Targeted progressive development of allspheres of human civilization are defined as social progress. The concept, the criteria of this process have a lot of interpretations. History knows many ways of this movement forward in the form of both a rapid jump and progressive evolution.
So, the notion of social progress, itscriteria are defined as all those prerequisites that contribute to the dynamic upward process of renewal and modernization. The main basis, its basis is a scientific and technological revolution and a cardinal change in the public consciousness under the influence of new doctrines and ideologies. The multifacetedness of this concept does not allow one to give an unambiguous interpretation, nevertheless, according to the Marxist concept, the main source of social progress is the ways of material production and distribution of benefits. The lowest level is slavery with his servitude, and at the top is the society of universal prosperity (socialism). Social progress: the concept, the criteria of this process in liberal philosophical thought is also understood as the degree of economic and political freedom of the individual. The state guarantees the latter.
There are a few more authoritativeopinions on the modernization criteria, while they are diametrically opposed. In the basis of many researchers put a kind of scale of values, but it has significant differences. So, if in a totalitarian society material production develops intensively, at the same time the rights and freedoms of an individual and a citizen are at a rather low level, the Communist USSR and fascist Germany can serve as a vivid example of this postulate. Undoubtedly, social development and social progress are closely interrelated, and, it would seem, the concepts of one series, but progress is a cardinal, it is possible to say, revolutionary changes in the society, while development is an evolutionary process, i.e. translational. Accordingly, at one glance, progress can be recognized, the other denies it. However, all these criteria are subjective and have the right to exist.
Now let us dwell on such a concept ascontradictory development and social progress. The concept, the criteria of the phenomenon under consideration are also rather ambiguous. If we take the central sign of social development, it turns out that the change of formations did not always help to increase the productive forces, and therefore this criterion loses its defining value. But the potential capabilities of the new system significantly exceeded the old one, therefore, it took a long time before real signs of ascending development appeared.
Exactly the same, and, perhaps, more characteristica contradiction arises when comparing capitalism and socialism. After all, initially the second method of production arose in the country is not the most economically developed, but its introduction allowed it to enter the ranks of the leaders of world total production. These contradictions will continue to influence the general vector of the improvement of the social system, therefore the mode of production remains the most stable criterion of social evolution.
