Social systems, their characteristics and types. Societal system: concept, structure, elements

Correlation of concepts by volume

Social change - the difference between the states of a social system over time.

Possible differences:

1. The composition of the system may change.

2. there may be a change in the functions performed by elements of society

3. The boundaries of the system may change.

4. Changes may occur in the system environment.

Social processes.

Social change is a single episode, a transition from one state of the system to another. The concept of process serves to describe the progress of successive and mutually dependent changes in the system (in this case, we call them phases or stages).

Social development is a change in society that leads to the emergence of new public relations, institutions, norms and values.

§ the direction of the process has positive character (population is growing; social production is increasing).

§ endogenous (internal) mechanisms of development of a given society . / exogenous factors that are beyond the boundaries of the social system under consideration, for example: climate change, natural disasters, natural disasters. Processes caused by external factors are not called development; they are rather reactive or adaptive processes. /

§ Irreversibility – this is the constancy of the processes of accumulation of quantitative and qualitative changes.

§ Pattern - This necessary process accumulation of changes.

Types of development of society .

1. The development of society has linear ascending nature. It is assumed that society goes through a number of successive stages (O. Comte, G. Spencer, E. Durkheim, F. Tennis)and etc.

2. Spasmodic – Marx, S. Kuhn

2. The development of society has cyclical, repeating nature. (N. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee, P. Sorokin, L. Gumilev and etc.

3. Nonlinear development of society (many options for the development of society). - S. L. Frank, M. Hatcher, D. Collman-

Under reform understand gradual smooth partial changes in society, which can cover various spheres of society - economic, political, social, spiritual. Social reform, do not affect the foundations of the social system of society, but only change its parts and structural elements.

Under social revolution refers to relatively rapid, comprehensive, fundamental changes in society. Revolutionary changes are abrupt and violent.

Social progress– this is a direction of development, characterized by a transition from lower to higher, to more advanced forms. Progress is a process that brings society closer to a state in which certain important social values are realized, to a state that is considered correct, fair, happy, worthy, etc.

To determine the progressiveness of a particular society, sociology has traditionally used the two most general criteria:

1) the level of labor productivity and welfare of the population;

2) the degree of freedom and responsibility of the individual, etc.

Modernization- a purposeful, planned approach of society to the model of modernity, following the example of a society recognized as the most developed.

Types of modernization:

The first type is organic modernization(classic chaotic modernization) - as a result of long-term internal development, typical for the USA and Western European countries, Australia

The second type is secondary ( inorganic, catching up, lagging ) modernization- typical for countries that tried to catch up with advanced countries by using the experience of the latter. (Russia, Türkiye, Brazil, Argentina, Balkans).

Forced option - new industrial countries (Asian tigers - South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore).

Patterns of social development

1. The law of acceleration of history. Each subsequent stage of development of society takes 2-3 times less time than the previous one. (Primitive society -3 thousand years; feudal - approximately: from the 5th century to the 15th century = 1000 years; capitalist - from the 16th century to the 20th century -500 years; information society -?

Term "societal"(societal) was introduced by T. Parsons and is one of those difficult to translate and ambiguously interpreted. In Russian sociology, this term was first used by academician G.V. Osipov. Back in the second half of the 60s, when developing the project “Social Organization of an Industrial Enterprise,” he drew the attention of project participants to the meaning of this new term. G.V. Osipov interpreted it as a society as a whole, or as a whole society; in this sense he also uses it in his basics textbook general theory sociology [Osipov G.V. Society as a societal system // Sociology. Fundamentals of general theory / Rep. ed. G.V. Osipov. M., 1998]. This is perhaps the main interpretation of this term in Russian sociology. It is also supported by the translators of T. Parsons' book "The System of Modern Societies."

In a broad sense object of societal sociology serves society as an integral system. And in a narrower sense, its object is the integrated core of this society - the societal community.

T. Parsons views the societal community as an integrative subsystem of society, the main function of which is to “determine the obligations arising from loyalty to the societal collective,” and the highest position in the hierarchy of loyalties belongs to the cultural legitimation of the normative order; in other words, it is the core of a larger society, integrated as a community based on socially approved values and norms.

Subject of societal sociology as one of the disciplines within the framework of general sociology: society as a whole, its functions, structures and processes, stages and trends of evolution. Societal theory as a system of principles and concepts that describe the emergence, composition, functioning and change of society.

The core of society as a system is the structured normative order through which the collective life of the population is organized. As an order, it contains values, differentiated and publicized norms and rules, all of which must be culturally relevant in order to be meaningful and legitimate. It establishes an understanding of membership that distinguishes between people who belong to society and those who do not. Issues concerning the “jurisdiction” of a normative system may make it impossible to make a precise correspondence between the status of being “subject” to normative obligations and the status of membership, since the imposition of a normative system appears to involve control (for example, through the policing function) through the sanctions used for and against people located on any territory. As long as these problems do not become critical, the societal collective can, when necessary, act effectively as a single whole. The same can be said about its various sub-collectives.

