The main provisions of the theory of demographic determinism formulated. History pages

Popular in the 19th and 20th centuries. continued to remain and demographic determinism. The demographic factor was addressed, for example, by L. Gumplovich. In the fertility of people, he saw the cause of predatory raids, wars, the conquest of some peoples by others, and thereby the emergence of social classes and the state. With the flourishing of society and the increase in the well-being of its members, “concern for achieving the future well-being of offspring by limiting the natural reproduction of the people” begins. Population growth stops, then it declines. All this gives rise to economic weakness and political decline, which makes society an easy prey for those peoples who, by virtue of natural fertility, grow.

Demographic determinism was developed in the works of the French sociologists Adolphe Costa (1842 - 1901) "Principles of Objective Sociology" (1899) and "The Experience of Nations and Proposals Based on It" (1900) and Henri Secretan (1853 - 1916) "Population and Morals". A. Coast argued that the growth in the number and density of the population completely determines all the changes taking place in the field of politics, economics, law, religion, and technical knowledge. He went so far in his enthusiasm that it provoked objections from other, more factual, champions of demographic determinism.

E. Durkheim paid tribute to this direction. In his work “On the division of social labor” (1893), he saw the main reason for the transition of society from mechanical to organic solidarity, primarily in the growth of population density, and thereby the density of society and an increase in its volume. “We do not say,” writes E. Durkheim, “that the growth and compaction of societies allow for an ever greater division of labor, but we argue that they determine its necessity. It is not the instrument by which the division of labor is effected; this is the determining cause of it.”

In Russia, the ideas of demographic determinism were defended by Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907) in the works “Cherished Thoughts” (Ch. 1-3. St. Petersburg, 1903-1905; M., 1995; 2 and 9 chapters were published: Mendeleev D.N. To the knowledge of Russia. M., 2000) and "To the knowledge of Russia" (St. Petersburg, 1906; M., 2002). "... Humanity taken as a whole, - he wrote, - ... is imbued with an instinctive desire for the preservation and development of human offspring ...". It was this “love for offspring” that “led to the division of labor and to those inequalities that are unknown in the wild animal or the initial patriarchal life (although the beginnings of it are already visible in it) and leads to the division of the inhabitants according to their economic situation into different classes. ..". DI. Mendeleev was an opponent of Marxism. But, as we have already seen, some Russian scientists who considered themselves Marxists (A.A. Bogdanov) also leaned towards demographic determinism.

This concept has a lot of supporters today. It exists now both independently and as a moment of the trend called environmental determinism (environmentalism).

The ideas of demographic determinism were developed in the work "Slash-and-burn agriculture among the Kiukuru and its significance for cultural development in the Amazon" (1961) by the famous American ethnographer Robert Carneiro. Population growth, in conditions where the area of ​​land suitable for cultivation is limited, leads to a transition to more intensive methods of farming, to rivalry between tribes and wars. Wars result in the subjugation of some tribes by others and the emergence of tributaries. Subsequently, the subordinate tribes are incorporated into the society of the conquerors. Chiefdoms arise.

There is a process of increasing political units. Both tribes and chiefdoms unite in unions or confederations. Victorious chiefdoms grow in size, and eventually great conquering states emerge. Within these new societies, the nobility is emerging. The captives are turned into slaves. “The incorporation of slaves into an conquering state completes the stratification of society into four main classes: leaders (or kings), nobility, commoners (ordinary community members - Yu.S.) and slaves.”

The titles of the works of the Danish economist Esther Boserup speak for themselves. Conditions for Agricultural Growth. Economics of agrarian change under the pressure of population” (1965) and American ethnologist Mark Nathan Cohen “Food Crisis in Prehistory. Overpopulation and the emergence of agriculture” (1977).

Sociologist and demographer O.D. Duncan, in Social Organization and the Ecosystem (1964), introduces the concept of ecological expansion. It starts with population growth. This requires an increase in the amount of energy and materials extracted by society from the external environment, which in turn implies the development of new forms of organization of human collective efforts in this area. The end result is the transition of society from one stage of evolutionary development to another, higher one. As already mentioned, such stages in the concept of O.D. Douglas seven: from the stage of wandering groups of hunters and gatherers to the level of industrial state societies.

The American sociologist and demographer J. Matras, in his books "Population and Societies" (1973) and "Introduction to Population: A Sociological Approach" (1977), insists that in societies of any type, population growth entails social structural changes: differentiation and division labor, the expansion of social boundaries and the adoption of innovations, which has a consequence of the transition from one stage of social evolution to another. There are eight such stages in the J. Matras scheme, as we have already seen.

