The process of community awareness. The people as a social community

We in Russia are accustomed to talking about the demographic crisis as a crisis of low birth rates. This is really important for us, especially considering our gigantic territory. However, the global demographic crisis caused by the population explosion has the exact opposite direction - it is a crisis of high birth rates. It has objective reasons and appealing to the consciousness of residents is weak developed countries, and even from our bell tower, it’s unproductive. It is necessary to understand what causes the high birth rate in these countries, why in developed countries it is much lower, and on this basis look for ways of economic and political influence on the countries with the highest birth rates.

First of all, the cause of the demographic explosion is not the high birth rate per se, but its discrepancy with the low mortality rate. Throughout history, women gave birth to many children, but many died in early childhood, others - in adolescence. Finally, the women themselves, due to illness and even early mortality, often “did not fulfill the plan.” As human knowledge grew and technologies developed based on it, the volume of resources available to humanity increased, which ensured an increase in the survival rate and led to an increase in the Earth's population. Starting from the 19th century, first in European and then in other countries, a wave of so-called “demographic transitions” took place, during which mortality first fell, and then, after several generations, the birth rate. Naturally, these several generations provide a significant increase in numbers. If the first demographic transitions were quite smooth, then later the reduction in mortality, followed by other processes, became more and more abrupt. and the increase in numbers is increasing. Which, in particular, caused the crises of the early twentieth century, associated with a sharp increase in the number of Germany, which lagged behind its neighbors, as well as Russia. The first began to fight with the whole world, the second sank the demographic explosion in a bloody civil war. Revolutions and wars accompanied the wave of demographic transitions in the future - in Asia and Latin America. In Africa they are just coming, but Arab world It's already starting to shake.

At the same time, in developed countries the birth rate is so low that it does not even ensure simple replacement of generations. One of the incentives for having a large number of children has always been uncertainty about the future - only children could provide a person who has lost his ability to work with a decent old age. In conditions of a subsistence economy and a patriarchal structure, children began to work early, helping their parents, and big number children have always been associated with the wealth of their parents. On the contrary, in the industrial world with high level unemployment, children compete with their parents for jobs, while at the same time the development of social security systems allows pensioners to live at public expense without the help of children. Thus, the reduction in the birth rate can be influenced by the development of the social security system, as well as an increase in the level of literacy, without which a person does not receive enough knowledge to understand the changes taking place in his life. This kind of innovation should be strongly recommended to underdeveloped countries to overcome the demographic explosion.

Population

Phenomenon rapid growth population in countries of the second type of population reproduction (with high and very high rates of fertility and natural increase and relatively low death rates) was called the “Demographic Explosion”. This situation has persisted for several decades in most developing countries. They (together with China) now account for almost 4/5 of the planet’s total population and 85 million of its absolute annual growth. The number of children per woman in the early 90s for this group of countries averaged 3.7, and for African countries even 5.1. General overview The table shows the growth of the planet's population.

Analysis of the table allows us to conclude that the share of economically developed countries in the world population is decreasing and the share of developing countries is growing. The latter have a decisive impact on the size and reproduction of the population and determine the demographic situation throughout the world.

In 2000, by population:

I place was occupied by China - 1 billion 265 million people;

India took second place - 1 billion 2 million 22 people;

III place occupied by the USA - 276 million people;

Indonesia took fourth place - 212 million people;

5th place was occupied by Brazil - 170 million people;

Russia took sixth place - 145 million people.

Population growth.

Population policy

It is obvious that a sharp slowdown in population growth rates (or even population decline), as in developed capitalist countries, countries of Eastern Europe and Russia, or a sharp increase in population growth rates, as in Africa and most countries of Asia and Latin America, negatively affect the demographic and socio-economic situation in the world. Therefore, in our time, most countries in the world strive to manage population reproduction. To achieve this, demographic policy is carried out - a system of administrative, economic, propaganda and other measures through which the state influences the natural movement of the population (primarily the birth rate) in the direction it desires.

Birth control first began to be implemented in the 18th century in France, where, due to the threatening decline in the birth rate, attempts were made to stimulate it. Now about 130 economically developed countries of the world and about 80 developing countries are pursuing demographic policies, the direction of which depends primarily on the demographic situation in a particular country.