We'll call it unified education in its collective aspect, a societal community. As such, it is created by a normative system of order and by a set of statuses, rights and responsibilities corresponding to subgroup membership, the nature of which may vary among different subgroups of the community. For survival and development, a social community must maintain the unity of a common cultural orientation, generally shared (though not necessarily uniformly and unanimously) by its members as the basis of their social identity. What we are talking about here is the connection with a real cultural system. Must also be systematically satisfied the necessary conditions, concerning the integration of the organisms and personalities of the participants (and their relationship to the physical environment). All these factors are completely interdependent, although each of them is the focus for the crystallization of a separate mechanism.

In outlining the relationship between society and its environment, a relatively systematic classification of structural components was used. It is important to make this schema explicit.

Our original definition of societal community focused on the relationship between two factors: the normative order and the collectively organized population. For most general purposes in analyzing societies, we do not need to expand our classification of components by expanding the meanings of each of these factors. In each factor we will highlight those aspects that are primarily internal to the societal community and those that primarily connect it with surrounding systems.

In normative terms, we can separate norms and values. We consider values - in the sense of a model - as the main connecting element of social and cultural systems. Norms, unlike values, are primarily elements of a social system. They have regulative significance for social processes and relationships, but do not embody “principles” applicable beyond the boundaries of a social organization or, more often, even a particular social system. In more developed societies, the structural foundation of norms is the legal system.

When it comes to an organized population, collective organization is a category of intrasocial structure, and role is a category of boundary structure. A significant boundary relationship is a relationship with the personality of an individual member of a social system. The boundary with the organic-physical complex does not require special conceptualization in this context, although the result of the activity of both personal and cultural systems converges on an organism that is in the process of socialization, the implementation of its skills, etc.

These four structural categories—values, norms, collective organizations, roles—can be related to our general functional paradigm. Values are primary in maintaining the pattern of functioning of a social system. Norms primarily perform the function of integration: they regulate a huge number of processes that contribute to the implementation of value obligations. The functioning of a collective organization is primarily associated with the real achievement of goals in the interests of the social system. Individuals carry out societally important functions in a team as its members. And finally, the primary function of a role in a social system is adaptation. This is especially clear in relation to the “services” category. since the ability to perform meaningful role activities is the most general adaptive resource of any society, although it must be coordinated with cultural, organic and physical resources.

Any specific structural unit of a social system is always a combination of all four components - this classification uses components, not types. We often talk about a role or a collective organization as if they were concrete entities, but they are, strictly speaking, elliptical in nature. There is no collective organization without role membership and, conversely, there is no role that is not part of the collective organization. There is also no role or team that is not “governed by norms” and is not characterized by adherence to certain value patterns. For analytical purposes we can, for example, abstract the value components from the structure and describe them as cultural sites. But when they are used technically as categories of social structure, they always refer to components of social systems that also include all three other types of components.

However, all four categories of components are independent variables in nature. Knowledge of the value pattern of a collective organization does not create, for example, the possibility of deducing a role structure from it. Situations in which the content of two or more types of components vary jointly in such a way that the content of one can be directly inferred from the other are social or particular rather than general cases.

Thus, the same value patterns usually form part of significantly different blocks or subsystems in society and are often found at many levels in structural hierarchies. Moreover, the same norms often turn out to be essential for the functioning of various types operating units. So, legal rights property is determined by general normative elements, regardless of whether the owner of these rights is a family, a religious majority or a commercial firm. Of course, norms differ depending on the situation and function, but the grounds for their differentiation are different from the grounds for differentiation collective organizations and roles. Within certain limits, it is obvious that any collective involved in a certain situation or performing a certain function will be regulated by certain norms, regardless of its other properties. Finally, such independent variability is also characteristic of roles. For example, executive or management roles and certain types of professional roles are common to many types of teams, not just one.

The same basic principle of independent variation applies to the relationship between a social system and its environments.

The personality in its specific role, and not the total individual, is a member of the collective, and even of the societal community. For example, I am a member of certain international groups that are not parts of American societal society. The plural nature of the roles acquired by the individual is the main postulate of sociological theory and must be constantly kept in mind. As society evolves, role pluralism becomes more, rather than less, important, but it characterizes any society.

As an independent science, scientists have always tried to understand society as an organized whole by identifying its constituent elements. Such an analytical approach, universal for all sciences, should also be acceptable for a positive science of society. The attempts described above to imagine society as an organism, as a self-developing whole, with the ability to self-organize and maintain balance, were essentially an anticipation systematic approach. We can fully talk about a systemic understanding of society after L. von Bertalanffy created a general theory of systems.

Social system - it is an ordered whole, representing a collection of individual social elements - individuals, groups, organizations, institutions.

