Chapter 4: Society

• Society refers to a group of people who interact in a definite territory and share a
common culture.

Gerhard Lenski: Society and Technology

• American sociologists, who has described the development of society in past 10,000
years.

• He has focused on the importance of technology in shaping societies.

• He has used the term “socio-cultural revolution” to mean the changes that occur as the
society gains new technology.

• On the basis of technology, Gerhard Lenski had categorized the human society
throughout the history as follows:

i. Hunting and gathering society

ii. Horticultural and pastoral society

iii. Agrarian society

iv. Industrial society

v. Post-industrial society.

i. Hunting and Gathering Societies:

• It is the simplest and earlier form of society that depends on a combination of hunting
wild animals and gathering wild fruits and vegetables for subsistence is called hunting
and gathering society.

• Hunters and gathers use simple tools such as spear, bow, arrow, stone knife etc.

• Food production as a subsistence pattern developed relatively recently, about 12,000

years ago. Thus, for almost 99 percent of humanity’s life span, humans lived as hunters
and gathers.

• Even today few of such groups remain for eg. Aka and Pygmies of Central Africa,
Bushmen of Southwestern Africa, Aborigines of Australia etc.

• In traditional hunting and gathering societies, social groups were small, usually made up
of either individual family units or a number of related families collected together in a
band.
 • Typically women and children collected relatively stationary foods such as plants, eggs,
shellfish, and insects, while men hunted large game.

• Nomadic life style:

As food and other resources become scarce in one site, the groups have to move on to
another. 

• Most people spend their time in search of next meal.

• Reciprocal economic system:

 A reciprocal economic system is based on exchanges among family groups as a means of

distributing goods and services throughout the society.

 One reason for this system of reciprocal exchange is that food and other resources must
usually be consumed immediately. There is very little storage capacity for any surplus, so
it makes sense to share what cannot be used anyway.

 Hunting and gathering society usually have Shaman or spiritual leader who enjoys high
prestige but has to work like other to find food.

 Such societies are highly egalitarian, with no major differences between those with and
those without wealth or political power.

 Animism as the earliest form of religion: the belief that spirits reside within all inorganic
and organic substances

 Healers and shamans are the religious specialists who serve the people’s spiritual needs.

ii. Horticulture and Pastoral Society:

• It is the second phase of the development of society in which people used simple hand
tools to raise crops.

• People used hoe to dig soil and plant seeds. This new technology changed the life style of
the people as they gave up gathering in favor of growing food for themselves.

• Horticulture first started in the fertile land of Middle and later on diffused to America and
Asia.

• A pastoral society is a social system in which the breeding and herding of domestic
animals is a major form of production for good and other purposes.
 • Pastoralist is a slightly more efficient form of subsistence. Rather than searching for food
on a daily basis, members of a pastoral society rely on domesticated herd animals to meet
their food needs.

• People consumed much food from animals: meat and milk, other milk products.

• They also prepared clothes from animal wool or fur and made weapons/tools from the
animal bone.

• The raising of animal facilitates the life of the people than the hunting gathering society.

• Growing plants and raising animals greatly increased food production, so the population
expanded from dozens to 100 in a group who were close in kinds.

• Semi Nomadic life style:

 Pastoralists used to settle permanently in a place as long as sufficient pastures are

available.

 As the pastures became scare, they move to another place.

 Horticulturists formed settlements, moving only when the soil gave out.

 They were oriented for the permanent settlement.

 As there was surplus production, not all the people have to be engaged in food
production. So, specialization of work started to be appeared. Some started to make
crafts, some cut hair, some engage in trade or some other serve as priests.

 Stratification started in society. Those who produced more food became powerful and
richer.

 The elite group , using the military power, served their own interests. However, they just
have control over small territory.

 Religious belief and worship of powerful divinities.

 Pastoralists belief that the God is directly involved in the well being of entire world.

 The roots of Judaism and Christianity lies in pastoral society as there is view of God as a
shepherd (The Lord is my shepherd).

iii. Agrarian Society:

• An agricultural society is a society that depends on agriculture as its primary means of

livelihood. The society acknowledges other means of livelihood and work habits but
stresses the importance of agriculture.
• About 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, human beings started to domesticate plants and
animals.

• About 5,000 years ago, peoples developed intensive agriculture, large scale cultivation
by using plough harnessed to animals or other energy sources.

• Cultivation of crops by preparing permanent fields year after year, often using irrigation
and fertilizers.

• The innovation of the plow changed the old agriculture system.

