G.Osipov
__TITLE__
SOCIOLOGY---
Problems
of Theory and Method
__TEXTFILE_BORN__ 2007-04-16T18:52:15-0700
__TRANSMARKUP__ "Y. Sverdlov"
PROGRESS PUBLISHERS
MOSCOW
[1]
Translated from the Russian by David Myshne
Edited by Jim Riordan
Designed by Klara Vysotskaya
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Ha OHIAU&CKOM H3btKe
__COPYRIGHT__
First printing 1969
The sum and substance of the modern epoch is the transition of all countries and peoples to socialism which was ushered in by the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia. This epoch is one of struggle between two distinctly different social systems and at the same time a chronicle of socialist and national liberation revolutions. The struggle between the two ideologies---progressive and reactionary--- waged in the modern world is a reflection of the historical process of transition to the new society. Success in the ideological struggle depends greatly on people's political awareness, the intensity of their effort and faith in the justness of their cause and their determination to win.
Today a new situation has arisen. Due both to economic achievements of all the peoples of socialist countries and to the political success of national liberation and democratic movements a new alignment of the class forces in the world has taken place. The more victories are scored by the world socialist system, the more aggravated becomes the class struggle and the subtler and more disguised the types and forms of the struggle of imperialist ideology. In particular, it increases its attempts to discredit communism.
Imperialism uses sociology as one of its most refined means of influencing the masses ideologically. As an independent science, sociology came into being in consequence of the differentiation and integration of the sciences concerned with nature, society and thought. As a result, 5 individual disciplines broke away from philosophy and became sciences in their own right, such as astronomy, physics, biology, psychology, formal and mathematical logic, ethics, aesthetics and semiotics.
It was some time before sociology was recognised as an independent science. Its elevation to independent scientific status resulted from the changes that occurred in the structure of philosophy, namely, increasing interest in the materialist conception of history and empirical studies of man's relationship to society. As sociology developed principles of sociological investigation were elaborated, methodology from other sciences was applied, and specific social studies were made. Similarly, sociologists have discussed the relationship between sociology and philosophy, between sociology and other sciences, and the precise subject matter *nd social functions of sociology.
[6] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ PART I __ALPHA_LVL1__ MARXIST SOCIOLOGY __NUMERIC_LVL2__ Chapter 1 __ALPHA_LVL2__ PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIOLOGY __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 1. Subject Matter of PhilosophyPhilosophy as a science deals with general laws governing nature, society and human thought. These laws are dialectical-materialist and universal, affecting all phenomena, processes and relationships in the environment. A major contribution of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to philosophy was that while developing philosophical materialism they applied it to the study of human society. The discovery of the materialist conception of history implied not simply an enlargement of the sphere governed by philosophical laws, but the inclusion of human activity, particularly in historical perspective, in the philosophical system. From then on the concepts ``dialectical'' and ``historical'' essentially became identical.
By incorporating human social activity into philosophical science, Marx and Engels created a single integral philosophical system. The distinction between the two disciplines---dialectical materialism (system of general laws governing everything) and sociology (system of social laws, i.e.,-laws governing society only)---within its framework is therefore a formal tribute to past traditions. Recently attempts made in some philosophical works to regard general laws as philosophical laws have often been extended to other sciences like biology. This has damaged both philosophy and specific sciences. The concrete phenomena and 7 processes were studied in general, often dilettantishly, and, instead of the general dialectical-materialist laws, some philosophers ``analysed'' the general laws of concrete spheres of knowledge. Not being specialists in these sciences, these philosophers have erroneously evaluated a number of great achievements in physics, chemistry and biology and disregarded the existence of such sciences as cybernetics and semiotics.
Philosophy does not replace the specific sciences; it rests on a generalisation of the achievements of the natural and social sciences, on human practice and on new universal laws and categories. Similarly, Marxist philosophy has expanded to include such categories as system, structure and function.
Like mathematics, philosophy is neither a natural nor a social science. Today mathematics acts as the language of all sciences. It makes it possible to express things and events in precise quantitative values. Philosophy is similarly a general mode of thought which reflects the historical development of natural and social sciences. Like mathematics, philosophy uses neither microscope nor chemical agents; instead, it employs the power of abstraction.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 2. Philosophical Problems of Specific SciencesPhilosophical studies are not confined to the general laws of the objective world. Today the function of philosophy is to explain and interpret scientifically the principal trends and laws of the specific sciences. Consequently, the various branches of philosophy include the philosophy of history (historical materialism), social philosophy, human philosophy, philosophy of natural science, philosophy of technology, philosophy of psychology and philosophy of logic.
The development of materialist dialectics as the most general mode of thought, on the one hand, and its penetration of the specific (positive) sciences, on the other, signify a change in the, role and place of philosophy in the natural and social sciences. It was precisely this process that Engels referred to when he wrote: ``Only when natural and historical science has become imbued with dialectics will all the philosophical rubbish---Bother than the pure theory of 8 thought---be superfluous, disappearing in positive science" [4; 210). ``For philosophy, which has been expelled from nature and history, there remains the realm of pure thought, the theory of the laws of the thought process itself, logic and dialectics" [2; II, 400--01).
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 3. Philosophy of History, Social Philosophy and SociologySocial life stems from the various spheres of human activity---economic, social, political and spiritual. In contrast to the specific social sciences---economics, sociology and politics---historical materialism (philosophy of history) deals with the common characteristics that link all these spheres of human social activity into a single historical process. Historical materialism is a concept used ``to designate that view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another" [2; II, 102].
Whereas the subject matter of sociology is only one sphere of human social activity---civic---the subject matter of historical materialism is society as a whole, the interdependence of its various aspects in historical development. Historical materialism as a science concerns general laws governing the emergence, development and changes of socio-economic formations.
Further, social philosophy cannot be identified with sociology. Its sphere is not sociology, but the dialectics of social development. Its subject matter is the study of the specificity of manifestation of dialectical materialist laws (consciousness and being, transition of quantitative to qualitative changes, etc.) in social life and the discovery of new dialectical aspects in the light of modern social development. The dialectical-materialist analysis of social life enables us to determine scientifically the general direction, the real motive forces and internal laws and various forms of historical development, and general methods of resolving contradictions. That is precisely why materialist philosophy is the essence of Marxism, the ideological 9 weapon of the working class and all progressive forces in their struggle for social progress, for socialism and communism.
Thus, dialectical materialism has enriched philosophy by indicating the main direction of social development, the specific character of bourgeois society in the imperialist epoch, the variety of forms of transition from capitalism to socialism, the laws of transition from socialism to communism, and the character of socialist development as nonantagonistic contradictions arise.
It is important to note that the incorporation of general laws of social development into philosophical laws harms both philosophy and sociology. It causes philosophy to neglect its study of philosophical problems proper, and sociology to deal with general discourses about these laws. From the methodological point of view it is unnecessary to include the law of evolution in philosophical laws, as it concerns the world of biological phenomena. It is just as absurd to ascribe to this system the law of correspondence of the production relations to the level of development of the productive forces, the law of social revolution, the law that determines the role of the material relations in the system of all social relations, the law of class struggle and abolition of class differences, laws which belong to the world of social phenomena.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 4. Methodological Significance of Materialist PhilosophyPhilosophy is socially significant because it gives the investigator in any given science a knowledge of the most general categories of objective reality. Knowledge of these tested categories considerably shortens the process of scientific cognition in all specific sciences and from the very outset provides a general scientific approach to the analysis of things and events. This means that philosophy is primarily of methodological importance to all sciences. The establishment of the materialist conception of history and elaboration of the problems of historical materialism have provided a scientific basis for all the social sciences---- political economy, sociology, social psychology, etc. That is why Lenin called the materialist conception of history ``the synonym of social science" [1; 1,142].
10In sociology, the philosophical method plays so important a part that scientific sociology only became possible when the dialectical materialist method had been extended to social life, with the discovery of historical materialism. Moreover, Marx not only brought the science of society (sociology) into line with the materialist foundation, but also reconstructed it in accordance with this basis. He singled out the economic from the various social spheres by denoting production relations as basic and primary, determining all other social relations. Marx wrote: ``In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or---what is but a legal expression for the same thing---with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the. material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic---in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions 11 of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production. No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve, since looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution exist or are at least in the process of formation" [2; I, 362--63).
Having discovered the materialist conception of history Marx formulated the basic law of human history, namely, ``... the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate means of subsistence and consequently the degree of economic development, attained by a given people or during a given epoch form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas of religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case" [2; II, 167).
Analysis of the production relations indicated the recurrence of aspects of social life and enabled philosophers to regard the systems of different countries as a single basic concept, namely a socio-economic formation.
Marx's theory of socio-economic formations proved of similar importance to sociology as did Charles Darwin's theory of the origin of the species to biology. Lenin wrote: ``Just as Darwin put an end to the view of animal and plant species being unconnected, fortuitous, 'created by God' and immutable, and was the first to put biology on an absolutely scientific basis by establishing the mutuability and the succession of species, so Marx put an end to the view of society being a mechanical aggregation of individuals which allows of all sorts of modification at the will of the authorities (or, if you like, at the will of society and the government) and which emerges and changes 12 casually, and was the first to put sociology on a scientific basis by establishing the concept of the economic formation of society as the sum total of given production relations, by establishing the fact that the development of such formations is a process of natural history" [1; 1, 142).
Just as the theory of the origin of the species is a system of general laws of the biological world, so the theory of socio-economic formations is a system of general laws of the social world. To deny sociology the right to independent existence and to identify it with the philosophy of history simply cuts it off from life, obfuscates our understanding of philosophical laws. Consequently, such philosophical works tend to examine the general laws of social development and ignore the specific forms of their manifestation; yet these are a product of people's subjective activities, the complex mechanism of the action of these laws.
It is equally wrong for sociologists to disregard philosophy. To do so inevitably vulgarises sociology. Philosophy and sociology are organically connected since their fundamental theoretical and methodological principles coincide.
Firstly, the theory of socio-economic formations pertains simultaneously both to philosophical and sociological theories.
Secondly, the basic philosophical concepts and categories, such as consciousness and being, the material and the ideal, are common both to philosophy and sociology.
Thirdly, such social concepts as society and social class, in their historical development are also common to philosophy and sociology.
'
Fourthly, the individual and his activity are the main subjects of both philosophical and sociological studies.
