The key elements of the social structure of society are. The main elements of the social structure of society are

Social (stratification) structure is understood as the stratification and hierarchical organization of various layers of society, as well as the set of institutions and the relationships between them The term “stratification” comes from the Latin word stratum - layers, layer. Strata are large groups of people who differ in their position in the social structure of society.

All scientists agree that the basis of the stratification structure of society is the natural and social inequality of people. However, on the question of what exactly is the criterion for this inequality, their opinions differ. Studying the process of stratification in society, K. Marx called such a criterion the fact of a person’s possession of property and the level of his income. M. Weber added to them social prestige and the subject’s affiliation with political parties and power. Pitirim Sorokin considered the cause of stratification to be the uneven distribution of rights and privileges, responsibilities and duties in society. He also argued that social space has many other criteria for differentiation: it can be carried out by citizenship, occupation, nationality, religious affiliation, etc. Finally, supporters of the theory of structural functionalism proposed as a criterion to rely on those social functions that are performed by certain social strata in society.

Historically, stratification, that is, inequality in income, power, prestige, etc., arises with the birth of human society. With the advent of the first states, it becomes tougher, and then, in the process of development of society (primarily European), it gradually softens.

In sociology, there are four main types of social stratification - slavery, castes, estates and classes. The first three characterize closed societies, and the last type - open ones.

The first system of social stratification is slavery, which arose in ancient times and still persists in some backward regions. There are two forms of slavery: patriarchal, in which the slave has all the rights of the youngest member of the family, and classical, in which the slave has no rights and is considered the property of the owner (a talking tool). Slavery was based on direct violence, and social groups during the era of slavery were distinguished by the presence or absence of civil rights.

The second system of social stratification should be recognized as caste. build. A caste is a social group (stratum) in which membership is transferred to a person only by birth. A person's transition from one caste to another during his lifetime is impossible - for this he needs to be born again. A classic example of a caste society is India. In India there are four main castes, which, according to legend, originated from different parts of the god Brahma:

a) brahmins - priests;

b) kshatriyas - warriors;

c) vaishyas - merchants;

d) Shudras - peasants, artisans, workers.

A special position is occupied by the so-called untouchables, who do not belong to any caste and occupy a lower position.

The next form of stratification consists of estates. An estate is a group of people that has rights and responsibilities enshrined in law or custom that are inherited. Usually in society there are privileged and unprivileged classes. For example, in Western Europe, the first group included the nobility and clergy (in France they were called that way - the first estate and the second estate) and the second group included artisans, merchants and peasants. In Russia before 1917, in addition to the privileged (nobility, clergy) and unprivileged (peasantry), there were also semi-privileged classes (for example, the Cossacks).

Finally, another stratification system is class. The most complete definition of classes in the scientific literature was given by V.I. Lenin: “Classes are large groups of people that differ in their place in a historically defined system of social production, in their relationship (mostly 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 have.” The class approach is often contrasted with the stratification approach, although in fact class division is only a special case of social stratification.

Depending on the historical period in society, the following classes are distinguished as the main ones:

a) slaves and slave owners;

b) feudal lords and feudal-dependent peasants;

c) the bourgeoisie and the proletariat;

d) the so-called middle class.

Since any social structure is a collection of all functioning social communities taken in their interaction, the following elements can be distinguished in it:

a) ethnic structure (clan, tribe, nationality, nation);

b) demographic structure (groups are distinguished by age and gender);

c) settlement structure (urban residents, rural residents, etc.);

d) class structure (bourgeoisie, proletariat, peasants, etc.);

e) vocational and educational structure.

In the most general form, in modern society three stratification levels can be distinguished: highest, middle and lowest. In economically developed countries, the second level is predominant, giving society a certain stability. In turn, within each level there is also a hierarchically ordered set of various social strata. A person who occupies a certain place in this structure has the opportunity to move from one level to another, increasing or decreasing his social status, or from one group located at a certain level to another, located at the same level. This transition is called social mobility.

