyn

We pay unreasonably much attention to the concept of "class". Classics treated him easier. In Marx, and even in Lenin, in various works of which classes you can’t find, depending on the situation described, you can find references to the class of merchants, some (conditionally) brick workers, or even (not conditionally, but absolutely precisely - in Lenin, at least I’m not ready to give an exact link now) the tramp class. In any science, classification is a fairly common technique, and what classes an object eventually falls into depends on the tasks for which the classification is performed.
The proletariat and the bourgeoisie were originally implied by Marx as a certain result of the class development of society. The meaning of the very division into proletariat and bourgeoisie is that there are only two classes. And here it is important to note that this classification is substantiated in Capital by a comprehensive study of capitalist society.

I fully agree that in the time of Marx it was quite legitimate to divide society into "bourgeoisie" and "proletariat", neglecting other social groups; and, in my opinion, it is just as legitimate to divide the current society into "bureaucracy" and ... I don't know who - "common people", or what?