Philosophy provides sociology with a scientific theory of social development, general concepts, a scientific system of dialectical-materialist method and means of analysing empirical data and constructing theoretical models. Sociology furnishes particular material for philosophical generalisations, and sets problems to philosophy which, as we shall see below, sociology by itself is unable to resolve.
13 __NUMERIC_LVL2__ Chapter 2 __ALPHA_LVL2__ GENERAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 1. Social InteractionSociety is a historical product of the social interaction of people. The concept of social interaction is the initial concept of the socio-economic formation. Social interaction is a reciprocal process acting through the medium of two or more social factors within the framework of a single process under certain conditions of time and place.
The materialist conception of social interaction specifies a successive system of interaction of the major aspects of social history, with stress ori the economic aspect as the determining one. As Engels wrote: ``The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged" [2; II, 136).
The interaction of the various aspects of social life with the determining importance of the economic factor lends to the development of socio-economic formations the character of a natural historical process. In this connection Marx wrote: ``Assume a particular state of development in the productive faculties of man and you will get a corresponding form of commerce and consumption. Assume particular degrees of development of production, commerce and consumption and you will have a corresponding form of social constitution, a corresponding civil society. Assume a particular civil society and you will get a particular political system, which is only the official expression of civil society" [2; II, 442).
At the same time, every social aspect represents a complex system of interacting elements, which gives them the semblance of independent development and function.
14 __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 2. Economic System of Social InteractionHuman economic relationships basically determine social development, and establish the direction, character and content of the functioning of all other social systems. On this score Engels wrote: ``The economic structure of society always furnishes the real basis, starting from which we can alone work out the ultimate explanation of the whole superstructure of juridical institutions, as well as of the religious, philosophical and other ideas of a given historical period" [2; II, 134--35).
By economic relations Marx and Engels meant the mode ``by which human beings of a given society produce their means of subsistence and exchange the products among themselves (in so far as division of labour exists). Thus the entire technique of production and transport is here included. According to our conception, this technique also determines the manner and method of exchange and, further, the distribution of products and with it, after the dissolution of gentile society, also the division into classes, and hence the relations of lordship and servitude and with them the state, politics, law, etc. Further included in economic relations are the geographical basis on which they operate and those remnants of earlier stages of economic development which have actually been transmitted and have survived---often only through tradition or by force of inertia; also, of course, the external environment which surrounds this form of society" [2; II, 503--04).
The law of correspondence between the productive forces and production relations determines changes in the economic structure. ``With the acquisition of the new productive faculties men change their mode of production and with the mode of production they change all the economic relations which have been merely the necessary relations of their particular mode of production" [2; II, 443).
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 3. Civil SocietyCivil society is a system of human social interaction in historically established social forms (or forms of intercourse) mediated by economic interaction. It is the interaction between individuals, individuals and social groups, 15 individuals and social institutions, etc. The relationships that arise from a certain system of social interaction are called social relations. Social relations, then, are relations among people developing under historically established social forms, under specific conditions of time and place. They comprise class, national, group, socio-psychological and individual relations. The aggregate of all these relations within an economic structure is called the social structure of society.
Human relationships are based on aims, values, patterns and norms; their character and substance are influenced by social forms within which people's activities take place in industrial, agricultural, urban, rural, familial, school life, etc.
A change in the social forms of human interaction inev itably causes a change in the aims, values, patterns and norms, which ultimately determine people's social attitudes towards one another. Changes in economic relations determine changes in the social forms.
As Marx points out: ``In order not to forfeit the fruits of civilisation, they are obliged, from the moment when the form of their commerce no longer corresponds to the productive forces acquired, to change all their traditional social forms" [2; II, 443). For example, the privileges, the institution of guilds and corporations, the entire system of medieval regulation were social forms or relations which corresponded to the acquired productive forces and the formerly existing state of society from which these institutions derived. It was under the protection of these forms and their regulation that economic relations developed, and people would have lost the fruits of all this had they not wanted to preserve the social forms under which these economic relations had formed. Thus, in conformity with their productive forces, people establish the social forms in which they produce their means of subsistence, as well as the ideas and concepts which are the abstract idealistic expression of these social forms.
Economic relations form on the basis of the material base while the social forms afford the necessary conditions for shaping the economic relations, which ultimately leads to replacement of the old social forms by new ones.
16The social forms are not only an expression of the economic structure of society, they also essentially influence the course of historical development. Marx made it quite clear that historical development is affected by ``the political forms of the class struggle and its results, including constitutions established by the victorious class, juridical systems, and even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the minds of the participants, political, legal, philosophical theories, religious views and their enshrinement in religious dogma. They all influence historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. All these elements interact and, amid all the endless host of accidents the economic movement finally asserts itself as necessary. Otherwise the application of the theory to any period of history one chose would be easier than the solution of a simple equation of the first degree" [2; II, 488].
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 4. Social Structure and the PersonalityWhile society's economic and social structure determines the character and substance of human social activities, it is itself the result of these activities. ``The productive forces are the result of practical human energy, but this energy is itself circumscribed by the conditions in which men find themselves, by the productive forces acquired, by the social form which exists before them, which they do not create, which is the product of the preceding generation. Because every succeeding generation finds itself in possession of the productive forces which serve it as the raw material for new production, human history develops in a coherent manner; a history of humanity unfolds which is all the more a history of humanity since the productive forces of man and, therefore, his social relations have become more developed. Hence it necessarily follows that the social history of men is never anything but the history of their individual development, whether they are conscious of it or not. Their material relations form the basis of all their relations. These material relations are only the necessary forms in which their material and individual activity is realised" [2; II, 442--43], including the activity of remaking these forms. Marx continues: ``... it is not, as people try here and there conveniently to imagine, that __PRINTERS_P_18_COMMENT__ 2---974 17 the economic condition produces an automatic effect. No. Men make their history themselves, only they do so in a given environment which conditions it and on the basis of actual relations already existing, among which the economic relations, however much they may be influenced by the other---political and ideological---ones, are still ultimately the decisive ones, forming the red thread which runs through them and alone leads to understanding" [2; II, 504--05). Man is the aggregate of social relations, the product of certain social forms. He changes under the influence of the changed social relations. But the social relations, the social forms of social interaction are, in their turn, changed by human actions. That is why society requires for harmonious functioning specific social studies and scientific regulation of the economic, social and personal relations of its members. __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 5. Social Regulation
Conscious social regulation of production is conspicuously absent from capitalist society. Consequently, development of social relations and the relations between society's individual members is not only unco-ordinated with the development of economic relations, but constantly clashes with this development. The social forms of human interaction are created by people acting deliberately or stimulated by certain aims. Here nothing is done without conscious intention, without a desired aim. ``Each person follows his own consciously desired end, and it is precisely the resultant of these many wills operating in different directions and of their manifold effects upon the outer world that constitutes history. The will is determined by passion or deliberation. But the levers which immediately determine passion or deliberation are of very different kinds. Partly they may be external objects, partly ideal motives, ambition, 'enthusiasm for truth and justice', personal hatred or even purely individual whims of all kinds. . .. For here, also on the whole, in spite of the consciously desired aims of all individuals, accident apparently reigns on the surface. That which is willed happens but rarely; in the majority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and conflict with one another, or these ends themselves are from the 18 very outset incapable of realisation or the means of attaining them are insufficient. Thus the conflicts of innumerable individual wills and individual actions in the domain of history produce a state of affairs entirely analogous to that prevailing in the realm of unconscious nature" [2; 11,391).
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 6. Socio-Economic ModelsSocialist society exercises conscious, planned regulation of economic relations. But economic regulation will produce an optimum effect only if it is accompanied by scientific regulation of social forms and social relations. This entails comprehensive sociological study of the whole range of social problems connected with human activities, the individual's place in society, his needs and the extent to which these needs are satisfied, and his attitude to the various phenomena and events. Construction of socio-- economic models for the purpose of optimum control of society presupposes extensive empirical sociological studies of the most complex form of human activity---the civil society. Engels wrote of the difficulties of investigating this sphere of human activity: ``The further the particular sphere which we are investigating is removed from the economic sphere and approaches that of pure abstract ideology, the more shall we find it exhibiting accidents in its development, the more will its curve run in a zigzag. But if you plot the average axis of the curve, you will find that the axis of this curve will run more and more nearly parallel to the axis of the curve of economic development the longer the period considered and the wider the field dealt with" [2; II, 505).
The use of mathematical methods and the elaborating of methods and techniques of specific social studies, make it possible to penetrate this sphere of human activity. Yet to disregard the role of chance in social development may greatly harm society. The acceleration or deceleration of historical development largely depends on chance factors, such as people's characters, their level of culture and education, etc.
Control of these chance factors, human beings and their social relations, is about as difficult as the controlling __PRINTERS_P_18_COMMENT__ 2* 19 thermonuclear reactions. Discovery of the laws of thermonuclear reactions proved to be a great revolution in science. No less revolutionary was the discovery and elaboration of forms of rational control of these reactions in the interests of mankind. Similarly, the discovery of the laws governing the development of society produced a revolution in the social sciences. Social laws are laws governing the social activity of people. Hence, specific social studies of various ways to control the action of these laws and, consequently, human activities for the sake of constructing communist society as quickly as possible are enormously important. The most urgent task of sociology is to investigate the social forms which determine human activities. __NUMERIC_LVL2__ Chapter 3 __ALPHA_LVL2__ SOCIETAL THEORY __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 1. Subject Matter of Sociology
Sociological analysis involves not simply investigation of human motivation, but also of institutionalised social relations which determine the character and substance of human behaviour. Only in this way is it possible to understand the mechanism of interaction of the human activites and the social forms mediating these activities.
Further, sociology is concerned with the origin, development and disappearance of various social forms or relations with regard to all the contradictory tendencies which influence these forms. Sociologists analyse the motivation of individuals, social groups and classes and investigate the objective patterns of social relationships.
Thus, sociologists study the social structure of society (interclass and intraclass relationships, the social institutions that regulate these relationships), the development and interaction of the systems and organisations within society.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 2. Prerequisites for Sociological StudiesThe premises on which Marxist sociology bases its analysis ``are . . . real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real 20 individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way" [3; 31).
Analysing the process of formation and development of human consciousness Marx and Engels wrote: ``The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct influx of their material behaviour.. .. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual lifeprocess. .. . We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of their ideological reflexes and echoes of this lifeprocess" [3; 37--38).
