A distinctive feature of any society is its division along national, social, class, demographic or some other grounds. This is what causes social inequality. In past centuries, it manifested itself in the form of violence, infringement of human rights and other actions.
Today, this is not as obvious as it used to be. But, nevertheless, social inequality takes place, only it manifests itself in a more subtle form, because it is impossible to eradicate it forever. Let's take a closer look at what it is and what its causes are.
In ancient Russia, there was a division of people into certain strata of society (nobles, princes, landowners, peasants, etc.). Each of these groups was on a specific rung of the social ladder and had its own rights and obligations. This division is also called This situation is typical for any society.
Social inequality is different level accessibility, proximity to such social benefits as money, prestige, power.
Initially, there was the simplest form. There were leaders who had the broadest rights, and simple people who obeyed them and had some limitations in their actions and capabilities. With new hierarchical levels appeared, and social inequality acquired a more complex form.
Every society strives to achieve equality at all levels, which means equal opportunities for all people regardless of their gender, age, nationality and other characteristics. However, this is not possible for various reasons.
First, it is an unequal distribution of material wealth and opportunities. This is mainly due to the heterogeneity of labor. Performing work of different significance and satisfying the needs of society in different ways, people receive an unequal assessment of their work. This is what can be called the main cause of social inequality.
The inheritance of certain rights and privileges is next reason unequal distribution of wealth and opportunities. Sometimes that is why people with high abilities and a good education do not always have the opportunity to get Good work, to occupy a certain position with a worthy of their intellectual level salary.
There are two primary causes of social inequality here. One of them is the level of accessibility of quality education for different segments of the population. The second reason is the unequal opportunities with an equal level of training.
The reasons for the division of society and the signs by which this happens can be very different. Criteria are both objective and subjective. In modern society, they are profession, income level, position held, participation in power, education, possession of property and some other signs. Social inequality gives rise to division into classes.
If a society is dominated by the middle class, then it can be considered stable, with a low level of social inequality. But in Russia so far only the formation of this social stratum is taking place.
Social inequality cannot be completely eradicated for various reasons.
In any society, someone must exercise control over the distribution of resources and goods. And this sometimes becomes more desirable than the possession of material goods themselves. There is a category of officials with great opportunities.
Each society has its own political, economic and state structure, which is headed by certain people who have more rights than other people.
And the last factor is the person himself and the features of his character. He always strives to outdo others in order to take a more advantageous social position.
I welcome everyone! This article focuses on the most hot topic— social inequality in modern Russia. Who among us has not wondered why some people are rich and others are poor; why do some people survive from water to compote, while others drive Bentleys and don’t care about anything? I am sure that this topic worried you, dear reader! It doesn't matter how old you are. There is always a peer who is luckier, happier, richer, better dressed…. etc. What is the reason? What are the scales of social inequality in contemporary Russia? Read on and find out.
The concept of social inequality
Social inequality is the unequal access of people to social, economic and other benefits. By good we mean that (things, services, etc.) that a person considers useful for himself (a purely economic definition). You must understand that this concept is closely related to the term that we wrote about earlier.
Society is designed in such a way that people have unequal access to goods. The reasons for this state of affairs are varied. One of them is the limited resources for the production of goods. There are over 6 billion people on Earth today, and everyone wants to eat deliciously and sleep sweetly. And food, land, in the end, becomes extremely scarce and scarce.
It is clear that the geographical factor also plays a role. Russia, for all its territory, has only 140 million people, and the population is rapidly declining. But for example in Japan - 120 million - this is on four islands. With wildly limited resources, the Japanese live well: they build artificial land. China, with a population of over a billion people, is also, in principle, doing well. Such examples seem to refute the thesis that what more people, the less benefits and inequality should be greater.
In fact, it is influenced by many other factors: the culture of a given society, work ethic, the social responsibility of the state, the development of industry, the development of monetary relations and financial institutions, etc.
In addition, social inequality is strongly influenced by natural inequality. For example, a person was born without legs. Or lost his legs and arms. Here is an example of how this individual:
Of course, he lives abroad - and in principle, I think he lives well. But in Russia, I think he would not have survived. In our country, people with hands and feet are dying of hunger, and social services do not need anyone at all. So the social responsibility of the state is extremely important in smoothing out inequality.
