Sociology and Space, No. 10, 1965.
Review article
Economical Development and Transformations of Underdeveloped Societies
Manojlo Gluščević
Abstract
The subject of consideration of this paper are the transformations of underdeveloped societies caused by the economical development, that is the process of modernization whose the most significant precondition is industrialization. In the first part (I) the author in an analytical way reviews the concepts:»underdeveloped society« and »developed society«. According to the author there is no human society that could be characterized as a stationary and concludes that, there are no sufficiently developed regions that could be confronted to the underdeveloped ones, because in no country technical and other potentials are never sufficiently developed neither they are at the disposal and use to all social strata evenly. The author thinks that the difference between traditional and industrial society is almost the same as the difference between the developed and the underdeveloped regions within the developed industrial system. Then the eight points of difference between developed and underdeveloped societies are given, and in this connection the author cites in the table according to the
typology of Melvil Herskovitz the characteristics of the preindustrial society and the society under the process of industrialization.
In the second part ( I I ) the author considers the basic characteristics of the so called traditional agrarian society and its modes of social transformations in the process of modernization. In that context the author points out the process of transformation of family and family relations and stresses especially the forms of transformation of extended family of South Slavs known under the name »zadruga«. Characteristics of such family are, according to the author, as follows:
1. livelihood, education and care of children are the matters of whole family-household, 2. age of marriage is early youth (20 for male and 17 for female), 3. marriage of both sexes are strictly controlled, 4. social value of woman is estimated by the number of children she has, 5. husband is more motivated for having descendents (male) than wife, 6. different position of males and females, 7. relationship between man and wife are reduced almost only to sex, and 8. authority in family belongs to males exclusively. The author then considers transformations of these characteristics in the process of modernization of society. The third part of this article ( I I I ) is devoted to innovations as indicators of adaptibilily of population to industrial conditions of life. Adoption of innovations is not only a matter of technical adaptation, but it requires also a new system of motivations that substantially differs from the one in the traditional society,
and individual transformation of people as well. The author then discusses the three fields in which innovations are being realized: a) productive activities, b) management and c) consumption.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
118309
URI
Publication date:
23.12.1965.
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