• With the plough the farmers could turn soil to a much greater depth than that had
previously been possible

• The plow thus enabled agricultural peoples to utilize fields on a more permanent basis
and occupy the same land for many generations.

• It enabled a population to produce enormous food surpluses to sustain dense populations

in large permanent settlements.

• This period in the human history is called as the dawn of civilization.

• Specialization in occupation.

• Invention of money as a common standard of exchange and the old barter system was
abandoned

• Feudalism, a decentralized form of political economy based on landed estates, existed in

agricultural civilizations during different historical periods

• In these systems, lords, like chiefs, were autonomous patrons who owned land,
maintained control over their own military and demanded labor and tribute from their
serfs.

• Agrarian society has the most social inequality.

• Men occupied dominant role in the society.

• Using heavy metal pulled by large animals, agrarian society put men in charge of food
production and women were left in charge of supporting tasks such as weeding and
carrying water to the field.

• High belief in religion.

• Religion reinforces the power of elite by defining loyalty and hard work as moral
obligations.
iv. Industrial Society:

• The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major
changes in agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and technology had a profound
effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times.

• It began in the Britain, and then subsequently spread throughout Western Europe, North
America, Japan, and eventually the world.

• An industrial society is a society in which the primary means of subsistence is industry.

• In the simplest sense an industrial society is a social system whose mode of production
focuses primarily on finished goods manufactured with the aid of machinery

• Industrialism is also associated with the widening gap between two social classes of
'haves' and 'haves not.‘

Other features of industrial society:

• Use of advance technology

• Industrial societies developed largely in urban areas

• Literate society

• High division of labor

• Commercialization of goods

• Family as a unit of consumption and joint families are comparatively less in number.

• Dominated by secondary relations

• A weak kinship system

• A weak religious institutions

• Formal means of social control such as law, legislation, police, and court are needed

• Heterogeneous society

• A large middle class with technologically related jobs

• Specialization of production and marketing

• High status of business activity

• The statuses are achieved rather than ascribed

 • Faster means of communication

• Rapid changes and movement

v. Post-industrial Society:

• The developed economy is now moving from industrialism to post industrialism.

• In many areas of commerce, computers have radically transformed the work place.

• Computers drive machines and robots and much of the manual work required in work
place is disappearing.

• Business is now knowledge based and service oriented.

• Information and knowledge are becoming more important than capital equipment. So,
more people have access to the productive resources and people can work at home with
the help of computers and internet.

 German Philosopher, historian, political scientist , economist and sociologist

 Radical nature, involved in the publication and editing of revolutionary socialist articles
in his early stage

 Abandoned from Germany, shifted to France(Paris) and then to Britain

 Marx believed that the task of the social scientist was not merely to describe the world, it
was to change it

 Every objects of this materialistic world is composed of two opposite elements. There is
contradiction among these opposite elements and this contradiction leads to the
development/change in the object.
  Similarly, society is composed of two opposite forces/ classes and there is conflict
between them.

 Marx main contribution is theory of class struggle (the conflict between entire classes
over society’s wealth and power).

 The history of hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. There has been
class struggle in every stage of society.

 According to Marx, there are five stages of society:

i. Primitive Communism

ii. Slavery age

iii. Feudalistic society

iv. Capitalist society

v. Socialist / communist society

 Marx applied much of his effort in criticizing the capitalism

Primitive Communism:

 First stage of development of human society

 No existence of private property/ classless society

 All the things available in nature were common.

 Hunting and gathering as a means of livelihood.

 Distribute the products ( fruits , vegetables and animal flesh) equally among the group
member

 Social relation: equality and mutual cooperation.

Slavery stage:

 Second stage

 Emerged after the development of advanced weapons, agriculture, permanent settlement,

accumulation of products.

 Means of production: weapons, agriculture tools, land

 Stronger one captured the means of production and the weaker one became the slave
  Slave became the private property of the master

 Slaves were employed in agriculture work, mine worker, production of weapons and
utensils

 Ownership of Master over the means of production.

 Buying and selling of slaves as the commodity

 Social relation: exploitation of slaves by their master.

 Development of state mechanisms such as police, court, military to dominate the slaves
and serve the interest of the master.

Feudalistic Society:

 advancement in agriculture

 Feudal/ land lords and small peasants as the opposing classes

 Feudal have ownership over the means of production ( land , agricultural tools).

 The peasants have to work in the field of feudal and gets small amount of products just to
sustain their life.