The main condition for removing alienation is to do away with the antagonistic division of labour and private ownership of production which arose on its basis. However, abolition of private ownership of the instruments and means of production and the old division of labour do not occur simultaneously. Socialism, which is the first phase of communism, and which still retains the ``birthmarks of capitalism'', long retains elements which prevent it from completely overcoming survivals or consequences of former alienation. To free man from exploitation does not mean restoring to him his social being alienated from him in capitalist conditions. For this society needs:~
sufficiently advanced productive forces to provide abundant material and cultural facilities for all society and, consequently, a substantial reduction in labour time and an increase in leisure time;~
elimination thereby of all survivals of the old division of labour and its consequences, primarily the essential distinctions between mental and physical labour;~
abolition of the element of forced labour and its institutional forms;~
establishment of control over production and consumption by all of society.
Hence the main task of sociologists is to reveal the structural elements of man's social environment, which 21 determine the consciousness and motivation of social behaviour and human activities. ``If the conscious expression of the real relations of these individuals is illusory, if in their imagination they turn reality upside-down, then this in its turn is the result of their limited social relations arising from it" (3; 37].
The only way to arrive at a genetic-causal explanation of social events and phenomena is to study the material environment of individuals in a certain socio-economic formation. These material elements not only constitute the substance of human ideas and conceptions of society in the conditions in which people live, they also act as an external need which shapes people's thinking, motives, actions and social behaviour. People enter into relations with one another as the result of their practical activities; to procure the means of subsistence and to preserve themselves as the human race require a division of labour and exchange of products and services. Consequently, these processes engender certain social relations. Nonetheless, although these relations are a human creation, they become autonomous and are regarded as an external need independent of man. ``This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical development up till now" [3; 45].
People's social relations are alienated from them and become opposed to them as a blind and alien force.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 3. Theory of AlienationUnder conditions of alienation the social life of the individual, likewise his working life, proves to be an area of ``non-freedom'' for him. The social relations act not as man's own relations, but as alien forces, as forces of capital which usurp his freedom and deprive him of all independent activity. According to Marx, he does not feel free ``in any but his animal functions---eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal" [6; 73].
22This is not merely a question of man's self-awareness; the alienated social forms of human activity actually lose the human essence of conscious and purposeful activity. Ultimately this disrupts the individual's normal social relations, a process which some Western sociologists regard as a ``natural'' state of affairs, embodied in ultra individualism, as the only possible way man can retain his individuality. This disruption of the individual's social relations, in fact, causes him to lose his true individuality, which may be completely attained only in creative, constructive, socially significant and socially organised labour.
Private property is itself the product, the necessary consequence of alienated labour, the main aspects of which, according to Marx, are:~
alienation from the producer of his labour product which is opposed to the worker as an alien thing, as a force which does not depend on the producer, which dominates and enslaves him;~
alienation from the producer of the very essence of labour as an activity which does not belong to him, alienation from labour of its spiritual potentials, physical and mental exhaustion of the worker. ``The more powerful the labour, the weaker the worker; the more intricate the work he is doing, the greater the mental devastation and the enslavement by nature to which the worker is subjected" [7; 562]. Alienated labour ``... creates beauty, but it also demoralises the worker. It replaces manual labour by a machine, but at the same time hurls one part of the workers back to barbarian labour and transforms the other part into a machine. It develops the mind, but also produces feeble-mindedness, cretinism as the lot of the workers" [7; 562];~
alienation of man from man. ``The direct result of man's alienation from the product of his own labour, from his vital activity, from his tribal essence, is the alienation of man from man" [7; 567]. The alien force dominating man is another man---the consumer of the manufactured product, i.e., primarily the person to whom the labour power and labour product of the producer belong, man the owner, man the exploiter. The act of production in which the alienation of labour takes place is thereby simultaneously the production of the relations of exploitation of 23 man by man, i.e., the relations which this alienation engenders.
The social expressions of the alienation of labour are:~
firstly, domination over production and the product of labour and, consequently, over the direct producers of the forces not directly included in the production process, i.e., the forces of capital;~
secondly, the social division of labour into two antagonistic forms: a) division of the activity among people in the process of social production (mental and physical work) and b) division of the activity of man himself, his transformation into a partial, narrowly specialised individual;~
thirdly, domination over the worker by compulsory and institutionally managed labour.
In conditions of alienation the division of activity among individuals is determined not by the natural abilities and requirements of individuals, but by the spontaneously formed social structure which haphazardly predetermines limits of each individual's activity. The individual's endeavours in a certain social activity consume all his efforts and abilities.
To break these fetters man must obtain an all-round cultural and scientific education so that this control may assume a really universal character in any sphere.
Sociologists must determine the social forms of people's social activity which most fully express the requirements of development of society as a whole and the requirements of individuals. These must be social activities that obviate the need for institutionally-sanctioned social relations. __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 4. Freedom of Society and Freedom of the Individual
The organisation of communist production will require from each individual not only profound knowledge, but also that ``he should make his knowledge, skills and abilities commensurate with the knowledge, skills and abilities of all the other individuals, and that he should be able to organise the range of his knowledge, skills and abilities, relying on the all-round support of his comrades. Then he will not only enter the production process as much more universally trained and educated than the modern individual, but will in this very process also become much 24 more harmoniously developed than the most all-round genius of the past. No genius has ever had such favourable opportunities for creatively assimilating all the wealth accumulated by man; and that is precisely what genius is" [13; 127--28).
The change in labour conditions in a particular branch or between various branches of production is replaced by a change in labour conditions of voluntarily formed associations of creative labour. Associations of creative labour will become the universal form of life in communist society, the universal method of organising the abilities, creative potentialities and knowledge of all members of society in accordance with their needs.
Man's individual freedom is an all-round consolidation of the individual's ties with society, an adjustment of society's social organisation to the individual requirements of the socialised man. The essence of freedom is that ``the associated producers rationally regulate their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control" [5; III, 820].
Creative associations are one of the forms of individual participation in the creative assimilation and development of society's culture as a whole. Such associations will be formed as voluntary unions of individuals and on the basis of scientific principles of organisation (psychological compatibility, occupational specificity, forms of interaction with the external environment, etc.).
Within the creative collective there will be a certain division of labour. But in contrast to the social division of labour with its social attachment of people to certain types of work, the only criterion of this division will be individual ability.
A flexible division of labour will replace the former rigid system; this presupposes changes in the activities of individuals as production changes and as they reveal their abilities and improve the entire creative collective. This system will satisfy the prime vital requirement of the individual, the requirement for creative labour, for free conscious activity, which, according to Marx, constitutes ``man's tribal character''. Thus, the creative collective based on cooperation and transformation of labour is a true communist collective. Flexible creative collectives, as sociological 25 studies in the U.S.S.R. show, are now becoming a common form of organisation at many enterprises.
In the first stage of socialist production, with its priority development of the mechanisation of production, the individual form of transformation of labour and individual flexibility are encouraged due to the need for particular specialists. The social significance of this change in labour is that it develops the flexibility of the worker and raises his cultural and technical level. At this stage the range of the worker's interests substantially increases, which may be defined as his all-round development. But this development of the individual and the satisfaction of all his cultural requirements cannot be attained because still too much working time has to be expended and he is restricted by the narrow specialisation of production cycles.
In the second stage of socialist production, with the transition to automation and the utilisation of computer programming, the transformation of labour assumes a mass character, and whole creative collectives become flexible due to the objective requirements of the modern industrial enterprises and people's new cultural needs. In such collectives the abilities and knowledge of one individual are supplemented by the abilities and knowledge of other individuals. Thus the collective as a whole becomes a form of the voluntary application of all person's talents to the solution of production and social problems.
At this stage the problem of forming an all-round personality, which consciously and in a disciplined manner assimilates all the wealth of human culture, may be resolved.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 5. Marxist Sociological ConceptsAccording to the Marxist sociological concept, the development of society is a natural historical process governed by certain laws. This process is based on the development of economic relations. These relations, including those of production and those between people arising during production, constitute the specific form of man's existence and development. They are the structural elements of historically defined social systems---socio-economic formations.
26In antagonistic formations, or societies, the social relations arising on the basis of the development of production are, like production itself, alienated from man and are opposed to individuals as alien forces which are hostile to them and spontaneously dominate them. The abolition of private property and class antagonisms affords opportunities for removing this alienation thereby enabling people to control their own social relations in accordance with the objective requirements of social progress.
Accordingly, the task of sociologists in socialist society is to study all factors influencing the formation of social relations, determining the specific forms which these relations take, and on this basis completely to overcome the problem of alienation and to achieve an identity of interests between the individual and society.
__NUMERIC_LVL2__ Chapter 4 __ALPHA_LVL2__ THEORETICAL AND APPLIED SOCIOLOGY __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 1. The Functional Theory of SocietyScientific sociology is concerned with society as a living, continuously developing social organism, as an integral functional system developing in accordance with historical laws. The functioning of any social system is bound up with the functioning of society as a whole, while the functioning of society as a whole is determined by the functioning of specific social systems made up of the constituent elements of the social organism. Hence the study of specific social phenomena and events can only be valid if it is linked with the study of the laws governing the functioning of society as a whole. Sociological analysis presupposes simultaneous study of the general and the specific in their functional relationship and interdependence. G. V. Plekfaanov, one of the leaders of the Russian and international socialist movement, once wrote: ``True historical research must begin with a study of the state of the particular country's productive forces and economic relations. Of course, social research must not stop at that: it must show how the dry skeleton of economy becomes covered with the 27 living flesh of social and political forms and then---and this is the most interesting, the most fascinating part of the problem---human ideas, feelings, aspirations and ideals. The researcher starts with what may be called inanimate matter, but must produce an organism brimful of life" [14 a; VII, 233--34].
The Marxist functional approach to the study of social life presupposes the study of two main groups of laws: 1) general laws of the origin, development and disintegration of social organisms (the determining role of the mode of production, the law of correspondence of the production relations to the level of the productive forces, etc.) and general laws of the functioning and development of each particular social organism (under capitalism---the law of classes and the class struggle, the law of social revolution, etc.; under socialism---the abolition of class differences, elimination of the existing distinctions between mental and physical labour, between town and country, etc.); 2) specific laws of the connections between social systems and relations and of the social organism as a whole (for example, the connections between the level of development of the social relations in rural areas and society as a whole). Like any science, therefore, sociology consists of two parts ---theoretical and applied. The first group of social laws is the subject matter of theoretical (general) sociology, the second group---of applied (specific) sociology (or specific social studies).