Another American sociologist and demographer, Julian Lincoln Simon, in his works “The Economics of Population Growth” (1977) and “The Theory of Population and Economic Growth” (1986) puts forward the concept of “population push” (population-push). Its essence lies in the fact that the growth of the population and the increase in needs and needs associated with it makes more intensive work necessary, which brings to life many inventions, technological progress and an increase in productivity. J. Simon is trying to substantiate this concept both with facts from the history of Ancient Greece, Rome, medieval Europe, and with modern data.

Demographic determinism is also popular among some historians. As the French historian Louis Chevalier wrote: “It is not enough to take into account that demography is one of the components of social history, for it revives its main and, as a rule, forgotten object, the population. Demography, as a privileged discipline, must finally come into its full rights... Demography is leading the way. The only and irreplaceable. The idea of ​​the decisive role of the demographic factor permeates his work The Working and Dangerous Classes of Paris in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (1958).

The idea of ​​demographic determinism is present in the works of Academician Nikita Nikolaevich Moiseev (1917 - 2000) “The worldview of modern rationalism. Introduction to the theory of self-organization "(Moiseev N.I. Parting with simplicity. M., 1998) and" To be or not to be ... a person "(M., 1999). The author does not know historical facts well, which does not in the least prevent him from claiming to comprehend the entire path of mankind and predict its future fate.

DEMOGRAPHIC DETERMINISM, one of the main methodological bourgeois principles. societies. science, which boils down to absolutization of the role of the population factor in the development of society. The idea of ​​the defining role of us. in societies. development put forward in the 18th century. K. Helvetia, A. Barnav and others; in a peculiar form was interpreted by T. R. Malthus, who considered the growth of the people. as a factor hindering the progress of society, leading to social disasters (poverty, etc.) and revolutions. The principle of D. D. received the greatest justification in the works of representatives of the demographic school in the bourgeois. sociology, as well as a number of bourgeois. positivist sociologists (H. Spencer, mm Kovalevsky). In the bourgeois demography is widely used by the so-called theorist. morphological revolutions by F. Hauser and neo-Malthusians. Along with a one-factor approach to assessing the role of the growth of us., based on the principle of D. d., a large distribution in the bourgeois. societies. science, especially in the 1970s, received a multifactorial approach due to the widespread use of the method of global modeling of the development of society.

Post-industrial (information) society
Bell Daniel
Toffler Alvin
Huntington Samuel
...
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Topic 24. The problem of the development of society

Axial time- a basic category in modern historical thought, introduced by K. Jaspers as a means of understanding the beginning and continuation of a single world history. Axial Time is the period from 800 to 200 BC. BC, associated with the emergence of powerful spiritual movements (in China - Confucius and Lao Tzu; in India - the creators of the Upanishads and Buddha; in Iran - Zarathustra, in Palestine - the prophets, in Greece - philosophers and sages), which were of great importance for all mankind, since they formed the type of person that exists today.

Progressive Society- a society in which people separate themselves from the world around them and strive to conquer the forces of nature, change the world, transform their lives, make the future better than the present.

Public (social) progress- a fundamental category of social philosophy that characterizes the improvement of mankind in historical development, its movement from primitive forms of community life to highly organized ones. The idea of ​​social progress was explicitly formulated in the philosophy of the Enlightenment (XVIII century). According to Marx, social progress is a consistent change of socio-economic formations; according to Hegel - a natural process of liberation of a person, his awareness of his own freedom. According to the most common modern concepts of social progress, it is based on the progressive evolution of technology, economics, forms of spiritual life, the progress of culture, and social organization.

Nihilism(lat. nihil - nothing) - the denial of continuity with the previous stage of development, social progress, generally accepted values, ideals, moral norms, culture, forms of social and state life.

social determinism- theories of social development, according to which the development of society is due to the action of various factors. Types of social determinism: geographical, demographic, economic, technological.

Geographic determinism- a theory stating that the development of peoples and societies is completely or almost completely determined by their geographical location, climate and other natural conditions (C. Montesquieu, I. Herder, T. Bockl, P.N. Savitsky, D. Boden, G.V. Plekhanov, E. Hanington and others).

Demographic determinism- a concept that explains the development of society by the action of a demographic factor - the dynamics of the population of a society (G. Vico, Morelli, Helvetius, Barnava, etc.).