Social mobility sometimes leads to the fact that some people find themselves at the junction of certain social groups, while experiencing serious psychological difficulties. Their intermediate position is largely determined by their inability or unwillingness, for whatever reason, to adapt to one of the interacting social groups. This phenomenon of a person being, as it were, between two cultures, associated with his movement in social space, is called marginality. A marginal is an individual who has lost his former social status, is deprived of the opportunity to engage in his usual activities and, moreover, has found himself unable to adapt to the new sociocultural environment of the stratum within which he formally exists. The individual value system of such people is so stable that it cannot be replaced by new norms, principles, and rules. Their behavior is characterized by extremes: they are either overly passive or very aggressive, easily transgress moral standards and are capable of unpredictable actions. Among the marginalized there may be ethnomarginals - people who found themselves in a foreign environment as a result of migration; political marginals - people who are not satisfied with legal opportunities and legitimate rules of socio-political struggle: religious marginals - people who are outside the confession or who do not dare to make a choice between them, etc.

The qualitative changes taking place in the economic basis of modern Russian society have entailed serious changes in its social structure. The currently emerging social hierarchy is characterized by inconsistency, instability and a tendency to significant changes. The highest stratum (elite) today can include representatives of the state apparatus, as well as owners of large capital, including their top - financial oligarchs. The middle class in modern Russia includes representatives of the entrepreneurial class, as well as knowledge workers, highly qualified managers (managers). Finally, the lower stratum consists of workers of various professions engaged in medium and low-skilled work, as well as clerical workers and public sector workers (teachers and doctors in state and municipal institutions). It should be noted that the process of social mobility between these levels in Russia is limited, which may become one of the prerequisites for future conflicts in society.

In the process of changing the social structure of modern Russian society, the following trends can be identified:

1) social polarization, i.e. stratification into rich and poor, deepening social and property differentiation;

2) massive downward social mobility;

3) massive change of place of residence by knowledge workers (the so-called “brain drain”).

In general, we can say that the main criteria that determine a person’s social position in modern Russia and his belonging to one or another stratification level are either the size of his wealth or his affiliation with power structures.

BASIC ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY

Before moving on to the topic of our essay, let us understand the concept of “social structure of society.”

So, the social structure of society means the objective division of society into separate layers, groups, different in their social status, in their relation to the method of production. This is a stable connection of elements in a social system.

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

The main principle of determining the social structure of society should be the search for real subjects of social processes. Subjects can be both individuals and social groups of various sizes, identified on different grounds: youth, the working class, a religious sect, and so on. From this point of view, the social structure of society can be represented as a more or less stable relationship between social layers and groups.

In a broad sense, social structure is the structure of society as a whole, a system of connections between all its main elements. With this approach, social structure characterizes all the numerous types of social communities and the relationships between them. In a narrow sense, the term “social structure of society” is most often applied to social-class and social-group communities. Social structure in this sense is a set of interconnected and interacting classes, social strata and groups.

The main elements of the social structure are such social communities as classes and class-like groups, ethnic, professional, socio-demographic groups, socio-territorial communities (city, village, region). Each of these elements, in turn, is a complex social system with its own subsystems and connections. The social structure of society reflects the characteristics of social relations of classes, professional, cultural, national-ethnic and demographic groups, which are determined by the place and role of each of them in the system of economic relations. The social aspect of any community is concentrated in its connections and mediations with production and class relations in society.

There are two generally accepted paradigms for considering social structure: 1) theories of social institutions and 2) theories of social inequality.

E. Durkheim figuratively defined social institutions as “factories of reproduction” of social relations and connections, i.e. Institutions generally mean certain types of relationships between people that are constantly in demand by society and therefore are revived again and again. Social institutions are specific formations that ensure the relative stability of connections and relationships within the boundaries of the social organization of society, historically determined forms of organization and regulation of social life. Social institutions are historically established persistent forms of organizing the joint activities of people. They must ensure reliability and regularity of meeting the needs of individuals, cereals, and society as a whole. Social institutions determine the functioning of any society. When using the concept of “social institution,” they most often mean various kinds of ordering, formalization of social connections and relationships, mastery of such features as:

1.consistency and degree of interactions between participants in connections and relationships;

2. a clear definition of the functions, rights and responsibilities that ensure the interaction of each of the communication participants;

3. regulation and control over the interaction of subjects, the presence of specially trained personnel who ensure the functioning of social institutions.