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 2. Applied SociologyEach social organism, each system of social relations (material production, town, country, primary group, school, etc.) is connected with the social organism as a whole and concerns a particular branch of applied sociology. People in various social activities belong to ``special spheres in the division of labour and appear to themselves to be working in an independent field. And to the extent that they form an independent group within the social division of labour, their productions, including their errors, react back as an influence upon the whole development. But all the same they themselves are again under the dominating influence of economic development" [2; II, 495].
28The correlation of human wills, aims and social activities in various spheres of social activities constitute the substance of applied sociology and its various branches.
Thus the sociology of labour is concerned with the system of labour relations and the social institutions which regulate them. It aims to find social forms of labour organisation which would to the greatest possible extent reflect the requirements of economic development and people's interests. Every industrial enterprise is a complex social system governed, on the one hand, by its own internal laws of development and, on the other, by the laws governing the functioning of society as a whole. That is why the sociology of labour at an industrial enterprise involves analysis of the processes operating at each enterprise in their interdependence with the laws governing the social organism as a whole. It is therefore necessary:~
firstly, to discover the interdependence;~
secondly, to study the action of the general social laws governing modern industrial production, and the factors which affect the speed of this action;~
thirdly, to analyse the manifestation of the general social laws governing the functioning and development of industrial enterprises (as specific social systems);~
fourthly, to discover what new elements have been engendered in the new conditions and to elaborate, by empirical study, scientific measures aimed at eliminating shortcomings and interferences in the functioining of the given social system.
The laws of social development not only influence people's consciousness and social behaviour, they are themselves influenced by people's conscious activities and may, in their outward manifestation, be even the result of these activities.
There is therefore an interdependence between the functioning of a given social system (or social organism as a whole) and people's social activities. Studies of motivation require an analysis of the conditions in which individuals act (an industrial enterprise, for example) and their influence on people, as well as the reciprocal influence of individuals on their conditions and the channels through which this influence is exerted.
Social policy may also serve as the subject of independent 29 social studies. The sociology of policy involves political and social forms and their influence on economic and social development. Economic development will on the whole pave its own way, but it does experience the reciprocal influence of policy. The reciprocal influence of government policy ``upon economic development'', wrote Engels, ``can be of three kinds: it can run in the same direction, and then development is more rapid; it can oppose the line of development, in which case nowadays state power in every great people will go to pieces in the long run; or it can cut off the economic development from certain paths, and prescribe certain others. This case ultimately reduces itself to one of the two previous ones. But it is obvious that in cases two and three the political power can do great damage to the economic development and result in the squandering of great masses of energy and material" [2; 11,493).
The same may be said of legal relations which also form a special branch of the division of labour. ``As soon as the new division of labour which creates professional lawyers becomes necessary, another new and independent sphere is opened up which, for all its general dependence on production and trade, still has also a special capacity for reacting upon these spheres. In a modern state, law must not only correspond to the general economic condition and be its expression, but must also be an internally coherent expression which does not, owing to inner contradictions, reduce itself to nought. And in order to achieve this, the faithful reflection of economic conditions suffers increasingly. All the more so the more rarely it happens that a code of law is the blunt, unmitigated, unadulterated expression of the domination of a class" (2; II, 493].
The interdependence of social relations formed in rural conditions, with the functioning of society as a whole are the subject of rural sociology; urban social relations are the subject of urban sociology; and social relations in industry concern industrial sociology. Similarly, sociology of education, sociology of art, sociology of science, sociology of the family, sociology of religion, have their own subject matter.
The social studies conducted within different branches of applied sociology enable sociologists to elaborate 30 scientific measures aimed at eliminating deficiencies in the functioning of the social organism as a whole and, consequently, of the particular social system under investigation.
One example from Soviet experience is the study of the problem of employment of juveniles and their adaptation to labour (see Quantitative Methods in Sociological Studies, Leningrad State University, 1964). The study revealed that many social problems of the young people (employment in conditions of a growing demand for labour power on the part of society, training in unfancied occupations, etc.) are conditioned by defects in the functioning of the social mechanism as a whole, i.e., the training of young specialists by an outmoded system and the absence of a special agency to regulate the country-wide distribution of labour.
Scientific sociology is not only concerned with particular problems, but with the systems and mechanisms of functioning of social organisms as a whole. Empirical social analysis makes it possible, firstly, to reveal defects in the functioning of social systems and relations, secondly, to establish a connection between the functioning of a social system and the social organism as a whole, thirdly, to eliminate the defects in the functioning of the social mechanism and, fourthly, to contribute to the successful functioning of a social system or (if it has outlived itself) to help to eliminate it. This approach makes it possible to elaborate scientific principles for decision-making when these decisions are of social importance to rational regulation and supervision of various social systems, organisms and relations in strict conformity with the objective laws governing social development.
__NUMERIC_LVL2__ Chapter 5 __ALPHA_LVL2__ OPERATION OF SOCIAL LAWS __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 1. Social FactsKnowledge of the general and specific laws governing society's functioning and development, and the forms of their manifestation makes it possible to determine the major direction of social progress. For a scientific guide to social development it is primarily necessary to know how 31 social laws that manifest themselves in the material and spiritual relations of the people function. The material and spiritual relationships, which are forms of manifestation of the social laws, are both products of people's social interaction and relations actively influencing people's consciousness and, consequently, determining their social behaviour and activities. It follows that, as a functioning being, man is himself one of the factors which produce the circumstances both of his own and of social life as a whole. Human actions are woven into the functioning of the social organism and are both an object and subject of social interaction. Between the functioning of the social organism, or organisms, and people's social actions there is a reciprocal action. When individuals act wrongly this leads to disturbances in the functioning of the social systems and organisms, which in turn adversely affects the social actions of other individuals.
Studies of the individual's social activity are a necessary element of social analysis. The ``abstraction'' of individuals from practice, characteristic of some people at a certain period in Soviet history, made it impossible to form an objective picture of the life of the whole social organism, and inevitably led to dogmatism in certain formulas reflecting general social laws. Consequently, it prevented a scientific supervision of social development based on knowledge of these laws and an ability to use them in specific conditions. The social actions of individuals, i.e., the social facts, are the nucleus of any sociological analysis. ``The materialist sociologist, taking the definite social relations of people as the object of his inquiry, by that very fact also studies the real individuals from whose actions these relations are formed" [1; 1,406).
Sociology regards the ideological motives of the people's social activities as an expression of the requirements of the objective laws governing the development of the system of social relations. Further, it reveals the roots of these relations in the extent of material development. Using the indisputable fact of the mode of procuring the means of subsistence as the point of departure, sociology has linked it with personal relationships, which form under the influence of this mode of procuring the means of subsistence. In the system of these relations, i.e., production relations, 32 it has shown the basis of society, which determines the content and character of all the other social relations--- class, political, national, legal, labour, family and ideological. ``The distinction between the important and unimportant was replaced by the distinction between the economic structure of society, as the content, and the political and ideological form" [1; 1, 411]. This idea enables us to apply to the analysis of various social mechanisms the general scientific criterion of recurrence, as it is used in natural science.
The social mechanism is an aggregate of functionally connected social organisms forming an integral, relatively stable system of social relations which determine the forms of social interaction and human behaviour in specific conditions of time and place. Every social action is determined not merely by the objective conditions of the situation, but also by individual ideas about this situation and about oneself. That is why the study of a particular social mechanism entails a study of the individual in a social setting and a study of real personalities and their ideas about themselves and the situation as a whole.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 2. Social SituationThe interaction of all aspects of the social mechanism under conditions of time and place creates a specific social situation.
Marx and Engels formulated the theoretical problems concerning the social situation.
Engels wrote: ``We make our history ourselves, but, in the first place, under very definite assumptions and conditions. Among these the economic ones are ultimately decisive. But the political ones, etc., and indeed even the traditions which haunt human minds also play a part, although not the decisive one" (2; II, 488).
``In the second place, however, history is made in such a way that the final result always arises from conflicts between many individual wills, of which each again has been made what it is by a host of particular conditions of life. Thus there are innumerable intersecting forces, an infinite series of parallelograms of forces which give rise to one resultant---the historical event. This may again __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---974 33 itself be viewed as the product of a power which works as a whole, unconsciously and without volition. For what each individual wills is obstructed by everyone else, and what emerges is something that no one willed. Thus past history proceeds in the manner of a natural process and is essentially subject to the same laws of motion. But from the fact that individual wills---of which each desired what he is impelled to by his physical constitution and external, in the last resort economic, circumstances (either his own personal circumstances or those of society in general)---do not attain what they want, but are merged into a collective mean, a common resultant, it must not be concluded that their value is equal to zero. On the contrary, each contributes to the resultant and is to this degree involved in it" [2; II ,489).
They go on to affirm that ``Men make their history themselves, but not as yet with a collective will, according to a collective plan or even in a definite, delimited given society. Their aspirations clash, and for that very reason all such societies are governed by necessity, which is complemented by and appears under the forms of accident. The necessity which here asserts itself athwart all accident is again ultimately economic necessity" [2; II, 505].
Sociological studies are intended to reveal the factors determining deviations of the wills and strivings of individuals from their results in a specific social system. This, in turn, combined with a knowledge of the laws of social development, enables us to find the best way to co-ordinate individual aspirations and the progressive development of the social system as a whole. __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 3. Special Circumstances
Special circumstances (level of technological development, labour conditions, social status and origin, etc.) may in one case involve particular and in another case general factors. For example, within the working class there are groups engaged in manual unskilled labour. When a social group is studied this factor acts as a general characteristic, but when the working class as a whole is studied it may be regarded as a special circumstance. If this is ignored, 34 these ``special circumstances" may impede social development and the development of the personality.
