As is well known, societies have structures, which are responsible for the way in which relationships are organized, guided, conducted, allowing individuals to assume positions and roles social. Such structures are extremely interconnected to the productive systems that are in force in these societies, which concern the way in which societies organize themselves to produce the resources necessary for their survival, that is, it concerns the way social groups meet the material needs of their lives. Material needs must be understood as food, clothing, utensils, tools, buildings, medicines, in short, a range of necessary elements that are produced or achieved by man's work through his interaction with the environment and with other men in society.
The transformation of the production system is a fundamental aspect for thinking about changes in social structures that would guarantee the emergence of an industrial society and the abandonment of standards above. As is well known, a greater division of labor led to the emergence of a stratification into social classes, as we can understand from a reading of Karl Marx's work. In fact, this same thinker shows us in his analysis the importance of the so-called historical materialism, a method by which we can try to understand the
economic, social, political and intellectual life, that is, the history of humanity and its forms of organization, realizing how the productive systems of each period have an intrinsic relationship with the social structure.In the feudal society existing in the Middle Ages, for example, for a status society (no conditions mobility) prevailed a self-sustaining productive system, predominantly agricultural, familiar. Even with the incipient development of a trade in the villages that were formed in Europe, a type of family productive system remained. In this context (from an incipient settlement) emerged the so-called craft guilds, formed by master craftsmen and their assistants, who started a small production for a local market. But the growth of cities and the expansion of commerce would make the domestic production system come into force, which would mean the loss of independence of the artisans in the production of their work. If in the past they had, in addition to the possession of their work, also the raw material and their tools, in the system become dependent, sometimes, on intermediaries, who would help with both raw material and sales. Obviously, it is worth saying that throughout history these systems have at some point been in force together, as processes histories are dynamic and that the beginning of a "new" system or configuration does not only occur after the definitive end of the previous.
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In the middle of the 18th century, already in a period in which the scientific-technological revolution had started, the manufacturing system emerged, which had developed throughout the 19th century until today. Compared to previous systems, as Lakatos and Marconi (1999) point out, it was now a “realized production outside the home, in establishments belonging to the employer, under strict supervision, for an increasingly broader market and oscillating. The worker completely loses his independence: he no longer has raw materials nor does he own the instruments of work. The skill of the worker, to some extent, loses importance due to the use of the machine, but capital becomes more and more important” (ibid., p. 207).
Thus, the change in production systems is accompanied by the reorganization of the structure of society. The Europe of fields and plantations (apart from, of course, the still modest trade) gave way to an urbanized and industrial, direct consequence of transformations and productive systems, that is, the way man produces his life material.
Paulo Silvino Ribeiro
Brazil School Collaborator
Bachelor in Social Sciences from UNICAMP - State University of Campinas
Master in Sociology from UNESP - São Paulo State University "Júlio de Mesquita Filho"
Doctoral Student in Sociology at UNICAMP - State University of Campinas