In order for such a structural element of society as a social institution to arise and develop, special conditions are needed:

1. a certain need must arise and spread in society, which, being recognized by many members of society (as a general social or societal one), becomes the main prerequisite for the formation of a new institution;

2. operational means must be available to satisfy this need, i.e. the established system of functions, actions, operations, private goals necessary for society, realizing a new need;

3. in order for the institute to actually fulfill its mission, it is endowed with the necessary resources (material, financial, labor, organizational), which society must steadily replenish;

4. To ensure the self-reproduction of an institution, a special cultural environment is also necessary, i.e. a subculture unique to it must be formed (a special system of signs, actions, rules of behavior that distinguish people belonging to this institution).

Social institutions are diverse:

Political institutions (state, party, army);

Economic institutions (distribution of labor, property, taxes, etc.)

Institutes of kinship, marriage, family;

Institutions operating in the spiritual sphere (education, culture, mass communications), etc.

Social inequality in society is most often understood as stratification - the distribution of social groups in a hierarchically ordered rank (in ascending or descending order of some characteristic).

Theories of social inequality are divided into two fundamental directions: functionalist and conflictological.

Functionalism, in the tradition of E. Durkheim, derives social inequality from the division of labor: mechanical (natural, gender and age) and organic (arising as a result of training and professional specialization).

Marxism focuses on issues of class inequality and exploitation. Accordingly, conflict theories usually emphasize the dominant role of differentiating relations of property and power in the system of social reproduction.

So, the social structure of society is the totality of those connections and relationships that social groups and communities of people enter into among themselves regarding the economic, social, political and spiritual conditions of their life, and its main elements are:

1.social communities (large and small groups);

2.professional groups;

3.socio-demographic groups;

4.socio-territorial communities.

The types of social structures vary depending on the level of development of the division of labor and socio-economic relations.

Thus, the social structure of a slave-owning society was made up of classes of slaves and slave owners, as well as artisans, traders, landowners, free peasants, representatives of mental activity - scientists, philosophers, poets, priests, teachers, doctors, etc.

The social structure of feudal society was the interrelation of the main classes - feudal lords and serfs, as well as classes and various groups of the intelligentsia. These classes, wherever they arise, differ from each other in their place in the system of social division of labor and socio-economic relations. Estates occupy a special place in it. Estates are social groups whose place in society is determined not only by their position in the system of socio-economic relations, but also by established traditions and legal acts.

In Russia, for example, there were such classes as the nobility, clergy, peasantry, merchants, and petty bourgeoisie.

Capitalist society, especially modern society, has a complex social structure. Within the framework of its social structure, primarily various groups of the bourgeoisie, the so-called middle class and workers interact.

The main elements of a socialist society are the working class, the cooperative peasantry, the intelligentsia, professional and demographic groups and national communities.

Almost all elements of the social structure are heterogeneous in composition and, in turn, are divided into separate layers and groups, which appear as independent elements of the social structure with their inherent interests, which they realize in interaction with other subjects.

Social groups are relatively stable, historically established communities of people who differ in their role and place in the system of social connections of a historically defined society.

Sociologists distinguish social groups from aggregations in that the former are united on the basis of objective circumstances and belonging to a group is associated with the objective position of people in the system of social connections, the fulfillment of certain social roles, and the latter are a certain number of people who have gathered in a certain physical space and are not carries out conscious interactions. In order for a collection of people to be recognized as a group, there must be interaction between its members and the existence of expectations shared by each member of the group regarding its other members.

There are formal and informal groups:

A formal group is “a social group that has legal status, is part of a social institution, organization, and has the goal of achieving a certain result within the division of labor in a given institution or organization.” It is important that a formal group is characterized by a certain hierarchical structure of subordination.