These elements are interconnected by stable connections and generally form a social structure. Society itself can be considered as a system consisting of many subsystems, and each subsystem is a system at its own level and has its own subsystems. Thus, from the point of view of the systems approach, society is something like a nesting doll, inside of which there are many smaller and smaller nesting dolls, therefore, there is a hierarchy of social systems. According to general principle systems theory, a system is something much more than just the sum of its elements, and as a whole, thanks to its integral organization, it has qualities that all elements taken separately did not have.

Any system, including a social one, can be described from two points of view: firstly, from the point of view of the functional relationships of its elements, i.e. in terms of structure; secondly, in terms of the relationship between the system and the outside world around it - the environment.

Relationships between system elements are supported by themselves, not directed by anyone or anything from the outside. The system is autonomous and does not depend on the will of the individuals included in it. Therefore, a systemic understanding of society is always associated with the need to solve a big problem: how to combine the free action of an individual and the functioning of the system that existed before him and, by its very existence, determines his decisions and actions. If we follow the logic of the systems approach, then, strictly speaking, there is no individual freedom at all, since society as a whole exceeds the sum of its parts, i.e. represents a reality of an immeasurably higher order than the individual; it measures itself in historical terms and scales that are incomparable with the chronological scale of the individual perspective. What can an individual know about the long-term consequences of his actions, which may turn out to be contrary to his expectations? It simply turns into “the wheel and cog of a common cause,” into the smallest element reduced to the volume of a mathematical point. Then, it is not the individual himself that comes into the perspective of sociological consideration, but his function, which, in unity with other functions, ensures the balanced existence of the whole.

Relationship between the system and the environment serve as a criterion for its strength and viability. What is dangerous for the system is what comes from outside: after all, everything inside works to preserve it. The environment is potentially hostile to the system, since it affects it as a whole, i.e. makes changes to it that may interfere with its functioning. The system is saved by the fact that it has the ability to spontaneously recover and establish a state of equilibrium between itself and the external environment. This means that the system is harmonious in nature: it gravitates towards internal balance, and its temporary disturbances represent only random failures in the operation of a well-coordinated machine. Society is like a good orchestra, where harmony and agreement are the norm, and discord and musical cacophony are the occasional and unfortunate exception.

The system knows how to reproduce itself without the conscious participation of the individuals included in it. If it functions normally, the next generations calmly and without conflict fit into its life, begin to act according to the rules dictated by the system, and in turn pass on these rules and skills to the next generations. Within the system, the social qualities of individuals are also reproduced. For example, in the system of a class society, representatives of the upper classes reproduce their educational and cultural level, raising their children accordingly, and representatives of the lower classes, against their will, reproduce their lack of education and their work skills in their children.

The system's characteristics also include the ability to integrate new social formations. It subordinates to its logic and forces newly emerging elements to work according to its rules for the benefit of the whole - new classes and social strata, new institutions and ideologies, etc. For example, the emerging bourgeoisie for a long time functioned normally as a class within the “third estate,” and only when the system of class society could no longer maintain internal balance did it break out of it, which meant the death of the entire system.

System characteristics of society

Society can be represented as a multi-level system. The first level is social roles, defining the structure of social interactions. Social roles are organized into various and, which constitute the second level of society. Each institution and community can be represented as a complex, stable and self-reproducing systemic organization. The differences in the functions performed by social groups and the opposition of their goals require a systemic level of organization that would maintain a single normative order in society. It is implemented in the cultural system and political power. Culture sets patterns human activity, supports and reproduces norms tested by the experience of many generations, and politic system legislative and legal acts regulate and strengthen connections between social systems.

The social system can be considered in four aspects:

how the interaction of individuals;
as group interaction;
as a hierarchy of social statuses (institutional roles);
as a totality social norms and values that determine the behavior of individuals.

A description of the system in its static state would be incomplete.

Society is a dynamic system, i.e. is in constant motion, development, changing its features, characteristics, states. The state of the system gives an idea of it at a specific point in time. The change of states is caused both by the influences of the external environment and by the needs of the development of the system itself.

Dynamic systems can be linear and nonlinear. Changes in linear systems are easily calculated and predicted, since they occur relative to the same stationary state. This is, for example, the free oscillation of a pendulum.

Society is a nonlinear system. This means that what is happening in it in different time under influence various reasons processes are determined and described by different laws. They cannot be put into one explanatory scheme, because there will certainly be changes that will not correspond to this scheme. That is why social change always contain a degree of unpredictability. In addition, if the pendulum returns to its previous state with 100% probability, society never returns back to any point in its development.

Society - open system . This means that it reacts to the slightest influences from the outside, to any accident. The reaction is manifested in the occurrence of fluctuations—unpredictable deviations from the stationary state and bifurcations—branching of the development trajectory. Bifurcations are always unpredictable; the logic of the previous state of the system is not applicable to them, since they themselves represent a violation of this logic. These are, as it were, moments of crisis when the usual threads of cause-and-effect relationships are lost and chaos ensues. It is at bifurcation points that innovations arise and revolutionary changes occur.