In fact, economic conditions and people's social origin limit, for example, freedom to choose an occupation and type of education; they thereby predetermine the unskilled and narrowly-specialised character of their work. As a result, these people are unable to develop their abilities and creative potentialities to the full. Furthermore, the content and character of work also largely determine personality development. According to the character and substance of labour, a person finds himself in objective conditions which may help or hinder the development of his abilities, draw him into or exclude him from creative labour. Thus, the proportion of workers---lathe operators--- participating in the rationalisation amounts to no more than 2.5 per cent of their total number. Among the workers who combine in their work functions of adjustment and control (complication of the character and content of labour) there are 6-7 times more rationalisers. Among fitters and electricians (fairly complex labour) the share of rationalisers amounts to 30 per cent. Under conditions of dismembered conveyor labour the scope of rationalisation directly depends on the type of production served by the conveyor (large-scale, medium-scale or small-scale). The more monotonous the work, the less rationalisation, and vice versa.
One of the most important social problems is that of overcoming the constant contradiction between the technical level of production and the general educational level of the workers. Studies show that the type of workers required for automated workshops has not yet been determined, and the problem of specialisation of workers of automated shops relative to various types of work has not yet been solved. Young people with a good general education are often allocated facile operations, and this causes job dissatisfaction. At the same time the change to up-- todate technology is not always accompanied by satisfactory training and retraining of workers. As a result, new machinery is not utilised effectively enough, time is wasted, machines break down, more money has to be spent and labour productivity drops. That is why it is extremely important for sociologists to create socio-economic models __PRINTERS_P_34_COMMENT__ 3* 35 of an occupational structure in accordance with the different levels of technological development.
Everyday and hygienic conditions also affect the division and transformation of labour. These conditions exert a direct influence on personality development outside production, on the use of the individual's leisure, the rise in his cultural and technical standards, the extent of his participation in running the affairs of society, i.e., they determine the specific forms which the action of the objective social laws will take.
A study of 25,000 time budgets has revealed that working women spend 50--100 per cent more time on domestic chores than do men. This reduces their chances for raising their cultural, technical and spiritual level. This, in turn, affects the children and the family relationships.
Labour conditions and organisation are also salient factors. They create a certain atmosphere at the place of work, affect people's attitude to work and the general mood of the workers.
The individual's physiological and psychological characteristics (age, personality, etc.) also account for the individual's fitness or unfltness for a particular type of job.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 4. Social GroupThe social group to which people belong is an important factor on which the functioning of the social laws depends. Sociology has become a science only since the actions of real personalities within each historical system of social relations, the endlessly diverse actions seemingly incapable of being systematised were ``generalised and reduced to the actions of groups of individuals differing from each other in the part they played in the system of production relations, in the conditions of production, and, consequently, in their conditions of life, and in the interests determined by these conditions" (1; 1, 411).
A social group is a group of people united by a community of aims and interests and common efforts in realising them, it is an element in the social structure of a definite system of social relations.
The forms and methods of organisation of the social structure of workers and engineering personnel at a modern 36 socialist enterprise are largely determined by persisting distinctions between the two basic social groups forming this structure. But we must remember the specific nature of the social groups in socialist society, namely, their friendly character and the gradual elimination of intergroup and intragroup differences. The groups within the working class, distinguished by the character of their labour, exist objectively, but are not of an unchangeable socially exclusive nature. Studies have shown that mechanisation and automation of production render these groups unstable and engender a general tendency to bring highly skilled, creative work within reach of all working people.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 5. Socio-Psychological GroupUnlike the social group, the socio-psychological group is a number of people concertedly interacting for a relatively long time sharing common values and directly influencing one another under specific conditions of time and place. These groups include people of the most diverse social status, their interrelations constituting the unofficial structure of the primary group. These interrelations are not always easily discovered, but they nevertheless play a substantial role in the life of the primary group.
Social investigations into two teams of workers with approximately the same technical and social levels (at the Vladimir Ilyich Factory in Moscow) have shown the teams to differ greatly in labour attitudes and labour productivity. The main reason for the different levels of labour productivity is the different socio-psychological relations among the members of these teams. In one team the official and unofficial structures of intracollective relations actually coincided, while in the other team they sharply differed. Improvements in the official structure of labour and non-labour groups and approximation of their official and unofficial structures help to increase the workers' satisfaction with their work and to raise labour productivity.
The influence of this group on the personality and, consequently, on personality attitudes during work is one aspect of its rule with regard to functioning of the social laws. One example of a socio-psychological group is the co-- operation among workers united by a common socially useful 37 aim. Such a group loses its formal character typical of the rigid division of labour and acts as an organisation where a community of aims is reinforced by a community of conviction, ideals and interests, the power of comradeship and the intensity of creative enthusiasm. The best work teams, technical and scientific groups are already developing these characteristics. __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 6. Personality Traits
Subjective personality traits (material and spiritual interests, requirements, and abilities) greatly influence the action of the objective social laws on the object under consideration. Lenin noted in this connection: ``Of course, there are, and always will be, individual exceptions from group and class types. But social types remain. Here is the case of a social type and not of the qualities possessed by individuals" [1; 29, 541).
To guide personality formation and its social activity, one must know both the general determinant and its individual characteristics, and also all factors determining the immediate social environment of the personality and the functional relationships of these factors to the social system as a whole.
For example, an essential functional relationship exists between a person's psychology and his ability to perform monotonous movements at a certain tempo. Persons with an unbalanced nervous system perform even simple uniform movements under great strain, whereas people with a balanced nervous system perform these operations without any great strain. Workers with a weak nervous system perform uniform movements slowly. This makes the change from one working tempo to another difficult.
People of a sanguine temperament change their rates of movement easily. Those who react slowly take their time in switching from a fast to a slow tempo.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 7. Social ConsciousnessTo understand how the objective social laws operate, one must consider how these laws are expressed in the 38 social consciousness. In socialist society, where the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people coincide with the social process, social consciousness, expressed in ideological and political unity, is a powerful lever for the transformation of society. Not a single previous socio-economic formation had known or could have known such power of social transformation.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 8. PersonalityDuring his material and spiritual activity man creates the conditions of both his own and social life. People's social actions are woven into the fabric of the social system and are both the object and subject of interaction. That is why the study of this system requires an investigation of the different objective and subjective factors and relations of the given social situation, and of the real personalities and the conceptions of their own position and the objective situation as a whole.
Man is not a passive element in a social system, he is an active participator who makes certain decisions which, depending on his role in society and the extent of his responsibility, may be of enormous importance to other people. It is therefore extremely important to study and reveal the influence exerted by different systems of social relationseconomic, legal and family (and the institutional norms regulating them) on the individual's mode of life, his general behaviour and on his labour activities.
A consideration of all these social relations which determine the functioning of the social mechanism largely depends on the subjective factor. Nowadays the importance of this factor in organising the structural elements into a single efficiently functioning social system has immeasurably increased. The nature of reciprocal relations in forming economic and social structures at a modern industrial enterprise is important because the information received and the reaction to it depend on man, on the level of his culture, education and abilities. This equally applies to regulating the relations on a national scale and in particular (departmental, etc.) legal enactments (instructions, orders, rules, etc.).
39 __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 9. Elements of Sociological StudiesIn singling out the elements of social studies we have to do the following:~
analyse the direct and indirect factors which determine the formation of the given social concepts under certain conditions of time and place in man's production and nonproduction activities;~
establish law-governed relations between the action of social conditions and economic factors, on the one hand, and people's consciousness and their behaviour, on the other. Questionnaires, interviews and direct surveys may help to determine the degree of development of consciousness of the groups of people in which the sociologist is interested, the degree of correspondence of their subjective evaluations of practical activities;~
discover the extent of correspondence of the results of the studies to the institutionalised aims of society, to describe deviations from the general aims pursued by society, and to propose changes in these conditions and the optimum utilisation of the economic possibilities contributing to the emergence of new social relations and to the harmonious development of the personality;~
elaborate new theoretical propositions contributing to the development of theoretical sociology and practical measures whose realisation will make it possible to regulate particular social processes in the direction determined by the objective requirements of society.
Thus, sociological research is concerned with human activities in the diversity of their forms and with their conditions of life and forms of education. Sociology performs two basic functions: it arms the people with knowledge of the objective laws governing the social processes and helps to work out recommendations for optimum activities of the social systems in the different spheres of life (labour, everyday life, culture).
[40] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ PART II __ALPHA_LVL1__ MARXIST AND BOURGEOIS SOCIOLOGY TODAY __NUMERIC_LVL2__ Chapter 1 __ALPHA_LVL2__ SOCIOLOGY AND IDEOLOGY __ALPHA_LVL3__ § 1. Sociology and Social LifeWith the onset of the general crisis in world capitalism Western sociology has undergone essential changes in its' structure, functions and social development.
The general tendency of Western sociology was succinctly defined by the American sociologist Daniel Lerner. He wrote that social sciences had developed mainly as a method of observing, evaluating and eliminating the frictions and tensions that arose in the modernising (capitalist--- G. 0.) society as the result of the changes in its institutions and the increased mobility of each person.
A group of French sociologists led by Jean Stoetzel investigated the economic conditions of French workers and their aspirations in changing these conditions. The sharp discrepancies between the economic and psychological factors discovered in a number of industrial enterprises were apparently mitigated and even eliminated by capitalists who made slight improvements in the working conditions and in wages. The result, as Stoetzel asserted, was that not only were possible social conflicts and serious clashes between workers and management obviated, but also that labour productivity increased; this justified all expenses incurred in improving working conditions and raising wages.
Numerous other examples could be cited where the ruling social groups influence the formation of people's consciousness and actually increase after empirical investigations of psychological and socio-psychological factors. The main conclusion is that if empirical research is to be of 41 practical significance, the results must not be utilised by monopoly capital as a means of further oppressing people's consciousness.
Some Western sociologists do not confine themselves to internal political problems. They urge their governments to pay more attention to sociological investigations for application in foreign policy. The American sociologist Arnold W. Green writes: ``If the United States government seeks to establish close economic, political and military affiliations with countries and peoples all over the globe, then we (i.e., sociologists---G.O.) must know more than we do about those countries and their peoples. What are their cultures? What are the prevailing attitudes toward the United States, toward technological development? What beliefs and prejudices of theirs can be enlisted to draw them into our power orbit and what ones will have to be mollified or accepted before this can be done? What are the prevailing social-class structures, the focal points of leadership? Whose co-operation is most crucial before various programmes are launched? After such programmes have been started, continuing answers to all these questions must be carefully gathered and checked" [16; 8].