Economic determinism- a concept that explains the development of society by changes in the mode of production, production relations and the distribution of public goods (R. Jones, K. Marx, V. Shulyatinov).

Technological determinism- a theory that explains changes in society by the development of production technologies (concepts of post-industrial society by D. Bell, R. Aron, O. Toffler, etc.).

Factor theory- a theory that explains the development of society by the influence of a number of different conditions (factors): economic, technical, cultural, natural, etc.

Elite theory- the theory that history is made by a privileged minority, since the necessary components of the social structure of any society are (1) the elite, i.e. the higher, privileged strata or strata that carry out the functions of management, the development of science and culture, and (2) the rest, the passive mass of people (Plato, N. Machiavelli, T. Carlyle, V. Pareto, G. Mosca, and others).

Story- the area of ​​individual events in which common and special features of social organization, real relationships, similarities and differences of specific human societies exist and through which are manifested.

Formational approach to the study of the history of society- the concept of social development in Marxism, according to which society develops as a whole and in its progressive development goes through certain universal stages - socio-economic formations (primitive communal, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist and communist). According to this approach, there is a certain main (“mainline”, one-line) path of development of society, in which, in the course of development and change in the methods of material production, a more developed formation destroys a less developed one (Eurocentrism) through a social revolution.

Socio-economic formation- in Marxism - a concrete historical type of society, distinguished by the mode of production; a historically defined stage in the development of human society, characterized by: a) a mode of production peculiar only to it, which is determined by the level of development of the productive forces and production relations ("basis"); b) due to this mode of production, social and political relations, legal norms and institutions, as well as ideology ("superstructure"). The main socio-economic formations are: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and communist.

Civilizational approach to the study of the history of society- the concept of social development, according to which society develops through a multitude of civilizations (cultures, cultural and historical types) that are equivalent in terms of the level of maturity achieved. Each civilization goes through certain cycles: birth, flourishing, aging and death. This approach affirms the multilinearity, multivariance of historical development, it is focused on the knowledge of the history of society, taking into account the specifics of countries and regions. Proponents of the civilizational approach: M. Weber, A. Toynbee, O. Spengler, N.Ya. Danilevsky, K.N. Leontiev, P.A. Sorokin, L.N. Gumilyov and others.

Civilization(lat. civilis - civil) - a polysemantic concept that can mean: a synonym for culture; cultural and historical community (system); stage in the evolution of human society, which replaced the "primitive barbarism" (Morgan). Characteristic features of the current stage of development of our civilization: uneven and non-linear social changes; violation of the balance of interests between developed and developing countries; the threat of thermonuclear war; search for harmony in the development of relations between nature and society.

The concept of post-industrial society- a theory based on the ideas of A. Coomaraswamy, D. Bell, E. Toffler and others, according to which the development of society is seen as a change in three socio-economic systems - pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial societies. These three social systems differ in the main factors of production, the leading sectors of the economy and the dominant social groups. The boundaries of social systems are socio-technological revolutions: the Neolithic revolution (6-8 thousand years ago) created the prerequisites for the development of pre-industrial exploitative societies, the industrial revolution (XVIII-XIX centuries) separates the industrial society from the pre-industrial one, and the scientific and technological revolution (since the second half of the 20th century) marks the transition from industrial to post-industrial society.

Traditional (pre-industrial, agrarian) society - pre-industrial societies, characterized by the predominance of agricultural production, subsistence farming, insignificant development (or its actual absence) of industry, weak social differentiation and class hierarchy; structure stability; sociocultural regulation of all life based on traditions.

industrial society- a type of economically developed society in which the predominant sector of the economy is industry. An industrial society is characterized by the development of the division of labor, mass production of goods, mechanization and automation of production, the development of mass media, the service sector, high mobility and urbanization, and the growing role of the state in regulating the socio-economic sphere.

Post-industrial (information) society- a society in which the sphere of services, education and science has a priority development and prevails over the volume of industrial production and agricultural production. In a post-industrial society, science becomes the leading factor in the development of society; the products of production are information and knowledge; the number of people - carriers of knowledge, employed in the field of education and science services is growing; new elites are formed (technocrats, scientists, managers); a global information space is being created. Positive social consequences of a post-industrial society: production acquires an innovative character; conditionality of the economy by the development of social and cultural spheres; the growing role of education and knowledge. Negative consequences of a post-industrial society: increased social inequality, erosion and disintegration of social ties.