A nonlinear system is capable of generating attractors - special structures that turn into a kind of “goals” toward which processes of social change are directed. These are new complexes of social roles that did not exist before and which are organized into a new social order. This is how new preferences of mass consciousness arise: new political leaders, sharply gaining nationwide popularity, new political parties, groups, unexpected coalitions and alliances are formed, and a redistribution of forces occurs in the struggle for power. For example, during the period of dual power in Russia in 1917, unpredictable rapid social changes in a few months led to the Bolshevization of the soviets, an unprecedented increase in the popularity of new leaders, and ultimately to full shift the entire political system in the country.

Understanding society as a system went through a long evolution from the classical sociology of the era of E. Durkheim and K. Marx to modern works according to theory complex systems. Already in Durkheim, the development of social order is associated with the complication of society. The work of T. Parsons “The Social System” (1951) played a special role in understanding systems. He reduces the problem of the system and the individual to the relationship between systems, since he considers not only society, but also the individual as a system. Between these two systems, according to Parsons, there is interpenetration: it is impossible to imagine a personality system that would not be included in the system of society. Social action and its components are also part of the system. Despite the fact that the action itself is made up of elements, it appears externally as an integral system, the qualities of which are activated in the system of social interaction. In turn, the interaction system is a subsystem of action, since each individual act consists of elements of the cultural system, the personality system and the social system. Thus, society is a complex interweaving of systems and their interactions.

According to the German sociologist N. Luhmann, society is an autopoietic system - self-discriminating and self-renewing. The social system has the ability to distinguish “itself” from “others.” She herself reproduces and defines her own boundaries that separate her from the external environment. Moreover, according to Luhmann, the social system, unlike natural systems is built on the basis of meaning, i.e. in it its various elements (action, time, event) acquire semantic coordination.

Modern researchers of complex social systems focus their attention not only on purely macro-sociological problems, but also on questions of how systemic changes are realized at the level of life of individuals, separate groups and communities, regions and countries. They come to the conclusion that all changes occur at different levels and are interconnected in the sense that the “higher” arise from the “lower” and return again to the lower ones, influencing them. For example, social inequality stems from differences in income and wealth. This is not just an ideal measure of income distribution, but a real factor that produces certain social parameters and influences the lives of individuals. Thus, the American researcher R. Wilkinson showed that in cases where the degree of social inequality exceeds a certain level, it affects the health of individuals in itself, regardless of actual well-being and income.

Society has self-organizational potential, which allows us to consider the mechanism of its development, especially in a situation of transformation, from the standpoint of a synergetic approach. Self-organization refers to the processes of spontaneous ordering (transition from chaos to order), formation and evolution of structures in open nonlinear environments.

Synergetics - a new interdisciplinary direction of scientific research, within which the processes of transition from chaos to order and back (processes of self-organization and self-disorganization) in open nonlinear environments of various natures are studied. This transition is called the formation phase, which is associated with the concept of bifurcation or catastrophe - an abrupt change in quality. At the decisive moment of transition, the system must make a critical choice through the dynamics of fluctuations, and this choice occurs in the bifurcation zone. After a critical choice, stabilization occurs and the system develops further in accordance with the choice made. This is how, according to the laws of synergetics, the fundamental relationships between chance and external limitation, between fluctuation (randomness) and irreversibility (necessity), between freedom of choice and determinism are fixed.

Synergetics as a scientific movement arose in the second half of the 20th century. V natural sciences, however, gradually the principles of synergetics spread in the humanities, becoming so popular and in demand that at the moment synergetic principles are at the center of scientific discourse in the system of social and humanitarian knowledge.

Society as a social system

From the point of view of the systems approach, it can be considered as a system consisting of many subsystems, and each subsystem, in turn, is itself a system at its own level and has its own subsystems. Thus, society is something like a set of nesting dolls, when inside a large matryoshka there is a smaller doll, and inside it there is an even smaller one, etc. Thus, there is a hierarchy of social systems.

The general principle of systems theory is that a system is understood as something much more than just the sum of its elements - as a whole, thanks to its integral organization, possessing qualities that its elements taken separately do not have.

The relationships between the elements of the system are such that they are self-supporting; they are not directed by anyone or anything from the outside. The system is autonomous and does not depend on the will of the individuals included in it. Therefore, a systemic understanding of society is always associated with a big problem - how to combine the free action of an individual and the functioning of the system that existed before him and determines his decisions and actions by its very existence. What can an individual know about the long-term consequences of his actions, which may turn out to be contrary to his expectations? It simply turns into a “wheel and cog of the common cause,” into the smallest element, and it is not the individual himself who is subject to sociological consideration, but his function, which ensures, in unity with other functions, the balanced existence of the whole.