Further, W. W. Rostow, the American economist, in a speech at a White House reception in honour of the participants in the Fifth World Congress of Sociology ( Washington, 1962) suggested that today the preservation and stability of the capitalist world depended on the paths which the developing countries would take. He went on to propose to the sociologists a programme of action which might help the U.S.A. to carry out its imperialist policy with respect to the peoples of these countries, i.e., a policy of bending them to the influence of the U.S.A.
It should be made quite clear that many Western sociologists, including Americans, are inclined to a more liberal policy. Some are sincerely working for peace, for reforms in living and working conditions. Yet despite their subjective aspirations, the studies they conduct ultimately serve the interests of the monopolistic bourgeoisie and are aimed at patching up capitalism, supporting and preserving the capitalist system.
The ``patching up" and ``repairing'' of capitalism, the socio-economic measures suggested by Western sociologists, 42 may well mitigate social contradictions for a time, and may prevent overt clashes between workers and capitalists. But all these measures serve capital not the people; they help stabilise, consolidate and develop capitalist social relations, i.e., the relations of exploitation, oppression and enslavement.
By disregarding the fundamental processes of social life modern Western sociology becomes captive to pluralism. It has sired innumerable, diverse yet absolutely worthless schools and trends. Nonetheless Western sociologists point to this plurality as the greatest merit of their science. The American sociologist Robert K. Merton once wrote that in the U.S.A. there are 5,000 sociologists and each of them has ``his own sociology''. At the Fifth World Congress of Sociology the American sociologist E. C. Hughes declared that there was no single sociology, but that there were an American, Soviet, Yugoslav, Chinese and other sociologies.
Western sociology is a partisan science at the service of the monopolies. It is true that among bourgeois sociologists and political figures there are some who state that ``the world of science (sociology---G.O.), whatever its attitude to present-day affairs, must have its own continuity and pride to such an extent that it may withdraw and defend itself against the practical world and, if need be, openly disobey it" [17].
Most Western sociologists (including eminent figures like R. Konig. P. F. Lazarsfeld, R. Merton and Talcott Parsons) regard themselves as academic scholars conducting empirical and theoretical research in the interests of ``pure'' science which has no connection with politics. Whether they do or do not admit connection between their research and politics, this work ultimately serves the interests of the ruling social groups of capitalist society. It is to the credit of sociologists like C. Wright Mills, Gunnar Myrdal and Ralf Dahrendorf that they have exposed the close link between sociology and the politics of the classes ruling capitalist society. Myrdal has written that ``the social sciences have all received their impetus much more from the urge to improve society than from simple curiosity about its working. Social policy has been primary, social theory secondary" [18; 9].
43Similarly, C. Wright Mills maintained: ``The social scientist who spends his intellectual force on the details of smallscale milieux is not putting his work outside the political conflicts and forces of his time. He is, at least indirectly and in effect, 'accepting' the framework of his society" [19; 78].
Ralf Dahrendorf asserts that although the American, Parsons-type, sociologists write about their independence from political power, they actually manifest an ``interest in maintaining the status quo" (20).
From these statements it may be concluded that the social evaluation of empirical facts includes an evaluation of the existing social system and that this evaluation is made either covertly or overtly. In their endeavour to keep out of politics Western sociologists, unwittingly or not, act as defenders of the existing social order.
In the 20th century sociology has become an accepted science. It has at its disposal valuable techniques and methods, including mathematical and statistical methods, and is capable of solving many problems connected with the regulation of social events and phenomena, problems of controlling people's social behaviour. But it is the ideology, the world outlook of the society and its leaders that determines how these problems are resolved.
The main aim of Western, particularly American, sociology is the socialisation of man, i.e., to mould him to the way of life prevailing in the West. American society, for example, is good, and its social values are a blessing. All social conflicts can be resolved if only man assimilates these values. Marxist sociologists hold that a society based on exploitation and the society's values, which are an ideological reflection of this environment, are anything but a blessing.
The socialisation theory is reminiscent of the outmoded theories of Taylor-Ford, who advocated the adaptation of man to the rhythm of the machine. Man was to become an appendage of the machine and its rhythm. Modern methods and techniques afford scientific means of influencing man's consciousness, lowering it to a primitive level and adapting man to a society based on exploitation. By serving this purpose Western sociology has embarked on 44 the path of anti-humanism and serves to transform man into an obedient tool of the ruling classes.
Marxists believe that society should be humanised, that the transformation of society is a sine qua non for the transformation of man. The nature and direction of society's transformation can be understood only on the basis of scientific sociological theory. The materialist conception of history is this general sociological theory.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 2. From Descriptive Empiricism to Abstract TheoryThe change in the social functions of modern Western sociology and its more recent concentration on empirical studies have caused a certain crisis. In their preface to Modern Sociological Theory (1957) H. Becker and A. Boskoff write: ``~`We don't know where we are going, but we are on our way' is a sentiment that spoken, or unspoken, describes many of our day-to-day activities.... Even when we extrapolate 'trends', we may go sadly astray, as witness the American population forecasts made in the early 1940s. [21; V]. Pointing out that ahead there is a good deal that is unknown, they state: ``... Since we are demonstrably on our way, we need give no attention to where we seem to be going" [21; V].
Modern Western sociology is irrevocably split between empirical investigations and theory. Some Western sociologists conduct narrow empirical research in which they analyse social behaviour of personalities, and small social groups and collectives. Others invent extremely abstract and scholastic schemes of social development.
At the outset the theory and empiricism of Western sociology were in a certain measure counterposed to one another. Boskoff writes: ``Theory and research were largely strangers to one another simply because sociological problems were, in their first stages, understandably vague, and thus truly sociological data in the present-day sense were not yet available.. .. Furthermore, sociology had not yet matched the empirically varied manifestations of social phenomena with an adequate specialisation of effort, within the discipline of sociology" [21; 30--31).
Subsequently empiricism, as Western sociologists admit, 45 came to dominate. At the Fifth World Congress of Sociology the Mexican sociologist L. Recasens-Siches said: `` Incontestable is the empirical (my italics---G. 0.) nature of sociology as a scientific study of social facts, human intercourse, relations among people and groups from the point of view of their actual reality. Sociology must accomplish its tasks by means of observation, analysis and, although this is possible only to a limited extent, by experiment" [22].
Empiricism of Western sociology has gone through several stages. In the beginning, as the American sociologist B. Barber notes, sociology was conceived as a course of training in adjustment to life. Its chief purpose was to help the students to develop an ability to solve the daily practical social and personal problems. Sociology was invited to take part in courses on such problems as marriage, family, race, etc. [see 23; 17--18].
In the 1920s and 1930s empirical research was conducted into various aspects of social life at the request of industry, army and government institutions. The following books were written on the basis of empirical studies: Technical Tendencies and National Policy (edited by W. F. Ogburn), The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (two volumes) by W. I. Thomas and F. Znaniecki, Middletown in Transition by R. H. and H. M. Lynd, Society on a Street Corner by W. Foot, An American Dilemma by G. Myrdal, The American Soldier (four volumes) edited by S. A. Stouffer, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female and Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (edited by A. S. Kinsey et al.) and the Authoritarian Personality (edited by T. W. Adorno).
The range of social studies has since then greatly increased. In defining this range the American sociologists W. Ogburn and M. F. Nimkoff note that sociology deals with specific institutions, conditions and problems which are the concern of economics, political science and education. These problems include the family, local societies, population, crime, poverty, racial relations, sex, alcoholism, mental diseases, etc. There are also special sociological aspects of economic, political, educational and other sciences [see 24; 25--28].
It should be of no surprise, as Stoetzel remarks, that such ``research devoid of theoretical direction has formed without leading to noticeable progress (my italics---G. 0.) in 46 our knowledge. In it the technical means and the fact become their own ends. The difference between that which is strategic in scientific investigation and that which is not disappears" [25; II, 260].
Similarly, Lazarsfeld wrote: ``First, our times are beset by burning social issues, but the American sociological journals are filled with insignificant little studies about the dating patterns of college students or the popularity of radio programmes....
``Now the question could be raised, aren't there urgent social problems in the United States? The answer is, of course, yes. But they are of such complexity that empirical social research as it exists today can hardly cope with them [25; 227).
Robert Merton is concerned about the blind alley into which empiricism has driven sociology. Sociologists seem to be concentrating on trivial problems, while the really significant problems of human society remain uninvestigated. He says, for example, that despite the fact that wars and exploitation, poverty and injustice and uncertainty poison the lives of people and society or threaten their very existence, many sociologists work on problems so far removed from these catastrophic phenomena that they are irresponsibly petty [see 26; 11).
Merton concludes that Western sociology is at the stage which natural science reached in the 17th century. Sociology, he says, ``would not have expected Einstein to follow hard on the heels of Kepler" [27; 6).
Modern empirical sociology operates at two levels:
1) collection of data without corresponding analysis, and
2) collection of data and their empirical generalisation.
By limiting social cognition to the first level, empirical sociology diverts understanding from the real social reasons for the exacerbating contradictions in modern society and reduces all its social conflicts and contradictions to personality conflicts. At the same time numerous data are assiduously gathered which colourfully characterise the ugly reality of modern society.
On the second level sociologists may compare `` anomalous" personality behaviour in different societies and social groups and sometimes draw worthwhile conclusions about social motivation and causality. On the basis of extensive 47 data, the American sociologist S. Weinberg (28; 250) has calculated that from 60 to 75 million Americans over 15 years of age consume alcohol. Of these 17 per cent drink regularly and 48 per cent occasionally; 5,015,000 Americans drink excessively; 772,000 of the latter are women.
However, on an analysis of the facts which characterise the anomalies of American society conclusions are drawn that, for example, the percentage of alcoholism is twice as high in towns of more than 10,000 people as in rural communities, that chronic alcoholism is most commonly encountered in large cities and least of all in rural communities, that the percentage of mental disease is twice as high in urban as in rural communities, etc.
In most cases sociologists go no further than these generalisations. Their aim is to prove that all social problems centre on the personality and that they all deviate from the ``norms'' accepted by the majority of society; they are not normal aspects of capitalist development. Weinberg explains the different percentages of mental diseases in social classes by different types of personality development, different structural preferences whose obviousness is very inadequate [see 28; 320].