Very often in my classes I heard from people that if they get sick more or less seriously, then the company in which they work offers them to quit. And they can't do anything. They don't even know how to protect their rights. And if they knew, then these companies would “hit” a decent amount and the next time they would think a hundred times whether it is worth doing this with their employees. That is, the legal illiteracy of the population can be a factor of social inequality.
It is important to understand that when studying this phenomenon, sociologists use the so-called multidimensional models: they evaluate people according to several criteria. These include: income, education, power, prestige, etc.
Thus, this concept covers many different aspects. And if you are writing an essay on social studies on this topic, then disclose these aspects!
Social inequality in Russia
Our country is one of those in which social inequality is manifested to the highest degree. There is a very big difference between the rich and the poor. For example, when I was still a volunteer, a volunteer from Germany came to Perm. Who does not know, in Germany, instead of serving in the army, you can volunteer for a year in any country. So, they put him to live in a family for a year. A day later, the German volunteer left. Because, according to him, even by the standards of Germany, this is a chic life: a chic apartment, etc. He cannot live in such chic conditions when he sees that the homeless and beggars are asking for alms on the streets of the city.
Plus, in our country, social inequality manifests itself in an extremely large form in relation to different professions. A school teacher receives 25,000 rubles for one and a half rates, God forbid, and some painter can receive all 60,000 rubles, the salary of a crane operator starts from 80,000 rubles, a gas welder - from 50,000 rubles.
Most scientists see the reason for such social inequality in the fact that in our country there is a transformation of the social system. It broke down in 1991, overnight, along with the state. A new one has not been built. Therefore, we are dealing with such a social inequality.
You can find other examples of social inequality and. And that's all for today - until new publications! Don't forget to like!
Sincerely, Andrey Puchkov
Social inequality is a form of social differentiation in which individuals, social groups, strata, classes are at different levels of the vertical social hierarchy and have unequal life chances and opportunities to meet needs.
Any society is always structured on many grounds - national, social-class, demographic, settlement, etc. Structuring, that is, the belonging of people to certain social, professional, socio-demographic groups, can give rise to social inequality. Even natural genetic or physical differences between people can be the basis for the formation of unequal relationships. But the main thing in society is those differences, those objective factors that give rise to the social inequality of people. Inequality is an enduring fact of every society. Ralf Dahrendorf wrote: “Even in a prosperous society, the unequal position of people remains an important enduring phenomenon ... Of course, these differences are no longer based on direct violence and legislative norms, which supported the system of privileges in a caste or estate society. Nevertheless, in addition to more gross divisions in terms of property and income, prestige and power, our society is characterized by many rank differences - so subtle and at the same time so deeply rooted that statements about the disappearance of all forms of inequality as a result of leveling processes can be taken at least skeptically" .
Social differences are those that are generated social factors: division of labor, way of life, social roles performed by individuals or social groups.
The essence of social inequality lies in the unequal access of different categories of the population to social benefits, such as money, power and prestige.
The problem of social inequality:
1. Significance of social classes
Belonging to a particular social class affects the behavior and thinking of people to a much greater extent than other aspects. social life, it determines their life chances.
First, in order to survive, the representatives of the upper strata of society need to spend a smaller share of available resources than the representatives of the lower social classes.
Secondly, representatives of the upper classes have more intangible benefits. Their children are more likely to study at prestigious educational institutions and will most likely show top scores than the children of parents of lower social status.
Thirdly, wealthy people average duration active life is higher than that of the poor.
Fourth, people with higher incomes experience greater satisfaction from life than people who are less well off, since belonging to a certain social class affects the lifestyle - the amount and nature of consumption of goods and services. Summarizing, we can say that social class a person determines almost all spheres of his life.