Bell Daniel(b. 1919) is an American philosopher, sociologist, one of the developers of the concept of post-industrial society. In the post-industrial (information) era, according to Bell, the main source of wealth and power is knowledge, intellectual technologies; the level of requirements for a person increases exorbitantly ("a revolution of growing expectations"), which violates order in society, gives rise to conflicts and instability.

Toffler Alvin(b. 1928) - American sociologist, philosopher, author of the futurological concept of post-industrial civilization as the "third wave" (agricultural society - industrial - post-industrial). From the collision of the Third Wave with the Second, the "shock of the future" results - an economic crisis caused by a predatory attitude towards nature with disastrous consequences for humanity, the danger of "electronic smog", information pollution, the struggle for intellectual resources ("infowars"), the spread of mental illness.

Huntington Samuel(1927-1982) - American philosopher, political scientist, futurist, who put forward the scenario of the "clash of civilizations" in the twenty-first century, according to which in the emerging world the predominant sources of conflict will be determined by culture, and not by ideology or economics.

Topic 25. Global problems of our time

Globalization(from French global - universal) - the current global situation of growing interconnection, interdependence and openness of various countries, regions; economic and cultural integration of mankind. The processes of globalization are observed in several areas: a) in the economic - the formation of a single world market (markets) without national barriers, the economic expansion of transnational (global) corporations; b) in the political - the creation of international organizations and unions (UN, NATO, WTO, etc.), a significant weakening of national state sovereignty; c) in the cultural - the spread of mass culture, the formation of a global consumer, a "citizen of the world"; d) in information and communication - telecommunications, satellite TV, Internet, etc. The negative consequences of globalization are the growth of international crime, the financial interdependence of different countries (for example, the global economic crisis of 2009), the leveling of the identity of different cultures.

Global problems- problems and situations that most clearly manifested themselves in the second half of the 20th century, which cover many countries, affect the entire population, the Earth's atmosphere, the World Ocean and near-Earth space. The global problems of our time include: 1) a group of environmental global problems - environmental, energy and raw material crises; depletion of natural resources, the problem of using the World Ocean; 2) a group of global problems related to the sphere of international and interstate relations: problems of maintaining peace, preventing a world nuclear war, peaceful exploration of outer space, backwardness of developing countries, hunger and poverty (food problem), overpopulation of the planet (demographic problem), international terrorism (became particularly relevant in the 21st century). Global problems cannot be solved by the efforts of one country; the combined efforts of all countries are needed to change consumer attitudes towards nature, to regulate population growth rates; it is necessary to form the ideology of "new ecological asceticism", the joint development of a regulation on environmental protection, a coordinated economic policy, assistance to backward countries, etc.

globalistics- a system of scientific knowledge about the genesis and current state of global problems, the classification of these problems and the rationale for practical ways to resolve them.

demographic problem- a global problem of mankind associated with the continued significant increase in the population of the Earth, outstripping the growth of economic well-being, as a result of which food and other problems that threaten the lives of the population in these countries are exacerbated.

The problem of using the oceans- a global problem, consisting in the fact that with the expansion of economic activity and the development of new sea transport routes, the waters of the oceans are increasingly polluted with dangerous consequences for all living things.

The problem of peaceful exploration of outer space a global problem consisting in preventing a military threat from outer space for some countries from other countries.

The problem of preventing a world nuclear war- a global problem of mankind, generated by technogenic civilization, associated with the survival of mankind in the conditions of continuous improvement of weapons of mass destruction, which poses a threat to peace on Earth as a whole.

The problem of overcoming the backwardness of developing countries- a global problem of mankind, combining demographic, environmental, food problems.

food problem- a global problem consisting in a lack of high-calorie and rational nutrition, which, according to the UN, provides only 1/3 of the world's population. The food problem is closely connected with the demographic problem. There are two ways to solve the food problem: 1) an extensive way, consisting in the development of new agricultural and fishing lands and requiring significant technical costs and rational programs; 2) an intensive way, consisting in increasing the productivity of existing land.

Ecological problem- the global problem of mankind, which arose with the beginning of the industrial activity of mankind, nuclear tests; became especially acute in the second half of the 20th century. Environmental problems include: energy and raw material problem; deforestation; desertification of territories as a result of irrational economic activity; decrease in the biological diversity of plants and animals on the Earth, etc. To overcome the global ecological crisis, it is necessary, first of all, to change the consumer attitude of mankind towards nature, to live in accordance with the principle of co-evolution - the joint and coordinated coexistence of society and nature.