The relationship of a system with its environment serves as a criterion for its strength and viability. What is dangerous for the system is what comes from outside, since everything inside the system works to preserve it. The environment is potentially hostile to the system because it affects it as a whole, introducing changes into it that can disrupt its functioning. The system is preserved because it has the ability to spontaneously recover and establish a state of equilibrium between itself and the external environment. This means that the system gravitates towards internal balance and its temporary violations represent only random failures in the operation of a well-coordinated machine.

The system can reproduce itself. This happens without the conscious participation of the individuals involved. If it functions normally, the next generations calmly and without conflict fit into its life, begin to act according to the rules dictated by the system, and in turn pass on these rules and skills to their children. Within the system, the social qualities of individuals are also reproduced. For example, in a class society, representatives of the upper classes reproduce their educational and cultural level, raising their children accordingly, and representatives of the lower classes, against their will, reproduce in their children the lack of education and their work skills.

The characteristics of the system also include the ability to integrate new social formations. It subordinates the newly emerging elements - new classes, social strata, etc. - to its logic and forces them to act according to their rules for the benefit of the whole. For example, the nascent bourgeoisie functioned normally for a long time as part of the “third estate” (the first estate is the nobility, the second is the clergy), but when the system of class society could not maintain internal balance, it “broke out” of it, which meant the death of the entire system.

So, society can be represented as a multi-level system. The first level is social roles that set the structure of social interactions. Social roles are organized into institutions and communities that constitute the second level of society. Each institution and community can be represented as a complex system organization, stable and self-reproducing. Differences in functions performed, conflicting goals social groups can lead to the death of society if there is no systemic level of organization that would maintain a unified normative order in society. It is realized in the system of culture and political power. Culture sets patterns of human activity, maintains and reproduces norms tested by the experience of many generations, and the political system regulates and strengthens connections between social systems through legislative and legal acts.

Since the emergence of sociology as an independent science, scientists have always tried to understand society as an organized whole by identifying its constituent elements. Such an analytical approach, universal for all sciences, should also be acceptable for a positive science of society. It is appropriate to note that the attempts described above to present society as an organism, as a self-developing whole, with the ability to self-organize and maintain balance, were essentially an anticipation of the systems approach. We can fully talk about a systemic understanding of society after L. von Bertalanffy created a general theory of systems.

Social system -϶ᴛᴏ an ordered whole, which is a collection of individual social elements - individuals, groups, organizations, institutions.

These elements are interconnected by stable connections and generally form a social structure. Society itself can be considered as a system consisting of many subsystems, and each subsystem is a system at that level and has its own subsystems. Based on all of the above, we come to the conclusion that from the perspective of a systems approach, society is something like a nesting doll, inside of which there are many smaller and smaller nesting dolls, therefore, there is a hierarchy of social systems. According to the general principle of systems theory, a system is something much more than just the sum of its elements, and as a whole, thanks to its integral organization, it has qualities that all elements did not have, taken separately.

Any system, incl. social, can be described from two points of view: firstly, from the position of the functional relationships of its elements, i.e. from the position of structure; secondly, from the position of the relationship between the system and the outside world around it - the environment.

Relationships between system elements are supported by themselves, not directed by anyone or anything from the outside. The system is autonomous and does not depend on the will of the individuals included in it. Therefore, a systemic understanding of society is always associated with the need to solve a big problem: how to combine the individual’s free action and the functioning of the system that existed before him and whose very existence determines his decisions and actions. If we follow the logic of the systems approach, then, strictly speaking, there is no body of the individual at all, since society as a whole exceeds the sum of their parts, i.e. represents a reality of an immeasurably higher order than the individual; it measures itself in historical terms and scales that are incomparable with the chronological scale of the individual perspective. What can an individual know about the long-term consequences of their actions, which may turn out to be contrary to his expectations? It simply turns into “the wheel and cog of a common cause,” into the smallest element reduced to the volume of a mathematical point. Then, it is not the individual himself that comes into the perspective of sociological consideration, but his function, which, in unity with other functions, ensures the balanced existence of the whole.

Relationship between the system and the environment serve as a criterion for its strength and viability. It is worth saying that what comes from outside is dangerous for the system: after all, everything inside works to preserve it. The environment is potentially hostile to the system, since it affects it as a whole, i.e. makes changes to it that may disrupt its functioning. The system is saved by the fact that it has the ability to spontaneously recover and establish a state of equilibrium between itself and the external environment. This means that the system is harmonious by its nature: it gravitates towards internal balance, and its temporary disturbances represent exclusively random failures in the operation of a well-coordinated machine. Society is like a good orchestra, where harmony and agreement will be the norm, and discord and musical cacophony will be the occasional and unfortunate exception.

The system knows how to reproduce itself without the conscious participation of the individuals included in it. If it functions normally, the next generations calmly and without conflict fit into its life, begin to act according to the rules dictated by the system, and in turn pass on these rules and skills to the next generations. Within the system, the social qualities of individuals are also reproduced. For example, in the system of a class society, representatives of the upper classes reproduce their educational and cultural level, raising their children in a special way, and representatives of the lower classes, against their will, reproduce their lack of education and labor skills in their children. their children.