2. Social inequality.
Inequality and poverty are concepts closely related to social stratification. Inequality characterizes the uneven distribution of the scarce resources of society - money, power, education and prestige - between different strata, or sections of the population. The main measure of inequality is the number of liquid values. This function is usually performed by money. If inequality is presented in the form of a scale, then on one of its poles there will be those who own the largest (rich), and on the other - the smallest (poor) amount of goods. Thus, poverty is the economic and socio-cultural condition of people who have a minimum amount of liquid values and limited access to social benefits.
If inequality characterizes society as a whole, then poverty concerns only part of the population. Depending on how high the level economic development countries, poverty covers a large or small part of the population. Sociologists call the scale of poverty the proportion of a country's population (usually expressed as a percentage) living near the official line, or threshold, of poverty.
Below the poor in the social hierarchy are the poor and the destitute. In Russia, poor, poor and exploited peasants were classified as poor. Poverty was called extreme poverty. A beggar was a person who lived on alms, collecting alms. But not everyone living in absolute poverty should be called beggars. The poor live either on earnings or on pensions and benefits, but they do not beg. It is more correct to refer to the poor as that category of those living in poverty who earn their living by regular begging.
Ways to solve social inequality
social inequality society class
The main ways of conducting social policy are:
- 1. protection of living standards by introducing various forms of compensation for price increases and indexation;
- 2. providing assistance to the poorest families;
- 3. issuance of assistance in case of unemployment;
- 4. policy enforcement social insurance, establishing a minimum wage for workers;
- 5. development of education, health protection, environment mainly at the expense of the state;
- 6. conducting an active policy aimed at ensuring qualifications.
It is quite obvious that the structure of any society is not homogeneous, since it is always divided into various groups according to national, class, gender, demographic and other characteristics. It is this type of heterogeneity that gives rise to such injustices in the social order as hidden violence and infringement of human dignity.
Of course, in modern world the forms of influence of some groups of people over others are no longer so pronounced, which was in the order of things in epic times. This happens because the social hierarchy in a democratic society is subject, first of all, to the principles of "European humanism", which exclude any form of aggressive coercion outside the legal field.
General concept of social inequality
Throughout the history of mankind, a variety of models of state, political and economic structure have been tested, in which it could not achieve that “golden balance” of the social structure, when all individuals could be endowed with the same living conditions offered by society. And it is the concept of "social inequality" that determines the different levels of accessibility of various social groups to such resources as power, fame and finance.
It turns out that social stratification (a system of criteria for the stratification of society into various social groups) is objectively embedded in any model of human society, since only under the condition of class differences is society sufficiently motivated for its progressive development. After all, even with the primitive structure of primitive society, when the leaders ruled over clans or tribes, there was a clear hierarchy that implied the existence of power and subordinate structures.
With the development of society, the hierarchy of the social structure itself became more complex. Mankind has not only developed economically and achieved continuous improvement of political forms of interaction, trying a variety of state levers of government, but has always been concerned about achieving an optimal balance between all social groups population. It is the balanced interaction between all strata of society that leads to the most effective development and comfortable conditions for interaction between them.
By the way, historical experience of our country can also be considered an objective contribution to the world treasury of knowledge on this issue. After all, a communist society as an ideal form of social justice could not be created. And at that stage of its construction, when developed socialism was to become a harbinger of the crown of social justice, society was stratified not only into the classes of workers and peasants proclaimed by the state (the intelligentsia was considered a stratum and a temporary phenomenon, and the partocracy was not classified into a separate group, associating itself with official classes), but also on those social structures that govern the people in all spheres of life.
It turns out that social inequality is an objectively conditioned instrument of any social structure, since it is precisely this that creates the necessary motivating structures for the normal development of mankind.
Causes of social inequality
Despite the many options for assessing social inequality from the legislators of the scientific community on this issue, including Herbert Spencer, Ludwig Gumplovich, William Sumner, Karl Marx and others, there are only two basic reasons for its occurrence.
The first of these is the uneven distribution of the material resources that society has at its disposal. It is the difference in the assessment of the contribution of each to the common treasury of human values that is the fundamental reason for the generation of inequality. Naturally, each individual makes his own unique contribution to the development of society, which depends on his individual level of capabilities and the readiness of society to accept this work from him.