In countries of the first type of population reproduction, demographic policies predominate, aimed at increasing the birth rate and natural population growth, and until the end of the 80s, the most active demographic policies were pursued by countries of Eastern Europe. Demographic policy measures are: one-time loans to newlyweds, benefits in connection with the birth of children (on a progressively increasing scale), long maternity leaves, benefits for the purchase of housing, etc. Also in former USSR an effective demographic policy was implemented.

In countries Western Europe demographic policy is carried out with unequal intensity in different countries. Most active in France and Sweden.

In the United States, there is virtually no demographic policy, with the exception of some benefits for families.

Most countries of the second type of reproduction in last decades implement demographic policies aimed at reducing the birth rate and natural increase. IN foreign Asia Family planning programs are being implemented in East, Southeast and South Asia. India was the first to embark on this path, but China has achieved the most significant success in regulating population growth rates. The main measures to ensure a reduction in the birth rate were raising the age of marriage (in India, 21 years for men and 18 years for women, in China - 22 and 20 years, respectively), and stimulating the creation of families with one or two children.

In the countries of the Arab-Muslim region, covering South-West Asia and North Africa, the activity of demographic policy is low due to national and regional traditions (Muslim encourages early and compulsory marriages, large families, polygamy and has a negative attitude towards demographic policy).

Africa as a whole (with the exception of Nigeria) is almost not included in family planning policies, which is caused by traditions of large families and other national and socio-economic reasons.

Demographic policy issues are now the most important for the development of the whole world, but different approach To her different states makes it impossible to stabilize the growth rate of the planet's population in the near future.

Philosophy: lecture notes Shevchuk Denis Aleksandrovich

4. Ethnic communities of people

4. Ethnic communities of people

Social communities of people were historically preceded by ethnic ones, on the basis of which they emerged in the process of development and complication of human relations. IN social philosophy the study of ethnic communities of people began to be carried out much later than many other things, but in terms of its importance and significance it ranks leading place. To date, there is no common point of view among scientists on this issue. We will consider two of them - Marxist and Weberian.

Along with Marx and Engels, V.I. Lenin played a major role in developing the theory of ethnic and national communities, their emergence and development. Their ideas on this problem are fundamentally historical and economic in nature. According to the founders of Marxism, the first known forms of community of people in the pre-class period were the clan and tribe. Before the advent of the clan organization of people, humans were characterized by a herd form of existence. The emergence of the genus was facilitated by the emergence primitive community, economic basis which was communal property. Joint farming on the basis of communal property, natural-equal distribution of things, primarily food, common life and entertainment contributed to the formation of such a community as a clan. It can be said that genus acts as the very first production, social and ethnic group people, united into one joint whole labor activity, consanguineous origin, common language, general religious and mythological beliefs, customs and features of life. As economic activity changed and developed, the generic forms of human community evolved and became more complex.

The next larger form of ethnic community of people is tribe. Its appearance is explained by the need, first of all, to preserve and protect the habitat (territory of residence, hunting and fishing grounds) from encroachment by other human groups. More numerous composition population greatly facilitated the task of resettlement and establishment of life in new territories. Of no small importance was also the protection against the degeneration of the race, which threatened it due to sexual relations between consanguineous homo sapiens. Tribal form public life becomes significantly more complicated, leaders-leaders, military commanders, priests, and new governing bodies appear, which the clan previously managed without. This is explained by the fact that along with tribal property and tribal organization of social life, tribal property appears, and all this required new forms of management. We can say that a tribe is a community of people larger than a clan, usually consisting of several hundred or even thousands of people. Each tribe included at least two clans. For its time tribal form of human existence was the most optimal social community, corresponding and stimulating production activities. This, apparently, can explain the existence of such a form of community among almost all peoples of the world and its preservation in some regions of the world right up to the present day.

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the tribal community in the formation cultural humanity in general and each individual individually. First of all, she is to a greater extent contributed to the improvement of labor tools, the development of norms and rules social behavior, development of primitive culture and language of communication. Essentially, society for the first time had the opportunity to preserve production experience, forms of social management, the beginnings of culture, achievements in the development of language, beliefs, traditions, and pass this on to subsequent generations in a more advanced form.

