Human Society

Organic complex system constituted by the interconnection of all human activities and relations based on material production. Human society appeared at a certain stage of development of nature with the emergence of mankind and is the highest and most complex form of motion in the material world. In the leap from nature to human society, labor played the determining part. Society and nature are both opposite and unified. Man, society and nature are universally connected and develop eternally.

Man and society are unified. Man and society arise simultaneously and are eternally in an indissoluble connection. Man is always social man, and society provides the presuppositions and conditions for the existence and development of each individual. Marx said that man is a zoon politikon [political animal] in the most literal sense: he is not only a social animal, but an animal that can be individualized only within society. Society is always human society. Society consists of men, and without men there will be no society. Society, whatever its form, is the product of man’s interaction upon man. Man is the subject of society and the creator of the history of society. Society is not the simple addition of single individuals in the abstract, but an organic system formed by man in actual activities and actual relations. Given a certain state of development of the productive forces, there will be certain social relations and corresponding social system. It is impossible to understand neither man nor society apart from the organic unity of man and society.

Social organism is a complex system with a multi-level structure. First of all, social being and social consciousness are interconnected and interact with each other. The mode of production of material life conditions the whole process of social, political and intellectual life. In production, men form relations of production appropriate to a certain state of development of the productive forces, which constitute the economic foundation of society, on which arises a superstructure appropriate to it. The unity of a certain economic foundation and superstructure constitutes a concrete society. Marx pointed out that the social relations within which individuals produce, the social relations of production, are altered, transformed, with the change and development of the material means of production, of the forces of production. The relations of production in their totality constitute what is called the social relations, society, and, moreover, a society at a definite stage of historical development, a society with peculiar, distinctive characteristics.

Society is a historical process in constant development. The development of society is manifested in every respect, economy, politics, culture, science and technology, education, ideas, ecology as well as the quality of social life. Mao Zedong said: “Changes in society are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society, that is, the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the contradiction between classes and the contradiction between the old and the new; it is the development of these contradictions that pushes society forward and gives the impetus for the supersession of the old society by the new.” The contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production and between the economic foundation and the superstructure are the fundamental contradictions of society. The fundamental contradictions of society manifest themselves in class society as class contradictions and class struggle. The development of human society has its objective laws.

Social formations such as primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society and communist society (socialist society is the primary stage of communist society) are different stages in the development of society. The development of society has both unity and diversity. Lenin said: “The development of world history as a whole follows general laws it is by no means precluded, but, on the contrary, presumed, that certain periods of development may display peculiarities in either the form or the sequence of this development.” The diversity and complexity of the development of society will not change its basic trend.