The second factor in the emergence of social inequality is the principle of inheritance of the rights to possess various values and privileges that give additional features for the distribution of various kinds of resources (power, prestige and money). A modern person in our country more than once faces, for example, the problem of employment, when, other things being equal, it is protectionism that becomes the decisive factor for occupying a position of interest or implementing a professional project.
The last reason for social inequality is based both on the unequal access to decent education for different social groups of the population, and on various professional start-ups with the same level of training. Here we can distinguish subjective and objective criteria, which are expressed in the possession of levels of material wealth, education, income, position and other resources. Despite the rather stable part of modern society, called the "middle class", the difference between other social groups in Russian society can truly be considered "mad". After all, the abyss between the oligarchs and the homeless cannot be considered justified just because some are managing the domestic economy, while others have even lost the meaning of their existence.
And even the middle class from Russia at the present time cannot be considered that part of modern society where social justice has triumphed, because this class today is only at the stage of formation. Moreover, the difference between conditionally its "elite" and "bottom" is also becoming striking, which eloquently indicates the relevance of this topic.
Separate words also deserve the apparatus of officials, which, by definition of the order of things, has an increased resource in the distribution of various benefits and privileges. After all, in connection with the positions they hold, these civil servants exercise appropriate control and supervision, which accordingly leads to their status.
In addition, it is important to remember that human essence, which has always been focused on climbing the social ladder, guided solely by the personal motive of achieving the most advantageous position in society.
Classification of types of social inequality
When considering the topic of social inequality, it is important to operate with such a concept as “social deprivation” (reducing the ability of an individual to communicate within society in functional and cultural aspects).
In this context, four categories of deprivation should be distinguished: economic, social, ethical and mental.
Economic deprivation follows from the uneven distribution of society's material resources. In this issue, two factors should be distinguished: objective and subjective. It is due to the presence of subjective deprivation that sometimes a situation arises when a completely sufficient person tends to feel underestimated of his abilities. Such a situation today is quite favorable ground for the creation, for example, of new religious movements.
Social deprivation uses such resources as power, prestige and money as a motivation for social development. This happens in order to distinguish individual groups of people from the general mass.
Ethical deprivation often occurs between society and intellectuals due to a value conflict of interests. This disagreement arises because the moral ideals of individuals and groups diverge from generally accepted norms.
Mental deprivation is similar to ethical deprivation. However, the disagreement between an individual or a group of people and society relates exclusively to such values as the meaning of life, faith in God, the search for new life priorities. It should be understood that mental deprivation often results from economic or social deprivation and is aimed at leveling the objective forms of deprivation.
Adapting to social inequality
Despite the dissatisfaction of many members of society with social inequality, one should still take into account the universal nature of this tool for motivating the development of society throughout its existence.
Since social stratification is objectively determined by the economic, political and state norms of the development of society, then it should be perceived solely as the inevitable costs of historical development. Of course, unequal access to the material and spiritual values of public consumption causes a lot of indignation among the “disadvantaged” group of people.
However, one should always remember that today the socio-economic heterogeneity of labor and the inheritance of predominant positions in social stratification objectively determined by the historical facts of the development of society. So the only way to achieve social justice should be considered a gratuitous and feasible contribution of everyone to its development. Besides, modern society is developing quite seriously in the field of fixing and expanding the rights and privileges of the poorly protected sections of society. So there is a positive trend in this aspect of society's life.
In human society, social inequality remains one of the most acute problems, the solution of which excites the minds of politicians and philosophers. In modern Russia, the scale of social inequality is colossal. Even in comparison with other developed countries of the world, Russia is a real "country of contrasts". There is a huge gap between the rich and the poor. Higher levels of inequality are found only in developing countries in Africa and Asia. But the attitude to social inequality in Russian society varies. Someone blames the injustice of privatization for the high social polarization, someone defends the “primordial” inequality of people and is convinced that the most active and capable get the resources that allow them to repeatedly increase the social distance from others - unfortunate and passive.