Without a scientific analysis all these empirical data and generalisations resemble branches lopped off trees. The Soviet sociologists P. Fedoseyev and G. Frantsev write that ``human society may be likened to a living, growing tree which in the course of its development branches out and grows a thick crown and dense foliage. Every branch and twig, every leaf of this tree of social life may be subjected to sociological description. But for the dense foliage many bourgeois scientists cannot see the tree as a whole organism, the description of the individual twigs (not infrequently one-sided) becomes an end in itself, and sociology as a science vanishes. And yet the life of the branches and twigs depends on the state of the tree as a whole. The tree of social life has its own laws of origin, growth and renewal. There is not, nor can there be any sociology without investigation of the laws of social development, of the new and old, of the tendencies and prospects for development" [29; 97).
Being unable to cope with the numerous minute data, some Western sociologists are coming to recognise the 48 paramount importance of a general sociological theory. Analysing the state of Western sociology the West German sociologist Konig notes: ``Sociology does exist notwithstanding many an open question in theory. It is research that has overflown the 'antichamber' of sociology and has brought us nearer to the core of the problem. Due to the fact that research data of many kinds has accumulated in most of the different fields of sociology, we have no longer to develop our theories in empty space but rather with the help of research results which have been carefully checked" [30; I, 148].
It is precisely such hopes that R. Merton cherishes in his idea of ``the middle range" theories with their relative and transient role. One is reminded of Tennyson's words:
Our little systems have their days;
They have their day and cease to be [27; 10).
Some sociologists query the complete rejection of regularities in social phenomena, the rejection of the possibility of generalising and forecasting. Thus the American sociologist J. G. McKinney writes: ``It is agreed that sociology studies the general, regular, and recurrent aspects of phenomena and hence can generalise and predict within the limits of its substantiated theory. This makes it a nomothetic discipline despite the substitution of empirical generalisation for natural laws" [21; 237].
Some American sociologists share the views of the German philosopher W. Windelband on the classification of sciences. He distinguishes two classes of sciences: those which are concerned with the general and proclaim natural laws (nomothetic) and those which deal with particularities in their historically determined configurations ( idiographic).
So far these views are only shared by certain individuals. McKinney maintains that sociology has accumulated extensive descriptive data on people, places and events. There are random studies of transgressors of the law, surveys of groups, ecological descriptions of towns, observations of strikes, etc. He considers the value of these descriptions to be incontestable since they serve as the focal point from which empirical generalisations issue. But he doubts their value when they remain so specific and are not associated with __PRINTERS_P_60_COMMENT__ 4--974 49 basic theory. A very promising, although modest system of empirical generalisations has been developed in the last few decades and it is natural to suppose, says McKinney, that this process will continue.
McKinney has to admit, however, that ``most theoretically oriented sociologists are seriously concerned with the paucity of generalisation as compared with the mass of particulars. Stated briefly, their concern has its basis in the fact that most sociologists affirm the desirability and necessity of formulating the general and recurrent and then in actual practice settle for the gathering of data and the amassing of descriptive particulars" [21; 204--05].
Empiricism has driven modern sociology into a blind alley and has transformed it into a descriptive discipline which is a collection of unco-ordinated data; it cannot solve any urgent social problems. Before mentioning the practical importance of a particular social process or phenomenon one must understand the objective natural connections or interconnections by which it is conditioned. But to understand this one must analyse specific material conditions and concrete life circumstances which are various forms of manifestation of the general laws of social development; thereby one gains an understanding of these laws. Knowledge of these laws and their consideration in specific sociological studies is the only scientific way of comprehending social reality in all its various connections and interconnections.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 3. Philosophical Principles of Descriptive EmpiricismThe development of Western sociology along the lines of descriptive empiricism and psychologism is also a reflection of the changes in Western philosophy since the end of the 19th century.
Positivism was the prevailing trend in Western philosophy at that time. This philosophical system, firstly, denied the importance of theoretical studies and considered only stable and indubitable facts to be the subject of study; secondly, it considered any philosophical question pseudoscientific because it could not apparently be verified by experiment; thirdly, in describing social phenomena it relied only on the methods of the natural sciences.
50All this was embraced by Western sociology in a onesided interpretation of the concept of ``social fact''. The first to define it was the French sociologist Emile Durkheim. Social facts, he said, are a stage in the behaviour (thinking, feeling, etc.) which is objective to the observer and which has a positive nature [see 31; 8-17].
This definition showed the duality of Durkheim's sociological conceptions. On the one hand, he reduced social facts of consciousness (collective consciousness) and, on the other, he considered them objective and identified them with ``things'', i.e., regarded them as independent of the investigator. He was, not without reason, criticised for his concessions to materialism. In Durkheim's own lifetime, his pupil, the French sociologist M. Mauss, criticised his formula of ``social facts are things" as a ``vulgarisation'' of social life.
Western sociologists speak of experience, but understand it only as a complex of the subject's sensations and therefore limit social studies to the first (empirical) stage of cognition, denying the role of theoretical thought. Accordingly, there are no social facts which do not appear directly before the investigator. One can only speak of what is and what can be verified, but not of what will be.
Marx exposed the inadequacy of this methodological principle: ``The reality of the value of commodities differs in this respect from Dame Quickly, that we don't know 'where to have it'. The value of commodities is the verj opposite of the coarse materiality of their substance, not an atom of matter enters into its composition. Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value (Wertding), it seems impossible to grasp it''. [5; I, 47].
Positivism also influenced the development of mathematical positivism, the ``natural-science'' school in sociology (G. Lundberg, S. Dodd, N. Roschevski, G. Zipf, F. Chapin et al). Mathematical positivism goes back to the positivism of the 19th century, mainly to that of Auguste Comte. They differ only in methods of investigation. Comte adhered to the historical method, whereas the ``natural-science'' school adheres to the mathematical and statistical method. The ``natural-science'' school has replaced A. Comte's ``moderate realism" by ``extreme nominalism''. The representatives of 51 this school assert that the unity of all sciences is only in their method and not in their material.
The mathematical positivists try to improve bourgeois sociology by using natural-science concepts in the cognition of social processes. Thus the American sociologists S. Dodd and N. Roschevski generally hold that sociology is still in a ``pre-scientific'' state since it has not as yet learned to use the methods of so exact a science as physics. They deny the qualitative peculiarity of social phenomena, the causality and regularity in the development of social science, and recommend that attention should be drawn only to the quantitative aspect of the phenomena.
Thus, a ``double series of axioms" is no longer needed since it is enough to know the laws of nature, thereby also to know the laws of social development. At the Fourth World Congress of Sociology the French sociologist Raymond Aron said:
``Inasmuch as the natural-science method has achieved striking results in all fields, sensible people do not doubt that the use of this method also makes it possible to analyse and explain the social phenomena''. For example, mathematical positivists propose to study such social phenomena as public opinion, love, nationalism, peace or hostility, marriage, democracy, etc., by means of various mathematical formulas.
Dodd, in an attempt to make sociological analysis infinitely mathematical, has suggested that sociologists should limit themselves to four basic quantitative principles of measuring the ``social situation":
1) time (T)---all that is associated with duration (age, length of the working day, the time of moving from one table to another, etc.);
2) space (L)---all that has extension or is associated with displacement (geographical space, the distance from home to place of work, migration, etc.);
3) population (P)---category common to all classes of social phenomena;
4) characteristics (I) of people or of their surroundings. Using these symbols Dodd has derived the following formula for measuring the social situation (S):
S=(T:L:P:I).
This means that any quantitatively recorded social 52 situation can be expressed as a combination of these four elements. Dodd includes in the social situation concept only what requires observation and can be verified.
G. Lundberg, C. Schrag and O. Larsen write: ``The transition to the view that the so-called subjective phenomena of sociology and psychology can be studied as behaviour is undoubtedly the most important development ever to take place in the history of the social sciences. By regarding the mind, thoughts, imaginings, aspirations and culture of man as forms and products of observable behaviour we can use the highly powerful methods of natural science, including especially logic and mathematics, for the study of the social relations of man" [32; 42].
G. Zipf, another representative of the ``natural-science'' school, has tried to apply to the analysis of the social situation the principle of economy of effort, namely: in any situation people choose ``the line of least resistance".
Mathematical positivism is untenable because by using the methods of the exact sciences in studying social phenomena the proponents of this trend ignore the qualitative aspect of these phenomena. Neglect of the quality of social phenomena and failure to delineate between qualitatively different objects distort reality.
The sociologist who applies the concepts of the natural sciences to social phenomena commits a grave error. V. I. Lenin wrote: ``In fact, an enquiry into social phenomena and elucidation of the method of the social sciences cannot be undertaken with the aid of these concepts. Nothing is easier than to tack an 'energeticist' or ' biologosociological' label on to such phenomena as crises, revolutions, the class struggle and so forth; neither is there anything more sterile, more scholastic and lifeless than such an occupation" [1; 14, 328).
To understand human behaviour in social situations, one must consider not only the quantitative aspect, but also the totality of the forces and influences that have exerted pressure on them and impelled them to act as they do. The social situation is a link in the complex chain of the sociohistorical process. In his letter to J. Bloch, Engels emphasises that social development occurs in the form of interaction in which economic movement ultimately penetrates through a great number of chance events, but which is also 53 influenced by the different factors of the superstructure, i.e., the political forms of the class struggle and its results, the legal forms and the reflection of all these real battles in the brains of the participants---political, legal and philosophical theories, religious views, etc. Had it not been for this complex interaction, which is difficult to investigate, ``the application of the theory to any period of history one chose would be easier than the solution of a simple equation of the first degree" [2; II, 488].
This social interaction is effected not by itself, but only in people's activities. Engels wrote in this connection: ``The final result always arises from conflicts between many individual wills, of which each again has been made what it is by a host of particular conditions of life. Thus there are innumerable intersecting forces, an infinite series of parallelograms of forces which give rise to one resultant--- the historical event" [2; II, 489]. Since the will of one person encounters obstacles in the wills of other persons and is of an elementary character, all wills together form a single unconsciously acting force.
The neopositivists generally ignore any conditionality of social behaviour by material factors. They regard social behaviour as a manifestation of energy identified with the concept of ``psychic energy''. They ``dissolve'' matter in ``psychic energy''. The neopositivists thereby are akin to the spiritualists. They mechanistically identify the concepts of substance and force in physics with the concept of matter and consciousness, they eliminate the differences between the higher and lower forms of motion and ignore the specific character of the social form of motion of matter.
The social form of material motion of matter is bound up with consciousness. This does not imply an identity of consciousness and social life. As a function of the brain, consciousness reflects the objective social reality which exists outside of consciousness. This objective reality is the totality of the social relations conditioned by the general level of the productive forces.