The characteristics of the system also include the ability to integrate new social formations. It is worth noting that it subordinates to its logic and forces newly emerging elements to work according to its rules for the benefit of the whole - new classes and social strata, new institutions and ideologies, etc. For example, the nascent bourgeoisie functioned normally for a long time as a class within the “third estate,” and only when the system of class society could no longer maintain internal balance did it break out of it, which meant the death of the entire system.

System characteristics of society

Society can be represented as a multi-level system. The first level is social roles that set the structure of social interactions. Social roles are organized into various institutions and communities, which constitute the second level of society. Let us note that each institution and community can be represented in the form of a complex stable and self-reproducing systemic organization. The differences in the functions performed by social groups and the opposition of their goals require a systemic level of organization that would support a single normative order in society. It is worth noting that it is implemented in the system of culture and political power. Culture sets patterns of human activity, supports and reproduces norms tested by the experience of many generations, and the political system regulates and strengthens connections between social systems through legislative and legal acts.

The social system can be considered in four aspects:

how the interaction of individuals;
as group interaction;
as a hierarchy of social statuses (institutional roles);
as a set of social norms and values that determine the behavior of individuals.

A description of the system in its static state would be incomplete.

Society is a dynamic system, i.e. is in constant movement, development, changes ϲʙᴏ and features, signs, states. The state of the system gives an idea of it at a specific point in time. The change of states is caused both by the influences of the external environment and by the needs of the development of the system itself.

Society is a nonlinear system. This means that the processes occurring in it at different times under the influence of different causes are determined and described by different laws. They cannot be put into one explanatory scheme, because there will certainly be changes that will not correspond to this scheme. This is why social changes always contain a degree of unpredictability. Except for the above, if the pendulum returns to its previous state with 100% probability, society never returns back to some point in its development.

Society is an open system. This means that it reacts to the slightest influences from the outside, to any accident. The reaction will consist of fluctuations—unpredictable deviations from the stationary state and bifurcations—branching of the development trajectory. Bifurcations are always unpredictable; the logic of the previous state of the system is not applicable to them, since they themselves represent a violation of this logic. These are, as it were, moments of crisis when the usual threads of cause-and-effect relationships are lost and chaos ensues. It is at bifurcation points that innovations arise and revolutionary changes occur.

A nonlinear system is capable of generating attractors - special structures that turn into some kind of “goals” towards which the processes of social change are directed. These are new complexes of social roles, which did not exist before and which are organized into a new social order. This is how new preferences of mass consciousness arise: new political leaders are put forward, sharply gaining nationwide popularity, new political parties, groups, unexpected coalitions and alliances are formed, and a redistribution of forces occurs in the struggle for power. For example, during the period of dual power in Russia in 1917, unpredictable rapid social changes in a few months led to the Bolshevization of the soviets, an unprecedented increase in the popularity of new leaders, and ultimately to a complete change in the entire political system in the country.

Understanding society as a system has undergone a long evolution from the classical sociology of the era of E. Durkheim and K. Marx to modern work on the theory of complex systems. Already in Durkheim, the development of social order is associated with the complication of society.
It is worth noting that the work of T. Parsons “The Social System” (1951) played a special role in the understanding of systems. It is worth noting that he brings the problem of the system and the individual to the relationship between systems, since he considers not only society, but also the individual as a system. Between these two systems, according to Parsons, there is interpenetration: it is impossible to imagine a personality system that would not be included in the system of society. Social action and its components will also be part of the system. Despite the fact that the action itself is made up of elements, externally it appears as an integral system, the qualities of which are activated in the system of social interaction. In this case, the interaction system will be a subsystem of action, since each individual act consists of elements of a cultural system, a personality system and a social system. Based on all of the above, we come to the conclusion that society is a complex interweaving of systems and their interactions.

According to the German sociologist N. Luhmann, society is an autopoietic system - self-discriminating and self-renewing. The social system has the ability to distinguish “itself” from “others.” It is worth noting that she herself reproduces and defines her own boundaries that separate her from the external environment. Excluding the above, according to Luhmann, a social system, unlike natural systems, is built on the basis of meaning, i.e. in it its various elements (action, time, event) acquire semantic coordination

Modern researchers of complex social systems focus their attention not only on purely macro-sociological problems, but also on questions of how systemic changes are realized at the level of life of individuals, individual groups and communities, regions and countries. It is worth noting that they come to the conclusion that all changes occur at different levels and are interconnected in the sense that the “higher” arise from the “lower” and return again to the lower, influencing them. For example, social inequality stems from differences in income and wealth. This is not just an ideal measure of income distribution, but a real factor that produces certain social parameters and influences the lives of individuals. Thus, the American researcher R. Wilkinson showed that in cases where the degree of social inequality exceeds a certain level, it affects the health of individuals in itself, regardless of actual well-being and income.