Classes in the Union, before the revolution and in post-Soviet Russia
In modern Russian society, a distinct class structure began to take shape after the formation of a class of entrepreneurs-proprietors began in the Soviet Union in the last years of its existence. Prior to that, in the USSR, the social structure of the population was strikingly different from the capitalist countries of the world. Most Western countries have much in common in character social structure population. As a rule, five main layers are distinguished in the developed countries of the West. First, it is the elite. This social stratum includes super-rich people - large entrepreneurs - industrialists and financiers, show business stars, politicians, generals, hereditary aristocracy. The second group is the upper middle class, consisting of representatives of top management and status officials, as well as highly qualified professionals. The third group is the middle class, or "professionals", which includes highly qualified specialists, as a rule - engineering and technical workers, doctors, teachers, lawyers, officers and many others. This class is distinguished by the presence of education, the relatively high incomes of its representatives, but does not have serious power and financial resources.
The fourth layer - "basic" - consists of the bulk of skilled workers, who, however, do not have higher education and cannot get into a higher social stratum due to being in lower status positions. Meanwhile, the incomes of this part of the population are very high and it is impossible to consider them "social lower classes". Moreover, they perform qualified work and have an official status. Finally, the fifth layer is the so-called precariat. The main difference between the precariat as a class in the modern world is the absence of social guarantees. The “precarians” work in an unstable regime and do not have a clearly defined salary. At the same time, in this category of workers there can be both freelancers - specialists, and people without education and any qualifications, who make odd jobs. In any case, the position of the precariat is characterized by extreme social instability, which is also reflected in financial condition, and on the political loyalty of representatives of the “non-guaranteed” segment of the labor market. In addition to the precariat, there are, of course, real social classes - the world of lumpen, people without education, weighed down by the burden of numerous social vices, most often who are or have been for a long time in serious disagreement with the law. The world of the lumpen is a special social environment, which does not make sense to consider within the framework of the traditional concepts of "poverty" or "prosperity", since a representative of this social stratum can spend a lot of money to satisfy their needs for alcohol or drugs, but at the same time lead everyday life in real poverty. It is this feature of the representatives of the lumpenized strata of the population that makes them so different from the rest of the category of the poor and, at the same time, somewhat takes them beyond the scope of our article itself.
In pre-revolutionary Russia, according to a study by St. Petersburg sociologist Boris Mironov (see the journal Sociological Research, No. 8, 2014), the poorest segment of society was made up of unskilled workers and lumpen. In the lowest income group of the Russian population in 1901-1904. included: 1) beggars, vagabonds, wanderers, inhabitants of almshouses; 2) agricultural workers (laborers); 3) day laborers and laborers; 4) women and children employed in industrial production. However, social inequality in Russian Empire was not as large as in the United States of America or in the UK. At the same time, American citizens, in terms of the ruble equivalent, were much richer than Russian residents. If to the richest Russians in 1900-1910. were people with an average income of 991 rubles, then the richest Americans were people with an average income of 8,622 rubles. At the same time, in Russia, unlike in Western countries, there was no large stratum of the middle class that already existed in the West, and the vast majority of the country's population in terms of lifestyle was very different from an insignificant layer of the aristocracy, wealthy merchants and manufacturers. This difference is evidenced, at least, by the almost total illiteracy of the broad masses of the Russian population, which already in the post-revolutionary period caused an obvious need for the mass eradication of illiteracy among the adult population of the Soviet state.
In modern Russia, due to its historical and political specifics, a somewhat different type of social structure has developed. It differs, firstly, high level splicing of power and big business. It is very often difficult to understand “where the businessman ends and the official begins” and vice versa. Well-known sociologist O.I. Shkaratan (Shkaratan O.I. Socio-economic inequality and its reproduction in modern Russia. M, 2009) believes that modern Russian society is divided into the following main groups. First, this is an extremely small class of large and medium-sized owners - somewhere around 4% of the population. Secondly, this is the "middle class" - small entrepreneurs, managers, professionals working "for themselves". They are no more than 22%. Finally, the third group consists of performers - non-owners. These include 74% of the population of Russia - here are "state employees", and ordinary employees of private companies, and the working class. Of course, this model of class classification in modern Russia is very arbitrary, but it more or less accurately reflects the division of Russian society on such an issue as the attitude to property. There are very few full-fledged owners in Russia, and in this the country differs from the countries of the West, where there are developed traditions of entrepreneurship. It is known that the number of small and medium-sized enterprises and, accordingly, people employed in the field of small and medium-sized businesses in modern Russia is much less than in most developed countries of the world. Meanwhile, this is a very disturbing trend, since small and medium-sized businessmen, who are the basis of the "middle class", are a very stable and socially stable contingent, as a rule - patriotic, active, that is, they are of great value to the country. It would seem that the Russian state should support small and medium-sized businesses, but in practice it turns out that small and medium business most often experiencing quite serious problems in the country.