Energy and raw materials problem- a global problem of providing mankind with fuel and raw materials. The problem is caused by: depletion of developed deposits of coal, oil, iron and other ores; limited explored reserves of oil and natural gas; the discovery and extraction of minerals in worse than before conditions; an increase in the territorial gap between the areas of extraction and consumption of minerals, etc. The solution to this problem lies in resource conservation and in the search for new technologies that make it possible to use previously inaccessible sources of raw materials and energy.

International terrorism is a global problem that has manifested itself in the 21st century, which is becoming more and more widespread on a planetary scale and threatens the security of the entire world community. Types of international terrorism: political, nationalistic, religious, criminal, ecological.

Roman club is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1968 by A. Peccei, uniting scientists, political and public figures from many countries. The activities of the Club of Rome are aimed at analyzing the most acute problems of our time, developing tactics and strategies for resolving global problems.

Global Forecasts- forecasts of human development in the light of the existence of global problems. Global forecasts are developed in two main directions: 1) pessimistic, predicting a global resource, environmental and food crisis in the near future and offering a way out, consisting in a reduction in population and production; 2) optimistic, proceeding from the fact that: the bowels of the Earth, the World Ocean and outer space contain many raw and energy resources that have not yet been developed; the population explosion is not eternal; the reduction of military spending and the establishment of peace on Earth will become a vital necessity and a reality, which means that social, scientific and technological progress of mankind will become possible.

“History is made by people” - this thesis contains the possibility

formulation of a separate theoretical problem, significant

to understand any era of human history. The term "demography" appeared around the middle of the 19th century.

In 1877, in the popular French encyclopedia P. La-

associated with the definition of its subject and tasks, which

revealing the role of the demographic factor in the development of history. One of the first thinkers to raise this problem

was a representative of the French Enlightenment K. A. Helvetius.

The ideas expressed by him were of conceptual significance. According to

according to K.A. Helvetius, population growth

underlies all changes in the development of society. The theory of K.A. Helvetius is the concept of demographic

determinism, relating to history as a whole, as a result of which,

Obviously, the thinker was not in the least concerned with either temporary,

nor territorial features of development. T. R. Malthus

(1766-1834). Its essence is this. People have constant

desire to reproduce, instinct. - This is the law of population growth,

which is one of the laws of nature. In the materialistic understanding of history, which began to take shape

in the first half of the 19th century, the human factor was

initially classified as fundamental. K. Marx: “... the existence of people is the result of that previous process through which the organic

life. Only at a certain stage of this process does a person become

man. In the XX century. the most significant attempt to analyze the problem of demographic

factor was undertaken by historians of the Annales school

", who expressed the idea of ​​the fundamental importance

population and its dynamics. P.Shonyu (1923 - 2002)2. The concept of "serial

history" developed largely under the influence of the views of F. Braudel,

although its essence is significantly different from the source of influence.

The development of a "serial approach" to history presupposes an orientation

to the study of recurrence in history with the application to its

analysis of quantitative methods as opposed to "event" history.

Economic history is in the center of P. Shonyu’s attention, however

the general meaning of the concept is the interaction

a number of human sciences - demography, anthropology and ethnology.

Historical demography, according to the historian, is in

the center of everything: economics, production, biology, as well as life,

death, love. Thus, the development of historical knowledge led to

the emergence of a relatively independent field of knowledge -

demography. Demographic

factor is a prerequisite and condition for further development

society only as a product and result of social

development. It is not an external, but an internal component

all social processes and structures. Demographic factor, population dynamics

is not reducible to any one reason, say, material

relationships. Population explosion on the planet in the second

half of the 20th century (2.5 billion in the middle of the 20th century and more than 6 billion at the beginning

XXI century) scientists explain by improving the quality of life, reducing

mortality. The development of society is, according to 3. Freud,

the process of curbing the sexual instinct and using it

to solve various social problems. The fundamental significance of material relations in history lies in the fact that they are an important condition for human existence, therefore, to varying degrees, the basis of all spheres

human activity.

Long before Marxism, theories emerged and developed that recognized the progressive development of society and made it dependent on some material factor. One such theory is demographic determinism.

Separate attempts to explain the history of human development by population growth appeared already in antiquity and the Middle Ages. However, only in the XVIII century. elements of the future concept of demographic determinism begin to take shape (J-J. Rousseau, K. A. Helvetia). Later, in the teachings of T. R. Malthus, population growth began to be considered as an independent variable, as a source of poverty and poverty of the masses. However, the Malthusian concept of population was not a theory of the historical process in the strict sense of the word, since it did not establish a relationship between the qualitative stages of population growth and changes in the form of society.