 Social relation: exploitative domination of feudal over the peasants, dependency of

peasants over feudal

 State mechanisms in control of feudal

 Religion, philosophy, law ,court: all according to the feudalistic system

 Conflict between feudal and peasants.

Capitalist society:

 Rapid industrialization and urbanization

 Bourgeoisie and proletariat as the opposing classes.

 Means of production ( factory, machinery tools, technology, raw materials) owned by

bourgeoisie

 Social relation: exploitation of proletariat by bourgeoisie

 The sole motive of bourgeoisie is to earn profit

 Proletariat tries to get rid of such exploitation

  Hence, class struggle between bourgeoisie ad proletariat.

Socialist/ communist society:

 Emerges after the success of revolution

 Public ownership over the means of production.

 The state mobilizes the production system: what to produce? How to produce? How
much to produce? How to distribute?

 Social relation based on equality

 Elimination of class

 There will be no exploitation

Marx’s theory of class struggle:

 The central idea of Karl Marx lies in the theory of Class struggle

 All those people who share a common relationship to the means of economic production
are termed as class

 Those who own and control the means of production are dominant class and those who
do not have ownership over the means of production are dominated or lower class people.

 Marx argues that the history of hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.

 Human society passed through different stages of development and there has been
conflict in each stage.

 There was conflict between Master and slaves in slavery stage, feudal and peasants in
feudal stage and the conflict is ongoing between bourgeoisie and proletariat in capitalist
stage

 Each stage contained the seeds of its own destruction. It is so because of the presence of
inequality in the very structure of the society.

Marx theory of class struggle in capitalist society

Can be further explained in the following topics:

1. The importance of property:

 Property has high value in capitalist society.

  Classes are determined on the basis of the individual’s relation to the means of
production.

 Those who own the means of production are bourgeoisie and those who do not have
ownership over the means of production and just have labor to sell are called as
proletariat.

 It determines the class status, higher or lower. The conflict over the distribution of
resources fortifies the class barriers.

2. Economic determinism:

 Economy is the base structure of any society and it determines the superstructure of the
society such as law, culture, social norms and values, political and educational system
etc.

 Any changes in the economy i.e base of the society bring changes in the super structure
of the society.

 The economic power of the bourgeoisie is transformed in to political power and the entire
political process and institutions courts, police, military etc serves the interest of the
capitalist.

3. Polarization of classes:

 Bourgeoisie and proletariat are the two antagonist classes of capitalist society.

 Each class has their own specific interests and they serve the interest of their own class.
So, the class struggle takes place and in course of time the people of the society will be
divided into two poles.

 As the class struggle further increases, petty bourgeoisie and small capitalist will join the
pole of proletariat.

4. Theory of surplus value:

 Surplus value refer to the quantity of value produced by the worker beyond the necessary
labor time, meaning by the latter the working time required to produce a value equal to
the one he has received in the form of wages.

 Marx argues that bourgeoisie earns high profit as they receive surplus value.

5. Pauperization:

 As the exploitation of the proletariat increases, the state of massive poverty occurs.
  The capitalist mode of production is structured in such a way that the bourgeoisie gets
more and more profit; and gets richer and richer while the proletariat gets poorer and
poorer.

 The main cause of the poverty is exploitation. The proletariat becomes so much poor that
they can hardly sustain their life.

 6. Alienation:

 “Alienation refers to the sense of powerlessness, isolation and meaninglessness

experienced by human beings when they are confronted with social institutions and
conditions that they cannot control and consider oppressive”. – Seeman

 “Broadly speaking alienation denotes a socio-psychological condition of the individual

which involves his estrangement from certain aspects of his social existence”. –
Mitchell’s Dictionary of sociology

 The increasing economic exploitation and inhuman working conditions results in the
alienation of workers.

 .In course of alienation, the worker becomes estranged from himself, from the process as
well as product of his labor, from his fellow men and from the human community itself.

 Work becomes an enforced activity, not creative and satisfying one.

 The responsibility of the workers gets diminished.

 This situation of alienation ripens the mood of worker for conflict.

7. Class solidarity and antagonism:

 Both bourgeoisie and proletariat groups becomes conscious about their class and with the
growth of class consciousness, there occurs clear demarcation of two groups.

 The working class gets united. They form trade unions against the bourgeoisie and
demand to keep up their wages.

 The bourgeoisie tries to maintain the system as such.

 It increases class struggle.

 They also form permanent association to prepare for revolution.