The specificity of the Russian situation lies in the fact that in Russia, as in many countries belonging to the "third world", the possession of power resources often turns out to be more significant than the possession of property, even if it is large. For example, the positions of an employee of law enforcement agencies or the administration of a city, district, rural settlement may turn out to be more significant than the positions of an entrepreneur, even though formally a security official or official belongs to the class of performers, and an entrepreneur belongs to the class of owners. Secondly, in Russia, due to the colossal geographical differences between its regions, there is also an obvious division between residents of the capital and residents of the provinces, residents of large cities and small towns, and, moreover, countryside. So, even a low-income resident of the capital who does not work or works in a non-status and low-paid job, but owns housing in Moscow, having sold housing and moving to the provinces, can turn into a wealthy “rentier”, living on interest from a bank deposit of funds received for the sold real estate. The sale of even inexpensive housing by the standards of Moscow will give him the opportunity to have a very high income for the province. That is, there is both a “powerful” plane of social inequality and a “geographical” plane of social inequality. In the first plane, the following groups can be distinguished: 1) representatives of higher officials; 2) representatives of the middle layer of administrative workers, senior officers of law enforcement agencies; 3) private entrepreneurs; 4) the base layer of performers who do not have a power resource; 5) social bottoms. In the second plane, the following categories are clearly distinguished: 1) residents of the capital of the country - Moscow; 2) residents of St. Petersburg and suburbs of Moscow; 3) residents of the main large urban centers (Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don, Krasnoyarsk, etc.); 4) residents regional centers; 5) residents of small towns and district centers; 6) residents of rural areas. Of course, within each of the listed categories there is also its own differentiation - for example, the situation is different for residents of coastal cities, who have the opportunity to derive income from the resort business and trade, and residents of depressed cities and settlements - former mining and industrial settlements and towns.
About the causes of poverty
Of course, anyone who asks about the problems of social inequality in modern Russia inevitably raises the question of what are the main causes of poverty. Why some people can maintain a more or less decent standard of living, while other people are literally on the verge of survival. According to sociological research, representatives of the Russian lower strata of society themselves name the main reasons for their own poverty as a long absence of work, small amounts of state benefits. social character and family misfortunes and incidents. Indeed, unemployment is a very serious problem for Russia, especially in small towns and rural areas, and a long absence of work and a permanent income inevitably throws a person into a marginal environment, contributes to the marginalization of his lifestyle. On the other hand, insignificant, if not insignificant, remain the main social payments- most pensions employees; allowances for single mothers and large families; survivor benefits; unemployment benefits; disability pensions. Many pensioners in Russia still receive 6,000 rubles a month, despite the fact that the rent for modest housing can reach half the amount of the pension. At the same time, many Russians interviewed by sociologists are convinced that poverty in modern Russia is often caused by social vices - drunkenness, drug addiction, parasitism, as well as personal characteristics - lack of initiative, laziness, lack of a "life core". It turns out that many poor people, from this point of view, are themselves to blame for their disastrous financial situation. It is possible that when they talk about people who have drunk themselves or who have become drunk, there is a certain amount of truth here. But are pensioners to blame for their miserable situation - doctors, teachers, lecturers who have worked for forty years for the benefit of the Soviet and Russian state? It is hardly possible to call modern young and not quite young specialists to blame for their situation, who continue to work for very little money in clinics and schools, universities and libraries, museums and theaters, in factories and in the agricultural sector.