Along with Malthusianism - a pessimistic form of demographic determinism - in the late XIX - early XX century. the optimistic form of demographic determinism is greatly developed (A. Kost, A. Secrets, O. Bugle). It is especially widespread in France, for which in the last decades of the 19th century. were characterized by slow population growth and where Malthusianism was not popular.

It was at this time that the French political economist and statistician A. Cost (1842-1901) published two works - "The Principles of Objective Sociology" (1899) and "The Experience of Nations and Proposals Based on It" (1900), in which he tries to prove that all social phenomena depend on the demographic factor. “... The origin and development of civilization,” A. Kost wrote, “occurs wherever there is intensive trade, where military seizures are carried out, there is a unification of lands, where federative unions are created, and all this is explained by the growth and spread of the same social factor - the number and density of the population. This factor formed the basis of the periodization of the historical process proposed by A. Kost. It consists of six epochs, which correspond to four stages of social evolution.

The first era corresponds to the first stage of evolution, which Cost calls feudalism, referring its existence to the period before the founding of Rome. The entire population during this period consists of individual families living in fortified settlements. The necessary means of subsistence are produced within each family.

The second epoch, which existed from the founding of Rome to the reign of Julius Caesar, corresponds to the second stage of social evolution, which A. Cost calls communicalism. Population growth leads to the fact that cities are becoming the main form of settlements. Part of the production begins to be produced on the market. There are social inequalities, estates. The military and priests come to power.

The third epoch covers the period from the reign of Julius Caesar to the rise of the barbarian kingdoms. It corresponds to the third stage of social evolution, which Kost characterizes as statism. The population is growing so much that the centers of life are large city-states such as Rome. The growth in demand for handicraft products leads to the emergence of manufactories. Trade outgrows the boundaries of the mother country, capturing colonies and provinces. Class inequality deepens, civil power is isolated from the military. During the fourth and fifth eras, population growth slows down, and a monarchical form of government is established. This, according to A. Coast, causes a regression in the development of society. Therefore, these epochs correspond to the second and third stages of social evolution.

The sixth historical epoch begins with bourgeois revolutions. It forms the fourth stage of social evolution - plutocratic parliamentarism. The increase in population contributes to the expansion of borders, the growth of capitals. Manual labor is replaced by machine labor, social inequality based on wealth and education deepens, the legislative power arises and separates.

Thus, according to A. Cost, there is a direct connection between population growth and the progress of society, while more powerful states absorb or assimilate weaker ones.

In the XX century. there are attempts to combine demographic determinism with the concept of historical cycles. The Italian demographer C. Gini (1884-1965) put forward a theory linking the reproduction of the population with the stages of development of the nation.

Each nation, from the point of view of Gini, goes through three periods: youth, maturity and old age. During the period of youth, people of young ages predominate in the nation, which leads to high population growth rates. This leads to the social stratification of society, to the differentiation of the birth rate among different classes. A surplus of population is formed, which is used to carry out an intensive colonization and expansionist policy.

At the stage of maturity, prosperity increases both as a result of a decrease in the birth rate, and as a result of the exploitation of colonies and dependent countries. High birth rates persist only among the lower classes. However, industrialization, urbanization and democratization of society increase the vertical mobility of the lower strata, which also leads to a drop in the birth rate. The nation from warlike becomes petty-bourgeois, the decline of society sets in, the old age of the nation. These processes are intensified by the migration of the population from rural to urban areas. Difficulties arise in providing the population with foodstuffs and industry with raw materials. All this leads to the depletion of production, to the intensification of social conflicts. Gini sees a way out of this situation in emigration and wars, in the absorption of weak peoples by stronger ones.

K. Gini's theory approaches the analysis of population reproduction in a more differentiated way. However, even it cannot overcome the schematism and non-historicism characteristic of both demographic determinism and cyclical theories. Moreover, considering wars and expansion as a natural consequence of population growth, she objectively justified Italian fascism and its expansionist policy. Therein lies its inner affinity with reactionary neo-Malthusianism and German geopolitics.

In the post-war years, demographic determinism no longer acts as an independent doctrine, but is supplemented by geographical or technological determinism (theories of the vicious circle of poverty, theories of stages of growth, etc.).