From the moment of its appearance, the tribal community acted as a socio-productive and at the same time ethnic community. With the formation of the social division of labor and, in particular, the separation of cattle breeding from agriculture, the emergence of various crafts, the emergence of exchange relations and property inequality, the need to create a more perfect community of people, bonded not only by blood ties, but also by other relationships that open up new opportunities for development of humanity. Nationality became such a form of community of people. The new aspects that determined its essence were closer territorial ties between people belonging to different clans and tribes and united with each other not by consanguinity, but by joint production, economic and cultural activities. At this stage of development, the political and legal aspect in human relations is noticeably strengthened, and further social and class differentiation between people occurs. With that said nationality can be defined as a community of people living in the same territory, united by a common language, mental characteristics, culture and way of life, enshrined in customs, morals, and traditions. At this stage, production and economic activity people, culture receives new development, social-class differentiation between people increases, prerequisites are created for the political isolation of peoples from each other, that is, the formation of independent states.

The next higher form of community of people, in which the ethnic moment begins to differentiate from the social-production one and acquire to a certain extent independent meaning is a nation. The formation of a nation is facilitated, first of all, by the need to expand and consolidate territory, the complication of economic and production relations, and the unification of peoples close in language, mental make-up and culture. The determining factor in uniting people into a nation is the development of production and economic relations. In socio-political terms, this leads to rapid education nation states. Today, the most common ethnic community of people is the nation. And this is not surprising, since it is the unification of people along national lines that creates the best preconditions for people to live, organize production, economic, socio-political and cultural life. Community economic life, a single language, a common territory, some features of the mental makeup of people, manifested in specific features Cultures are the main features of a nation. It can be said that a nation is a stable association of people connected by a common language, common territory, common economic life and certain characteristics of the mental makeup of people, expressed in specific cultural features of a given people.

As we see, ethnic communities of people have a historically transient nature, and this indicates that when certain conditions, associated with changing economic conditions and the need to establish new relationships between people, the emergence of new ethnic communities of people is possible.

Like many of his like-minded people who consider capitalism the most perfect form of socio-economic structure, Weber does not consider economic conditions as a fundamental prerequisite for the formation of nations. He is silent about the previous ethnic communities of people. A nation, according to Weber, cannot be defined based on the empirical properties that characterize it. Those who try to do this come to believe that certain groups of people have a specific sense of solidarity towards each other. IN in this case it is more about an emotional assessment than a conceptual approach. Meanwhile, in society there is neither agreement nor consensus on how to limit the number of such groups of people, nor on the nature of public actions that could be considered a manifestation of solidarity. In addition, according to Weber, a nation cannot be identified with the people of a separate state belonging to a specific political community. Numerous political communities, for example, in Austria before 1918 (the year of the collapse of the Austrian Empire) included social groups that decisively separated their “nation” from the “nations” of other groups (here the concept of nation is identified with the concept of nationality, which is illegal because, although These concepts are very similar, but there are significant differences between them). A nation cannot also be determined by the linguistic background of people, since people living in different countries (for example, North Americans and English) can speak the same language. On the other hand, such a community of people does not seem absolutely necessary, since in official documents used in interstate relations, along with the concept, for example, the Swiss nation, the concept of the Swiss people is used.

Some researchers consider cultural characteristics, inherent in one or another community speaking the same language. But this is not typical for everyone. This is acceptable for Austria, Russia and, to a lesser extent, the USA and Canada. Moreover, even those who speak the same language, even within the same country, can reject national homogeneity and claim belonging to a different culture. And for this they have certain reasons - different religions, differences in habits, customs, social structure, lifestyle. In addition, the manifestation of national different nations demonstrated in different ways. All this, according to Weber, gives reason to believe that, apart from emotional feelings and elements of prestige, there are no other convincing arguments that would justify the existence of nations. Judging by Weber's works, he prefers to analyze the life of society without taking into account the existence of ethnic communities, but only through the analysis of its socio-economic communities.

In general, Weber's views on ethnic communities of people and, in particular, on the nation reflect the situation that has developed in Western sociology on the issue of the essence and role of the nation in modern social life. Essentially, even among those who recognize the existence of this problem, there is no consensus on how it should be interpreted, and besides them, there are those who deny the need to deal with this issue at all, since it is allegedly created artificially.

Control questions

1. What is social stratification And social mobility in society?

2. The doctrine of Marxism about classes, social groups ah and the causes of class confrontation.

3. M. Weber on the social structure of society.

4. Clan, tribe, family, community - the original forms of community of people.

5. Nationality and nation, ways of their formation.

6. Forms of social relations and their essence (economic, legal, political, religious, etc.).