Today, for the general historical classification, certain types of economic systems are used. This classification represents the events of history in the form of a chain. The links are: traditional (pre-industrial) society, industrial and post-industrial society.
The last term characterizes the structure, the main role in the production and exchange of knowledge and information in which belongs to computers and telecommunications. Industrial society is, first and foremost, manufacturing. This system uses machine technology and energy to produce goods. The activities of a pre-industrial society are inextricably linked with production. The economic system in this case is based on agriculture, fishing, hunting, and the forest industry. The pre-industrial society also produces gas, oil, coal and other resources.
According to experts, any social association from the time of primitive communal hunters to the industrial revolution at the end of the 18th century should be attributed to the traditional socio-economic structure.
A pre-industrial society (in economic terms) can be based on agriculture (as Old Russian, Ancient Chinese or Ancient Egyptian society). This socio-economic structure can also be based on cattle breeding (as nomadic Turkic and Khazar peoples). A pre-industrial society can also be fishing. This is characteristic of coastal areas that are exceptionally rich in fish.
One of the features of a traditional society is the dominance of distribution, taking into account social status (redistributive relations). This can be expressed in various forms: a centralized state (as in Ancient Egypt, China, Mesopotamia), a peasant community (as in Russia).
It should be noted that redistributive relations are not the only sign characterizing the life of a pre-industrial (traditional) society. Of course, such relations dominate, however, at the same time, the market is present. In some cases, market relations can even occupy leading positions, having a significant impact on people's lives. At the same time, trade is reduced to a narrow circle of goods, as a rule, to aristocratic luxury goods. In the Middle Ages, landowners, who received everything they needed on their estates, acquired thoroughbred horses, expensive weapons, and jewelry.
The social side of traditional society also has its own specifics. The most characteristic in such a system is exclusively personal attachment of everyone to redistribution. This is reflected in the affiliation of each person to a collective performing distribution, as well as depending on the “elders” (by position, origin, age).
Moreover, the transition from one social collective to another is very difficult. Along with this, not only the position of the entire estate in society is of great importance, but also the very fact that a person belongs to one or another group. As an example, caste and caste separation systems can be used.
For example, in India, a caste was a closed group of people occupying a specific, strictly assigned place in society.
Life in the structure of the estate was rather strictly regulated. Such a system of separation in society was characteristic of pre-revolutionary Russia.
Another important criterion for separation is community. Here, this definition is applied in the broadest sense. A community is understood not only as a peasant association, but also as a merchant union of the East, a guild of European merchants, a craft workshop, beggarly and thieves' corporations, etc.
The political system in traditional society, as a rule, was monarchical. Even in antiquity and the Middle Ages, power was in the hands of representatives of the nobility.