Contemporary community as a social tool for transforming society

Abstract

This article shows the implementation of the contemporary community as a social tool for a comprehensive solution of a number of social problems, including demographic, educational, criminal, and ideological, among others. The author attempts to combine the interdisciplinary potentials of sociological, historical, and legal approaches to study the phenomenon of the contemporary community and the possibilities of using it as a social tool to overcome various social problems. The implementation of some “national programs” is not as successful as expected, because, as stated by the author, of lacking a systematic approach and ignoring the traditional methods of solving complex social situations. Among the employed various scientific methods, the generalization of experience and its extrapolation beyond the used systems onto the contemporary realities proved most useful. For thousands of years, there has been a global experience of complex resolution of all the main problems of society — a community. The agricultural community was the foundation of the economy and social organization of “eternal” China and some other ancient states. The community is a specific social space, a sphere of application of customary law and morals, which allowed communities to provide high population growth, reliable tax collection, and crime fighting. Contemporary communities show positive experience as well: in various regions of the Russian Federation, neighborhood communities spontaneously arise on the basis of common interests. Of particular importance is the experience of the Central Asian republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which have developed a legal framework for the effective functioning of communities. The author believes that in the contemporary conditions, the community has a great potential and, with the assistance of state structures, can become an effective tool for transforming the Russian society. However, the realities of the contemporary world do not allow mass introduction of the community as a universal social tool. Therefore, public policy should be aimed at encouraging voluntary communities.