The history of human civilization has always had features in each period of its existence and in different regions of the planet. The modern world, as we know it now, has become so not only thanks to technical innovations. Its formation was also facilitated by the constant development of society with its stagnations, sharp leaps and revolutions. In economic and socio-political thought, there were many different approaches to the allocation of such levels of social development. However, today the development of society is divided into such generalized stages.
Agrarian society
This society is represented by peasants, of which it consists almost entirely. It is the work on the land and the cultivation of garden and horticultural crops that is the foundation of such a society. Commodity-money exchange takes place only in its infancy.
Industrial Society
It arose as a result of the industrial revolution and the replacement of manual labor by machine, which greatly changed the development of society and socio-economic relations in it.
Post-industrial society
This stage has already been reached by many countries of the Western world. It is also called informational, since it is information that becomes the most valuable during this period.factor. The main stages in the development of the information society have not yet been fully explored.
Marxist approach
A deeper and more complete assessment, reflecting the stages of development of society, was the work of Karl Marx in the middle of the 19th century, as well as his followers later. Marx divided the history of human society into five basic formations.
Primitive communal formation
The society had no surplus of its work. Everything was consumed.
Slave formation
The welfare of society as a whole was based on the forced labor of slaves.
Feudal Formation
In such a society there was a ladder hierarchy of overlord and personally dependent vassal. The lower structures of this society ensure its vital activity.
Important moment
This and the previous formation correlate with an agrarian society. Marx did not particularly single out in his own works, however, later researchers note that simultaneously with medieval Europe, the so-called political mode of production existed in the East. It cannot be called feudalism, since there was no social ladder here, all the land formally belonged to the ruler, and all subjects were his slaves, deprived of all rights at their own request. It is unlikely that a medieval European king could do this to his own feudal lords.
Capitalist Formation
Here, coercion was not violent methods, buteconomic leverage. Private law appears, new classes, the concept of commercial activity. Capitalism arises for the same reasons as industrial society.
Communist formation
Capitalism, according to Marxist theorists, was degenerating into imperialism, characterized by the extreme exploitation of the working masses by a handful of merchants. As a result, the concept of a world revolution and a more just society was born. However, the further development of society and the cold war have shown that the construction of communism, at least at this stage, is impossible. And under the pressure of the latter, capitalism outgrew itself, forcing the oligarchs of the West to provide guarantees for the improvement of the economic situation of the lower strata in order to avoid the spread of leftist tendencies.