8. Revolution:

 As the class struggle takes up height, violent revolution breakout which destroys the
structure of capitalist society.
  The revolution throws out the rule of bourgeoisie and proletariat captures the
government.

9. The dictatorship of the proletariat:

 The revolution terminates capitalist society and leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

 The proletariat starts ruling the state in a dictatorial way.

 Though the revolution is violent in nature, it does not necessarily involve the massive
killings of the bourgeoisie. The confiscation of their private property will be enough to
make them powerless.

 The dictatorship system of the proletariat is termed as worker’s democracy.

10. Inauguration of the Communist society:

 The dictatorship of the proletariat opens the door of communist society.

 All the private property is socialized. So, the class will be eliminated.

 As there will be no class, there will be no conflict.

 Communist society is the classless society in which nobody owns anything and
everybody owns everything.

 Here, every individual contributes according to his ability and receives according to his
need.

 Finally, in course of time, there will also be gradual collapse of the state.

• Max Weber was a German sociologist.

 • Weber disagreed with the philosophical ideas of materialism. His philosophical approach
called as idealism emphasized how human ideas especially beliefs and values shape
society.

• He had much to say about how modern society differs from earlier types of social
organization. In Weber's view, modern society was the product of a new way of thinking.

• Instead of categorizing societies according to their technology or productive system,

Weber has focused on the ways that people think about their world.

• Two world view: Weber explained that members of preindustrial societies are bound by
tradition and people in industrial societies are guided by rationality.

• Tradition means the values and belief passed from generation to generation. Traditional
people are guided by the past and they feel a strong attachment to long-established ways
of life.

• Rationality means a way of thinking that emphasizes deliberate, matter of fact calculation
of the most efficient way to accomplish a particular task.

• Weber viewed both the industrial revolution and the development of capitalism as
evidence of modern rationality, the historical change from tradition to rationality as the
main type of human thought.

• For eg. The willingness to adopt the latest technology is one strong indicator of how
rationalized a society is. In general, members of high-income societies in North America
and Europe use personal computers the most, but these devices are rare in low-income
nations.

• Weber considered the industrial capitalism as highly rational because capitalists try to
make money in any way they can.

Protestantism and capitalism:

• Weber argues that belief and values have much significant impact on social change.

• Religious values associated with Protestants are an important factor for the rise of
capitalism.

• Protestant was reformed by Calvinism. They approached life in a formal and rational
way.

• This mind set leads people to deny themselves worldly pleasure in favor of a highly
disciplined focus on economic pursuits. Actually, Calvinism encouraged people become
good business people or entrepreneurs.
• Calvinists came to see worldly prosperity as a sign of God’s grace. Eager to gain this
reassurance, Calvinists threw themselves into quest for business success, applying
rationality, discipline, and hard work to their tasks.

• They neither spend the money for themselves nor shared their wealth with poor, rather
they reinvested for more success.

• Hence, these activities of saving money, using wealth to create more wealth and adopting
new technology became the foundation of capitalism.

• French sociologist

• First person to apply research methods in sociology in his study of suicide

• Durkheim recognized that society exists beyond us.

• Pattern of human behavior-cultural norms, values and beliefs exists as established

structures. They are also called as social facts.

• Social facts are external to individual and exert an external “constraint” or pressure on
him. For eg. Committing suicide is not an individual phenomenon but it is purely a social
phenomenon.

• Durkheim argues that each structure have function in the operation of society.

• He further argues that society shapes our personality. How we act, think and feel is drawn
from the society that nurtures us. It also provides moral discipline that guides our
behavior and controls our desires.
 • Anomie is a condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals.

• Durkheim warned that increased anomie may have destructive effects. For eg. The
famous singers have tragic ends (drug addiction or suicide).

• He emphasized on the solidarity that holds society together and keeps it from descending
into chaos.

• In his first major work, “The Division of Labor in Society” , Durkheim presented an
analysis of social change that argued the advent of industrial era meant the emergence of
a new type of solidarity.

• Two types of solidarity:

i. Mechanical solidarity

ii. Organic solidarity

i. Mechanical solidarity:

• Traditional culture with low division of labor

• Most members of society are involved in similar occupations

• They are bound together by common experience and shared belief

• The community punishes anyone who challenges conventional ways of life.

ii. Organic solidarity:

• Specialization of tasks and the increasing social differentiation in advanced societies lead
to the new order featuring organic solidarity.

• Such societies are held together by people economic interdependence and each one
recognize the importance the contribution of other’s.

 For Durkheim the key to social change is the expanding division of labor