Communities are groups of people who live in the same locality (city, village, village, settlement) and are connected by common spiritual, political and economic interests. One of their main features is the following: each of the members is aware that he belongs to a collective different from the others. The community is a form of self-organization of society. We invite you to get to know her in more detail.
Community in the broadest sense
In a broad sense, communities are any communities of people connected with each other that have developed historically. This connection may be due to the place of residence (urban or rural community), the belonging of its members to a particular confession (confessional), the similarity of occupations (professional). In addition, communities are associations whose members may be connected by a common place of birth or by belonging to a particular ethnic group. This applies to people who live outside their historical homeland (fellowship).
Community innarrow sense
In the narrow sense, communities are forms of social organization of the population, which are considered one of the oldest. They are characteristic of the early stage of development of all civilizations. One person, or a group consisting of several people in the era of primitiveness, as a rule, could not survive. It was very difficult for her to provide herself with at least a minimum of resources and the necessary products. Therefore, people had to form large communities in order to farm together. At the same time, they were united by consanguinity - the most natural sign. This is how the tribal community was born. Its definition is as follows: it is a group of relatives who run a joint household. In the early stages of the development of the tribal community, it was hunting, then gathering, and, finally, cattle breeding and / or agriculture.
Functions of the community before the emergence of the state
In conditions when the state did not yet exist, all relations connected with religious beliefs, economy, kinship and family relations were concentrated at the community level. It provided its members with everything necessary, was a self-sufficient organism. The community included separate families, the nature and size of which depended on what were the features of the development of this civilization. The community at the beginning of its existence often coincided with the clan. The tribe was an amalgamation of several communities. This is how society was organized in ancient times.
Household, or family community
Brownie, orthe family community is considered a special kind of tribal community. What are its features? The features of this type of tribal community are as follows. It consists of a large family, including three to five generations of immediate family members. After cattle breeding or agriculture began to form the basis of the economy of the community, the role of its most experienced members increased. They were called elders. They became organizers of collective labor, religious leaders, leaders of the military militia. These people had a well-deserved authority in the eyes of other community members. In the institution of military leaders and elders, scientists today see the germ of future property and social inequality.
Territorial community
Consciousness of the blood connection between members of the community weakened with the increase in the number of relatives. More and more distant representatives of the genus settled next to each other. Some began to form families outside the community. Thus, not all signs of a tribal community were observed in the association of people. In the course of social evolution, it was replaced by territorial, or neighborly. The unification of people took place in this case on the basis of the proximity of their residence.
The role of the community after the emergence of the state
The community was made up of individual families who ran their own households. It had partial or complete self-government. Most often, the neighboring community united free farmers. In relation to the state, she occupied a subordinate position.
The community in the countries of the ancient world played the role of the primary linksocial system, its indivisible cell. It was she who was the subject that paid taxes (taxes) and supplied soldiers for the army. The community often turned into a political-territorial unit of the state. Within its framework, relations were regulated by unwritten, customary law, and after a while they were already enshrined with the help of state laws. As long as the community performed duties to the state, it usually did not interfere in its affairs. This was facilitated by the so-called mutual responsibility, which operated within the community. It meant that all members were responsible for the rest.
Nomadic community
The type of neighborhood community depended on the occupation of people. Nomadic, for example, distributed pastures, organized mutual assistance during natural disasters or the loss of livestock. Nomadic communities had to guard their herds all the time, so they had a permanent military organization.
Agricultural community
The agricultural community was somewhat different. Its main task was to regulate economic and land relations arising between its members. We note an important feature of the community: the common use of water resources, forest land and pastures. In each civilization, it had its own characteristics, depending on the form of government and the strength of the state, the availability of land suitable for cultivation. For example, among the peoples of medieval Asia and in the communities of the ancient East, each family received its allotment for the agricultural season. This allotment was the property of the community, and the state actedsupreme owner of the land. In ancient Rome and ancient Greece, a member of the community had the rights to his allotment. But leaving it led to their loss. Members of the German early medieval community (the so-called mark) had unconditional rights to allotments. At the same time, the functions of the community were limited to judicial and issues of using common lands.
Community loss of function process
Why did this form of uniting people fall apart? Let's look at the main reasons. As a result of the fact that the population of the community increased significantly, there was a shortage of land suitable for cultivation. Then restrictions on the size of the allotment began to be introduced. As feudal landownership developed, peasant allotments became the property of the feudal lord. Various forms of land and personal dependence on their lord began to spread. At this time, the community began to monitor the timely payment of rent by the peasants to the feudal lord. It gradually lost its judicial functions, and its self-government became very limited. However, neither the procedure for using the land belonging to the community, nor the methods of cultivating the land underwent practically no changes at that time. The professional distinctions of members of a caste community (India, Ancient Egypt, tropical Africa, medieval Japan, Oceania) were fixed by a rigid division into castes.
Some common signs of a community
Urgent agricultural work that required a lot of effort (harvesting, mowing, etc.) in most civilizations was carried out jointly by members of the community. The most importantdecisions, including questions about the distribution of various duties and state taxes, were taken by men at general meetings. Current affairs were led by the head of the community. He also represented her before government officials.
What signs of a tribal community did we forget to note? It, like the territorial one, tends to equalize the social and property status of farmers. The richer members bore the greater tax burden. The strength of the community depended on the number of farmers who were part of it. Therefore, she tried to prevent a situation in which her members would be ruined.
How did the community die?
Community in most civilizations is an indispensable feature of a pre-industrial, or agrarian, society. She died in a number of Western European countries as a result of the fact that the feudal lords completely seized the land that belonged to her. So the life of the communities was destroyed. However, this process most often occurred as a result of the industrial revolution, the formation of the capitalist structure, the development of commodity-money relations in society, and also due to urbanization, that is, the rapid growth of the urban population. Peasants went to work in cities where there were large industrial enterprises. This gradually weakened the community. The burden of duties assigned to each of its members grew. At the same time, the gap between the poor and the rich was widening. The latter were burdened by the restrictions imposed by the community on the use of land, and tried to get out of it. As a result, it lost its we althiest members. Left without them, the community became unable to fulfill the obligations imposed on it by the state. Therefore, the state sanctioned its dissolution. People stopped living in a community, the division of its property began. Note that varieties of the neighborhood community still exist in a number of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