Even bourgeois sociologists are coming to realise the barrenness of neopositivism. Thus Pitirim Sorokin expresses his dissatisfaction with the neopositivist sociologists in writing that their ``operational method" is a parody of the 54 ``operational method" of the physical sciences; their experimental and instrumental technique is being transformed (with minor exceptions) into pseudo-experimental and pseudo-instrumental; their ``scientific'' tests are no more scientific than the old guess-work methods or the magic tests of antiquity. Their attempts to take accurate measurements of a multitude of non-scalable qualitative phenomena are also to a large extent fruitless; their efforts in using the method of mathematical models are at best productive of beautiful pictures of a fine sociological palace for the construction of which the necessary material is lacking; their ``quantisation'' of many psycho-social phenomena often leads either to futile ``numerology'' or to replacement of mathematics by half-baked ``stenography''.
In general their borrowing of terms, concepts and formulas from the physical sciences leads to distortion of the meaning they had in physics and to cluttering up sociology with fragments of meaningless, parasitic terms, concepts and assertions [33; 7-8].
By substituting the concepts and laws of the natural sciences for those of the social sciences sociologists fail to come closer to understanding social phenomena.
Many modern Western sociologists are under the influence of neo-Kantianism. Max Weber, W. Windelband and H. Rickert emphasise the role of subjective factors in the historical process. They stress the role of subjective behaviour in the social situation, conceiving this behaviour as a process of mental reproduction of the emotions.
In addition to neo-Kantianism, pragmatism has had an essential influence on sociology. The American sociologist Talcott Parsons writes that the true instrument of sociological investigation is that which facilitates ``the attainment of the goals of scientific investigation" [34; 66]. For the sake of this the concepts of causality and substance are discarded and only the sensations and subjective evaluations of the subject are declared to exist.
The pragmatist sociologists deny the connection between pragmatist sociology and the subjective idealist philosophy of pragmatism. McKinney writes: ``Pragmatism, although it is a philosophical label, stands for an attitude of mind rather than for a system of ideas; hence it appears in many diverse approaches and systems. Pragmatism is represented 55 in the habit of interpreting ideas or events in terms of their consequences. As a result, it is closely allied with the logic of experiment, which is the basis of modern research science. In general, then, pragmatism does not seem to imply any final philosophic conclusions but merely manifests a tendency to accept anything that works in the conduct of research" [21; 209].
Some sociologists deny any connections between pragmatist sociology and pragmatist philosophy in order to prove that this sociology presumably rests on practical and scientific data. McKinney further asserts that pragmatism manifests itself in several different ways, particularly in decreased dogmatism in sociology and the growing tendency not to regard any individual approach, theory or instrument, as final or decisive. The pragmatist trend in sociology identifies itself with the use of scientific methods, since these methods involve a continuous analysis of problematical situations, and the suggestion and consideration of various hypotheses associated with these problems and their verification.
McKinney writes with satisfaction that American methodology is permeated with pragmatic views, which is characteristic of the works not only of recognised empiricists, but also of outstanding theoreticians. By way of example he cites the theory of Parsons who has developed the most ``rationalistic'' and ``deductive'' system of modern sociology.
The section concluding the chapter Pragmatic Development in McKiney's article is of certain interest: ``The primary contributions of the pragmatic point of view to methodology seem to be its emphasis on instrumentalism, experimental design (controlled experience), and modest working theory. Insofar as it has benefited from these contributions of pragmatism, American methodology has rather attained 'hard-headedness' than succumbed to 'headlessness' " [21; 210].
Pragmatism is related to operationalism. The operationalists consider the inexactitudes and ambiguities of language to be the cause of the social vices of modern society. The British sociologist John Madge writes that ''. . . people with fully common aims---that is, with the impulse to co-operate in all projects---and aware of their community, tend 56 gradually to eliminate their language conflicts, retaining only decorative and immaterial distinctions. Convergence in language may in fact be an important indication of intensifying community" [35; 41--42].
The sociologists assert that all attempts at defining concepts verbally are useless. It is therefore necessary to seek definitions which are specific for a given social fact. Thus, they say, before the invention of the thermometer no verbal definition could guarantee an exact temperature reading. Professor Madge writes that the invention of the thermometer ``reduced the latter source of inaccuracy, as it transferred the perceptual process from that of feeling the hot object to that of watching the height of a column of fluid" [35; 48].
Referring to analogous examples Madge, Lundberg and other Western sociologists propose to replace verbal definitions by operational definitions. As the basis for defining social phenomena, operationalism takes not an objective, but a subjective criterion---the opinion of the experimenters. A true definition of a social phenomenon, however, depends not on the experimenter or a measuring instrument, but on how objectively it reflects the properties and relations of the objects and processes of social reality.
Existentialism has also exerted a certain influence on sociology. This philosophy absolutises internal subjective motives of social behaviour and personality existence. Although rejecting neopositivism, the existentialists limit the role of the mind in cognition. They reduce the process of cognition mainly to intuition.
Existentialism limits the process of thinking to the sphere of activity of only the given individual, regarding him as an absolutely independent essence and severing man from the social environment which is depicted as something external and hostile. Man's essence, or existence, as the philosophers assert, is man's internal core which remains unaffected even when man loses all he can possess in this world or when everything turns out to be illusory. Existentialist sociologists split the human essence and oppose feelings and instincts to the intellect.
Some Western sociologists (including Sorokin et al.) are under the influence of E. Husserl's phenomenology. Formulating the basic principles of phenomenology relative to 57 social investigation, A. Vierkandt, a German sociologist and follower of Husserl in sociology, wrote in A Theory of Society: ``This book does not deal with the history of marriage or the origin of the state, does not raise the question of the laws of the history of people's social life or the degree of development of occupations, does not touch upon social policy or the statistics of crime and takes no interest in the problems of race or the influence of natural selection caused by phenomena of culture or war, but makes it a point to discover 'a series of final, a priori, essential states of things', to reduce the endless number of facts to a small number of 'elementary phenomena' arising from the ' essence of the thing' " [see 36; 344].
Following the basic propositions of phenomenology Sorokin, M. Scheler and other sociologists and philosophers have renounced empirical investigation of social facts, and have proclaimed the possibility of understanding the essence of social life outside such investigation, on the basis of ``a priori" truths. As the starting point in the origin of social life they regard innate impulses such as the subordination impulse, the assistance impulse, the struggle impulse, the inclination to emulate one's neighbours, the inclination to sympathy, imitation, etc. The internal connection that arises from these impulses and unites a large number of people is, according to phenomenologists, the very essence of society.
The phenomenological tendency in sociology is a somewhat altered psychologism. According to the phenomenologists, understanding the essence of people's social connections is obtained by an analysis of mental states, not an empirical investigation of existing societies. The social link that unites people arises from their innate impulses. The ultimate cause of social and group life is inborn traits not the external environment.
To understand social phenomena apparently requires neither inductive nor deductive methods; direct perception suffices. Sorokin writes: ``In great scientific discoveries and important achievements in all fields of creativity the initial idea is ordinarily inspired by supra-sensory and supra-- logical intuition or genius as the way of cognition and creativity different from sensory observation or logical reasoning" [30; I, 237].
58Phenomenologist sociologists absolutise the role of intuition in cognition and reduce the role of experiment only to verification of intuitively obtained ideas.
Sociology only appears to be independent of the development of bourgeois philosophy. Modern Western sociology, represented by such schools as the ``natural-science'', `` analytical'', ``functional'', ``institutional'' and others, has proclaimed complete ``autonomy'' from philosophy, but in fact there can be no question of ``autonomy'' since the homily of ``independence'' from philosophy is itself a unique philosophy.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ § 4. The Subject Matter of Modern Western SociologySociology textbooks quite often refer to the `` interrelations" of people as the subject matter of sociology. For example, the American sociologists R. Schermerhorn and A. Boskoff call sociology ``a science of human interaction in which the attempt is made to discover systematic evidence for determinate relations between classes of social data in order to develop generalisations that are true under specified conditions" [21; 61].
The American sociologist Henry Fairchild defines sociology as ``the scientific study of the phenomena arising out of the group relations of human beings. The study of man and his human environment in their relations to each other" [37; 302].
The French sociologist Jean Haesaert also defines sociology as a science concerned with the ``interrelations among individuals, among individual and the group, among groups of people and between the group and the individual; the people connected by these interrelations constitute the common group which we call society" [38; 6].
But there is an infinite number of forms of relationships among people (relationships between teacher and pupils, the members of a volley-ball team, the salesman and customer, the conductor and musicians, etc.).
Haesaert has no answer to the question of what relationships form the basis of society.
It turns out that sociology has to deal with all forms of human relationships. But no science can do that. Further, the existence of such a sociology would make redundant all 59 other sciences investigating human relationships (history, economics, law, etc.) since all the humanities are concerned with human relationships.
Sometimes the term ``interrelations'' is replaced by the term ``interaction''. The American sociologist C. Loomis writes that ``for an understanding of 'Society' or any of the systems that exist in 'Society' ... attention must be turned to the uniformities of interaction" [39; 4--5]. Parsons defines sociology as the study of human groups, social relations and social institutes or, more academically, as a ``science which aims to work out an analytical theory of the systems of social action to the extent to which these systems may be conceived in generally integrated values" [40; 768]. The American sociologist A. Inkeles considers the task of sociology to be ``the study of the structure and functioning of social systems---that is, relatively enduring systems of action-shared by groups of people, large and small" [41; 250].
Some sociologists would transform sociology into a discipline which would analyse all human interrelations and interactions. Thus A. Green holds that sociology is a synthesising and generalising science of all of man's social relations. Like the other social sciences, sociology differs from the physical sciences in that it takes into consideration the importance of the objects, people and relations to the possibility of making a general study of people in their social relations. Unlike the physical sciences, sociology must also investigate the human wills and the aims which men pursue [see 16; 1].
The shortcoming of these definitions is that they are too broad. An infinite number of interrelations exist among people most diverse in form and content; the relations between children and parents, pupils and teachers, spectators and actors, customers and salesmen, soldiers and officers, etc. In a word, there are so many forms of interrelations that sociology alone cannot study them. Moreover, some forms of interrelations are essential, others are of secondary importance.
Western sociologists devote most of their attention to studying the psychological, ideological interrelations of people. This immediately