An informal group is a social community that is formed on the basis of interpersonal relationships and does not have an official, legally fixed, approved status. The form of existence of informal groups can be different; they can function as relatively isolated, closed social communities and can develop within official groups and be an integral part of the official group.

Based on the individual's affiliation, one can distinguish between an ingroup and an outgroup.

Ingroups are those groups to which an individual feels that he belongs and in which he is identified with other members, that is, he understands the members of the ingroup as “we”. Other groups to which the individual does not belong are outgroups for him, that is, “they”.

In addition to the ingroup and outgroup, a reference group is also distinguished, which means a real or conditional social community with which an individual relates himself as a standard and to the norms, views, values ​​and assessments of which he is guided in his behavior and self-esteem. There are normative and comparative referent functions of the group.

The first is manifested in the fact that the group acts as a source of norms of behavior, social attitudes and value orientations of the individual.

The other (comparative function) is manifested in the fact that the reference group acts as a standard by which an individual can evaluate himself and others.

Based on the nature of the relationships between group members, primary and secondary groups are distinguished. In a primary group, each member sees the other group members as individuals and individuals. Members of groups such as friends and family tend to make social relationships informal and relaxed.

In secondary groups, social contacts are impersonal and have a utilitarian, one-sided nature. All contacts are functional according to social roles.

To analyze the social structure of society, we use such an elementary part of society that contains all types of social connections - this is a small social group whose social relations manifest themselves in the form of direct personal contacts. A small group can be either primary or secondary, depending on what type of relationship exists between its members. A large group can only be secondary. When studying small groups, one can trace the emergence of social processes, mechanisms of cohesion, the emergence of leadership, and role relationships.

The social structure of a society is not rigid; vibrations and movements constantly occur in it, i.e. it is characterized by social mobility. Social mobility is a change by a social group or individual in its social position. The term “social mobility” was introduced into sociology by P. A. Sorokin, who considered social mobility as movement along the social ladder in two directions: vertical - movement up and down, horizontal - movement at the same social level. During periods of social change, there is mass group mobility. In stable periods, social mobility increases at the time of economic restructuring. In this case, education is an important “social elevator” that ensures vertical upward mobility. Social mobility is a fairly reliable indicator of the level of openness or closedness of a society. In modern society, social mobility gives rise to the phenomenon of social marginality. Marginality is a concept that characterizes borderline, intermediate, cultural phenomena, social subjects and statuses... Marginalization implies a break, the loss of objective belonging to a certain social community without subsequent entry into another community or without complete adaptation to it. A marginalized person is a person who is related to two different groups without completely belonging to either of them... The marginalized person’s subjective idea of ​​himself and his objective position are contradictory: he is placed in a situation of struggle for survival. Therefore, a marginal personality has a number of characteristic traits: anxiety, aggressiveness, unjustified ambition. The social behavior of a marginalized person creates difficulties both for the person himself and for the people communicating with him. For a long time in sociology, marginality was assessed negatively. Recently, sociologists have changed their attitude towards it, seeing a positive side in this social phenomenon. (Minaev V.V., Arkhipova N.I., C1. Based on the text, indicate the feature that defines the essence of social mobility. What are (according to P.A. Sorokin) the main directions of social mobility? C2. Under what two social conditions, according to the authors , education is an important “social elevator"? Explain any of these conditions. C3. Who do the authors call marginal? Define and, based on knowledge of a social science course and the facts of social life, give three examples of marginality. C4. Recently, as the authors note, sociologists have seen the positive side of marginality. Please indicate three manifestations