Synergetics as a scientific movement arose in the second half of the 20th century. in the natural sciences, but gradually the principles of synergetics spread into the humanities, becoming so popular and in demand that at the moment synergetic principles are at the center of scientific discourse in the system of social and humanitarian knowledge.

Society as a social system

Society from the perspective of a systems approach can be considered as a system consisting of many subsystems, and each subsystem, in turn, is itself a system at that level and has subsystems. Based on all of the above, we come to the conclusion that society is something like a set of nesting dolls, when inside a large matryoshka there is a smaller doll, and inside it there is an even smaller one, etc. Based on all of the above, we come to the conclusion that there is a hierarchy of social systems.

The general principle of systems theory is essentially that a system is understood as something much more than just the sum of its elements - as a whole, thanks to its integral organization, possessing qualities that its elements, taken separately, do not have. The material was published on http://site

The relationships between the elements of the system are such that they are self-supporting; they are not directed by anyone or anything from the outside. The system is autonomous and does not depend on the will of the individuals included in it. Therefore, a systemic understanding of society is always associated with a big problem - how to combine the free action of an individual and the functioning of the system that existed before him and determines his decisions and actions by his very existence. What can an individual know about the long-term consequences of their actions, which may turn out to be contrary to his expectations? It simply turns into a “wheel and cog of the common cause,” into the smallest element, and it is not the individual himself who is subject to sociological consideration, but his function, which ensures, in unity with other functions, the balanced existence of the whole.

The relationship of a system with its environment serves as a criterion for its strength and viability. It is worth saying that what comes from outside is dangerous for the system, since everything inside the system works to preserve it. The environment is potentially hostile to the system because it affects it as a whole, introducing changes into it that can disrupt its functioning. The system is preserved because it has the ability to spontaneously recover and establish a state of equilibrium between itself and the external environment. This means that the system gravitates towards internal balance and its temporary violations represent exclusively random failures in the operation of a well-coordinated machine.

The system can reproduce itself. This happens without the conscious participation of the individuals involved. If it functions normally, the next generations calmly and without conflict fit into its life, begin to act according to the rules dictated by the system, and in turn pass on these rules and skills to their children. Within the system, the social qualities of individuals are also reproduced. For example, in a class society, representatives of the upper classes reproduce their educational and cultural level, properly raising their children, and representatives of the lower classes, against their will, reproduce in their children a lack of education and labor skills.

The characteristics of the system also include the ability to integrate new social formations. It is worth noting that it subordinates newly emerging elements—new classes, social strata, etc.—to its logic and forces it to act according to its rules for the benefit of the whole. For example, the nascent bourgeoisie functioned normally for a long time as part of the “third estate” (the first estate is the nobility, the second is the clergy), but when the system of class society could not maintain internal balance, it “broke out” of it, which meant the death of the entire system.

Thus, society can be represented as a multi-level system. The first level is social roles that set the structure of social interactions. Social roles are organized into institutions and communities, which constitute the second level of society. Let us note that each institution and community can be presented in the form of a complex system organization, stable and self-reproducing. Differences in the functions performed, opposition to the goals of social groups can lead to the death of society if there is no systemic level of organization that would support a unified normative order in society. It is worth noting that it is implemented in the system of culture and political power. Culture sets patterns of human activity, maintains and reproduces norms tested by the experience of many generations, and the political system regulates and strengthens connections between social systems through legislative and legal acts.

System- an ordered set of elements interconnected and forming some integral unity. This definition is inherent in all systems.

The definition of a system assumes:

vision of elements, components of the system as a whole
understanding the connections between system elements
interaction of system elements with each other
isolation of the system from the environment
interaction of the system with the environment
the emergence as a result of the above phenomena of new phenomena, states and processes

The concept of a social system is one of the basic concepts of sociology, as well as the sociology of management.

Social system- a holistic education, the main elements of which are people, their relationships and interactions.

Social system- associations of people jointly implementing a certain target program and acting on the basis of certain norms, rules, and procedures.

Main characteristics (signs) of the social system:

hierarchy of statuses of its elements
the presence of a self-government mechanism in the system (subject of management)
varying degrees of self-awareness of objects and subjects of management
the presence of different holistic orientations of its elements
the presence of formal and informal interpersonal and intergroup relations

Properties of the social system:

