At the beginning of the XXI century, the world system is experiencing a crisis caused by the exhaustion of the socio-economic and cultural model of development that determined the shape of the modern world. An urgent task in the post-modern world is to overcome the crisis by reforming the world system. The article considers the main manifestations of the systemic crisis, identifies various options for using reforms for modernization. Key words: Reform, crisis, modernization, Tradition, value system. The entry of the world community into the new century and millennium has increased attention to the features of the transition of our time, to understanding both the results of world development and its likely prospects in the light of existing aspirations and opportunities, as well as emerging conflicts and crises of various kinds. The world has changed qualitatively and irreversibly. In this regard, we must look for new answers to new questions, which, however, does not in the least detract from the significance of our common historical experience. Part of this experience is the mechanism of the social system's transition from one state to another. The countries of the East and West have entered a new era, possessing to a greater or lesser extent the qualities of a modern industrial society. But O. Spengler wrote about the crisis of this model in the 1920s ("the era of individualism, liberalism and democracy, humanity and freedom is coming to an end"), in the 1950s-B. P. Vysheslavtsev ("we live in a period of world crisis", "crisis of industrial culture"), by the end of XX century. V.-dozens of Western authors. In 2011, 3. Brzezinski, pointing out the" egocentricity "and" unbridled consumerism "of the West, acknowledged that even" America needs a new path..."[Brzezinski, 2012, p. 10]. page 20 The problem of a "new path" (or a new development model) implies defining the development goal and methods for achieving it, as well as tools for accelerated development. This art ... Read more