1. The social structure of society determines the relationship between: a) members of society and the state;
b) owners of production and the state; c) different segments of the population; d) members of various societies.
2. The reason for the emergence of marginalized people is: a) the transition of modern society to the stage of post-industrial development;
b) poverty, unemployment, lack of employment; c) universal literacy of the population.
3. The assessment that society gives to a status or position is: a) the authority of the individual;
b) social prestige; c) normal.
4. Social role is: a) actions that a person occupying a certain place in society must perform;
b) interaction between man and society; c) both statements are true; d) both statements are incorrect.
5. An authoritative person can be: a) a specific person;
b) profession; c) position.
6. Change social status: a) impossible;
b) more opportunities in a civilized society; c) it is easier in a country that is less developed.
7. A person’s social status is determined by his attitude towards: a) other people;
b) Homeland; c) property.
8. The expression of social stratification is a) the difference in types of economic systems
b) diversity of cultural traditions c) class division of society d) ideological pluralism

The social structure of society is the unification of social elements into a system of interconnection. The connection is built on the constancy of relationships and the mandatory presence of elements in any type of social structure.

Structural units

The social units that create the structure constitute the structure (skeleton) of society. The interconnection of individual elements representing the social sphere of states presupposes the division of society into parts:

• groups: classes, castes, estates;
• layers (levels);
• communities (associations);
• institutes.

All units are connected, they are held in a single system of relationships. The structure of society is represented by a set of social communities.

Transformation of social units and structures

The elements of the social structure are various units. In the states of the Ancient East, the basis of the organization was the rural community. For the ancient Russian state, these were classes. In feudal society - peasants and feudal lords, gradually with the growth of cities a class of merchants began to appear. With industrialization, workers appear. There are slightly fewer of them than peasants. The industrial state became characterized by the birth of a new class - hereditary workers, and not those who came from peasants. The structure of Soviet society can be represented by the following social groups:

• managers (high class);
• bureaucrats;
• new intelligentsia of a technical nature;
• workers (without means of production - total);
• urban proletariat;
• peasants (state farms and collective farms);
• prisoners.

It is interesting that for modern Russian society, scientists propose choosing among several approaches. In Russia, the top element is the elite. According to some classifications it is all-Russian, according to others it is administrative or ruling.

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Man in social structure

The basic component of any unit of human society will be the human being. The place of man in the social structure of society is complex. The diversity of its role is that one individual can be a member of various structural units. In addition, economic life can change a person’s position, transfer him from one position to another. Social science suggests calling this concept mobility. Mobility types:

• horizontal;
• vertical.

Characteristics of the first: transition within the group. A person changes religious beliefs, family, and work enterprises. Displacements do not imply a change in position in society. Statuses and roles remain the same.

Vertical transitions can be briefly represented as upward movement - an increase in one’s status, downward - a decrease in the level of one’s position in society, loss.

Social classes

The philosophy of ancient scientists divided the state into three classes, layers:

• upper layer;
• middle class;
• lowest level.

The social class system includes not just division into layers, but also explains the regulation of relations between them. Social class reflects inequality between groups. The society that people dreamed of, where there is no inequality, remains a utopia. This is communism. Income did not matter; the economy allowed everyone to have what they wanted.

History has offered various forms of class division. The concept of stratification appears.

• The first system is slavery. Slaves have existed from the beginning of mankind to the present time. A type that creates a group of people that is deprived of any rights.
• Castes. Here, groups have no opportunity to break out of the hierarchy and build a career. No mobility.
• Estates. Division divides people into groups as strictly as possible. The class structure does not allow mixing of layers and blocks the transition from one group to another. It all depends on the person’s birth and family status.

Types of groups explain the relationships between people and the possibility of changing belonging to a particular class.

Educational material

The 8th grade social studies course briefly explains the basic concepts of social structure. A plan of educational material that helps to understand the essence of the historical problem:

• what is society and how is its structure built;
• spheres of social activity;
• signs of social groups;
• hierarchy of layers;
• reasons for the stratification of society and the emergence of inequality;
• group mobility.

Social associations of people can be different. Classifications suggest dividing them into types:

• by number of people;
• by functionality;
• by relationship.