Integrity. A system is a collection of elements; it represents the connections between them, which are ordered and organized. Integrity is characterized by the strength of adhesion or the strength of connection between the elements of the system and between the subject and object of control. Integrity is maintained as long as the strength of connections within the system exceeds the strength of connections of the same elements with elements of other systems (staff turnover);
Structurality – internal structure something, arrangement of elements. The structure preserves the basic properties of the system under different internal and external changes. Social structure includes division by socio-demographic (gender, age, education, marital status, nationality, total work experience, income level); and qualification (profession, qualification: position held, length of service in this position, level special education). The structure, on the one hand, shows the dismemberment of the system, and on the other, the interconnection and functional dependence between its elements (components), which determines the properties of the system as a whole;
Hierarchy– the principle of structural organization of complex, multi-level systems, ensuring orderly interaction between the levels of the system. The need for hierarchical construction of systems is due to the fact that the management process is associated with the receipt, processing and use of large amounts of information. There is a redistribution of information flows, as it were, across the stages and functional services of the management structure (pyramid). In social systems, hierarchy is a system of positions, titles, ranks, arranged in order of subordination from lower to higher and observance of subordination between them. Bureaucratic organizations with a closely organized structure are characterized by a strict system of subordination. The hierarchical structure of the management system determines the following tasks:
- clearly define the hierarchy of goals in management concepts and practices (tree of goals);
- monitor and constantly adjust the measure of centralization and decentralization, i.e. a measure of dependence and autonomy between levels of management;
- work out organizational and legal norms, dispersal of decision-making centers, levels of responsibility and power;
- create conditions and develop procedures for the development of self-government and self-organization skills;
- identify and take into account in the management process the hierarchy of needs and motives of employees at different structural levels;
- analyze the hierarchy of shared values various groups personnel for the development and implementation of the organizational culture program;
- take into account hierarchical weight in management practice, i.e. the importance of individual groups and individuals in the structure of informal relations.
Entropy– a measure of uncertainty in the behavior and state of the system, as well as a measure of the irreversibility of real processes in it; degree of disorder of the system – low level her organization. This state is, first of all, associated with a deficiency of organizing information, with the asymmetry of information exchange between the subject and the object of management. Information performs the most important social function. It determines human behavior in general, and organizational behavior in particular. Well-established information exchange reduces the entropy (uncertainty) behavior of individuals and the system as a whole. In sociology and management psychology, deviant behavior is called deviant. It disrupts the organizational order, which can lead to the destruction of the system. This is a trend that actually exists in every system and therefore management actions are needed to localize it. For this, 4 types of influence are used:
- direct external control with the application of necessary sanctions;
- internal control (self-control) – cultivation of norms and values that correspond to a given organizational culture;
- indirect control associated with a person’s identification with reference groups and individuals;
- expanding capabilities to meet critical needs within specific systems.
Self management – general state systems depends on the quality of management and (or) the ability to self-organize. Any social system for its survival, functioning and development self-organizes and self-governs. These properties are realized under the influence of objective and subjective factors. Objective ones include:
- significant needs of society, sectors of the national economy, settlements of various sizes, labor organizations And individual person;
- decrees, orders, laws, charters;
- political system;
- level of development of productive forces;
- space and time as objectively acting;
- social roles as models of expected behavior;
- management principles;
- traditions, values, norms and other cultural universals.

Subjective factors:

goals, ideas, their organizational potential;
community of interests;
trust between people (manager and performer);
the personality of the leader, his organizational abilities and leadership qualities;
initiative, enterprise of individuals or groups of people;
professionalism of organizational and managerial activities.

The combination of these factors reproduces the network of functional connections and ensures order in the system.

Adaptability. Each system depends on the environment and its changes, therefore, in the management process it is necessary to ensure external adaptation of the system through internal integration of its elements, adequate external environment. Internal restructuring must be elastic, soft... In this regard, the concept of Parsens' structural-functional analysis is interesting. His key idea he understands the category of equilibrium special condition in the interaction of the system with the external environment. This equilibrium state is ensured by the following factors:
- the ability of the system to adapt to the external environment and its changes;
- goal setting – developing goals and mobilizing resources to achieve them;
- internal integration - maintaining internal organizational unity and orderliness, restrictions possible deviations in organizational behavior;
- maintaining value patterns, reproducing value systems, norms, rules, traditions and other cultural components of the system that are significant for individuals;

The equilibrium state of the system is influenced differently by socio-demographic and professional groups. The degree of influence of each group depends on the extent to which its representatives recognize the goals and norms of the system and implement them in their behavior. With an insufficient level of self-government, the need for managerial influence by the power structures of the system arises.

Self-development - the presence in the system of driving forces that understand the need for development and are capable of making this process manageable. Important aspects:
- do the elements of the system have a need for self-development, how meaningful is it and how is it objectified;
- to what extent individuals, as elements of a system, are aware of the interconnection own development with the development of the system;
- awareness by the subject of management of this system of the first and second aspects, and most importantly, awareness of his role as a “generator of ideas” for the development of the system and organizer of the process of materialization of these ideas.

Factors that hinder the self-development of the system:

lack of leaders and creative individuals;
frequent changes of managers;
instability of management strategy;
idleness of the leadership and management apparatus at all levels;
lack of attention to employee needs;
low professionalism of employees and managers;
bureaucratization – excessive dependence of the structural components of the system, especially vertically.
Scale determines the structure of the social system. The structure of society is more complex and multifaceted than the structure of a labor organization.