Social progress: concept, criteria and results

Targeted progressive development of all spheres of human civilization is defined as social progress. The concept, the criteria of this process have a lot of interpretations. History knows many ways of this movement forward in the form of both a rapid jump and progressive evolution.

General characteristics of social dynamics

So, the concept of social progress, its criteria are defined as all those prerequisites that contribute to the dynamic upward process of renewal and modernization. The main basis, its basis, is a scientific and technological revolution and a radical change in public consciousness under the influence of new teachings and ideologies. The multifacetedness of this concept does not allow us to give an unambiguous interpretation, nevertheless, according to the Marxist concept, the main source of social progress are the ways of material production and distribution of benefits. The lowest step is slavery with his servitude, and at the top is the society of universal prosperity (socialism). Social progress: the concept, the criteria of this process in liberal philosophical thought is also understood as the degree of economic and political freedom of the individual. The state guarantees the latter.

Social progress: concept, criteria

There are several very authoritative opinions about the modernization criteria, while they are diametrically opposed. In the basis of many researchers put a kind of scale of values, but it has significant differences. So, if in a totalitarian society material production develops intensively, at the same time the rights and freedoms of an individual and a citizen are at a rather low level, the Communist USSR and fascist Germany can serve as a vivid example of this postulate . Undoubtedly, social development and social progress are closely interrelated, and, it would seem, the concepts of one series, but progress is a cardinal, one might say, revolutionary change in society, while development is an evolutionary process, i.e. Translational. Accordingly, at one glance, progress can be recognized, the other denies it. However, all these criteria are subjective and have the right to exist.

Antagonism and unity of the society's improvement

Now let us dwell on such a concept as the contradictory nature of development and social progress. The concept, the criteria of the phenomenon under consideration are also rather ambiguous. If we take the central sign of social development, it turns out that the change of formations did not always help to increase the productive forces, and therefore this criterion loses its defining value. But the potential capabilities of the new system were much superior to the old system, therefore, it took a long time before real signs of ascending development appeared.

Exactly the same, and, perhaps, more characteristic contradiction arises when comparing capitalism and socialism. After all, initially the second mode of production arose in the country is not the most economically developed, but its introduction allowed it to enter the ranks of the leaders of world total production. These contradictions will continue to influence the general vector of the improvement of the social system, therefore the mode of production remains the most stable criterion of social evolution.