The simplest division is quantitative. Small stratum (group) - unites up to 7 people. The big ones have no limits. Based on functionality, they are divided into primary: there is no clear division of responsibilities, and secondary: each has its own task. Primary ones are closer to equality. Secondary - ladder of positions. Relations are divided into formal associations, where functions and tasks are divided, informal ones - according to interests.

The elements of the structure of society are large or small groups of people united together according to similar parameters, be it socio-demographic, socio-political, economic, cultural and other characteristics. The individual is also an element of the social structure. According to structural and functional analysis, an individual actor may have increased activity in creating certain strata, including powerful monopolies of power. The individual is at the center of the “social system of social action”; he is involved in the continuous process of metabolism - renewal and replacement in the social system. At the same time, it is not the individual, but the stratum, a small group, that is the primary element, the atom of social stratification.

M. Weber, in his programmatic article “Basic Concepts of Stratification”, became the founder of an independent theoretical and methodological direction in the study of social inequality - the concept of social stratification. He believed that people can unite into strata, small groups, based on any life situation - on religious grounds, educational, based on the prestige and popularity of the profession, nationality, cultural patterns of behavior, etc. There may be elite castes to which people belong by birth - castes of inherited charisma.

One of the first to study the topic of social stratification was the famous Russian-American scientist P. Sorokin. He gave not only a relatively complete theoretical explanation of the phenomenon of stratification of society, but what is especially important is the volume of empirical materials, which proved that stratification is not an invention of scientists, but a reality. Sorokin believed that society can be imagined in the form of social space, discrete points in it are social statuses, the vertical distance between them is not equal. Let's say, the distance between the driver and the milling machine operator is one, and between the driver and the professor is different; in social space they are significantly removed from each other.

Sorokin gave the following definition of the concept of “class”, which he considered in a narrow sense, i.e. like a stratum. A class (stratum) is a cumulative social group, which is understood as a total social group, a set of interacting forces connected into one interacting whole by a number of similar elementary characteristics. In other words, this is a normal, semi-closed, but approaching open, group typical of our time, consisting of a cumulation of three main groups:

1) professional, 2) property, 3) volume-legal.

Let us note that Sorokin is in the style of many sociologists of the early twentieth century. strives to use natural scientific terminologies in order to emphasize that biological, physical laws, and mathematical axioms can be applied to the study of human society - all of them enrich the sociological method. The text of the definition contains the word “cumulation” - from the medieval Latin term cumulatio, which means “accumulation”. The cumulative effect was understood as the concentration of the explosion in one direction. Why does Sorokin call the stratum a cumulative social group? Apparently, the sociologist uses here the figurative meaning of the term “cumulation”: a stratum is not any group formed at random, but only one that associates similar people with pronounced, “strong” social properties. In the stratum, accumulation, summation, concentration of these properties occurs, and people begin to act in the same way, their reaction to life processes becomes identical and even predictable. The unity of cumulative properties gives rise to the unity of worldview. That is why empirical sociologists use a stratified sampling method: it is enough to interview a proportional number of representatives of certain strata that are important to the researcher. Several agents from each stratum - and the principle of representation will be respected, because in this case the person protects the whole.

Sorokin considered the main features of unification into strata to be the similarity of profession, level of wealth and civil rights. These similarities make a class (stratum) a social type and give rise to similarities in tastes, beliefs, likes and dislikes, and the entire lifestyle of persons of the same class. Let us give examples of strata based on Sorokin’s definition.

1) Physicist scientists receiving high incomes and enjoying a number of social privileges;

2) Police officers who receive relatively high and average incomes, have a number of social restrictions and live according to the laws of a closed corporate society (non-disclosure of professional secrets, appointments in the hierarchy, etc.);

3) Plumbing workers with low incomes and limited rights (it is unlikely that a plumber will be considered as a potential candidate for the post of president of the country, etc.).

A class can also be considered as an element of a structure. If we talk about class in a broad sense as a large group of people who are united primarily by economic interests - ownership or non-ownership of one or another form of property, involvement in a certain type of production, etc., then we must turn to the Marxist interpretation of class. As you know, Marx did not define class; it was precisely because of his arguments about how difficult it is to give this definition that his manuscripts ended. However, Marx emphasized that the economic criterion is key in the structuring of society, and the existence of classes is associated with certain phases of development of production. The definition of class, complete in its logic, was given by V.I. Lenin, which is still rightfully considered a classic. “Classes are large groups of people that differ in their place in a historically defined system of social production, in their relationship (mostly fixed and formalized in laws) to the means of production, in their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, in their methods of obtaining and the size of the share of social wealth that they have. Classes are groups of people from which one can appropriate the work of another, due to the difference in their place in a certain structure of the social economy.”

Let us isolate from this definition those class-forming characteristics on which Lenin concentrates his attention:

1) place in the production system

2) attitude towards the means of production

3) role in labor organization

4) ways to get wealth

5) the amount of wealth.

Marx, Engels and Lenin considered the main classes of society to be capitalists and industrial workers, exploiters and the exploited, owning a huge share of social wealth and beggars. By the way, the tradition of considering “rich” and “poor” as the main class forces of society dates back to Ancient Greece and has survived to this day. However, from a sociological point of view, this approach can be regarded as simplified, since one sign of class formation is chosen here - material and property, and the extreme polarization of society and class antagonism are emphasized. In fact, in many countries the rich make up only 3.8% of the social composition of the population (including in Russia) and, due to their small numbers, cannot be interpreted as a class; rather, they are the highest economic stratum of society, and the remaining 95% are also far from homogeneous by the income factor and do not represent a monolithic “class”.

Classes as such, as a social phenomenon, appeared on the horizon of history as a product of the industrial revolution of the 18th-19th centuries, which destroyed the inert and ossified federal system of estates and brought to life new social forces, which led to the formation of the class system. The development of trade, industry, and the market led to the formation of new professions: entrepreneurs, merchants, bankers, merchants. A new economic stratum appeared, which feudal society did not know - hired industrial workers.

In “The Class Struggle in France,” Marx discovers the following sociological law: the development of the industrial proletariat is conditioned by the development of the industrial bourgeoisie; only under the dominance of the bourgeoisie does the proletariat acquire a broad national existence. Thus, both exploiters and exploited equally participate in the formation of a new type of social stratification.

In our time, the following judgments are sometimes heard: capitalism has been transformed, antagonism between classes has been weakened, the importance of ownership of the means of production is declining, shares of one enterprise can be owned by hundreds of thousands of people - trace

In other words, “classes disappear.” There is, indeed, some truth in these arguments, because the era of individual and family capitalism has sunk into oblivion; in developed countries, the middle wealthy strata make up up to 2-3 of society. But classes are not an ideological invention of Marxists, but a reality of social life, for today, as a hundred years ago, there continues to be a significant difference in the nature, content and remuneration of labor between specialists in mental and physical labor, people living in the city and the countryside, between bosses and employees. The difference in economic interests, in access to resources, power, management of an enterprise or society as a whole continues to split society into separate classes, and this process is objective, since inequality is also inherent in the modern type of society.

Even scientists who are far from Marxism recognize the importance of the conclusions made by Marx. For example, Danish sociologist Thomas Heurup, author of the book “Models of Life,” writes that the concepts of “socio-economic formation” and “mode of production” are fundamental in sociology. T. Heurup suggests replacing the term “class” with a more modern one – “life model”, but this will not change the content of the phenomenon. A class, according to Hoyrup, is not a social group of individuals that has common characteristics, but a unique form of practice, a way of existence based on a strictly defined mode of production. And in modern Danish society, the scientist identifies 3 main classes:

1) self-employed workers (farmers, peasants, members of family enterprises);

2) employees;

3) success-oriented managers and experts.

Scientists such as L. Gumplowicz, G. Schmoller, W. Sombart, R. Cantillon, K. Marx, V. Lenin, M. Kovalevsky and others wrote about classes and class relations; the concept of social stratification was developed by M. Weber, T. Parsons, W.L. Warner, P. Sorokin, G. Lenski, B. Barber and others.