However, it should be noted that in recent years, or rather even a decade, the level of well-being of Russians as a whole has slightly increased. Gradually, “poverty” becomes more characteristic of marginal groups of the population, which is reflected in the general attitude of Russians towards poor and “poor” fellow citizens. Traditionally, Russian society was characterized by a sympathetic attitude towards poverty and the poor, as evidenced by numerous folk sayings. A humane attitude towards poverty is characteristic of most literary works; moreover, in some cases, poverty is even considered as a “social quality” worthy of respect. Contempt for poverty, the assertion that poor people are to blame for their own fate, is more characteristic of Western culture based on Protestantism. The social doctrine of Protestantism, especially Calvinism, suggests that rich people are more devout Christians than poor people, because they are prone to accumulation, which is a consequence of their asceticism, self-discipline and self-restraint. Poor people, by their poverty, pay for their own vices and sins. For Russian culture, which was formed on the basis of Orthodoxy, as well as for the cultures of other peoples of Russia, professing other confessions traditional for our country, such an attitude towards rich and poor was not considered normal. The poor and the "poor" were helped, and this help was considered a boon in both Christianity and Islam.
In modern Russia, there is a fairly clear concept of poverty that is justified by the specifics of social reality. According to him, to the poor Russian Federation include those people who have an income of about 9,000 rubles per capita. Most of the country's citizens earn approximately 40-50% more than this amount. At the same time, the official threshold of poverty, which the government of the country speaks of - the "living wage" - is significantly lower than the ideas of the majority of Russian citizens about what is considered the poverty line. In fact, if you can hardly live on 9 thousand rubles, then it is almost impossible to live on 5-6 thousand rubles, at least when this money is the income of one person. Of course, the situation in the family changes somewhat and a family of three is difficult, but it can last a month in the amount of about 15-20 thousand rubles. What is considered a sign of poverty in modern Russia? Firstly, this is the poor quality of food, the impossibility of acquiring a new and quality clothes, unsatisfactory living conditions. Most of the poor live in communal rooms, dormitories, emergency and dilapidated housing. The poor part of the population is characterized by an inequality of chances for receiving a quality education and for employment in prestigious areas of activity; it has an incomparably lower cultural and social capital. However, as a result of the economic reforms of the 1990s, in the Russian Federation there was a massive impoverishment of the population, including representatives of the intelligentsia and skilled workers. People, in their own way professional qualities and skills that would have been included in the stratum of professionals or the base stratum in the West in terms of the level of education, in Russia ended up below the poverty line as a result of the collapse of industry and Agriculture, mass and long-term non-payment of wages, sharp inflation. It is precisely as a result of the political and economic upheavals that befell Russian society in the 1990s that Russian poverty took on such diverse outlines. A school teacher, a retired engineer at a military plant, and a drunkard who has never worked anywhere and drank up his house can be poor.
The stratification of the poor
Like society as a whole, the Russian poor class is also differentiated. Sociologists single out several main groups classified as poor. First of all, these are the “poor in deprivation”. These include 25% of Russian citizens who, due to insufficient income, cannot fully satisfy their needs for quality housing, education and medical care, leisure, purchase of food and clothing. Another, less numerous group, makes up about 9% of the Russian population. These include citizens with a very small average per capita income that does not exceed the subsistence level per person established in a particular region. Another 4% of Russian citizens are classified as "chronically poor". As a rule, the chronically poor have been in this social position for at least five years and have long since reconciled themselves and got used to their existence on the periphery of the social hierarchy of Russian society. Most of the chronically poor cannot fully satisfy their most basic needs - they are forced to not eat enough, they dress very poorly, there is no talk of rest, quality medical care, education at all. The housing conditions of this category of the Russian population are also extremely unsatisfactory. At the same time, the world of the social lower classes is by no means in all cases identical to the poor in terms of income. For example, some representatives of the lumpenized segments of the population, especially those who are balancing on the verge of the legality of their earnings, can have very good incomes by average standards, but their propensity for antisocial behavior and a marginal lifestyle does not allow them to constructively manage the funds they receive - as a rule, cash in this case are spent not on medical services, education, buying furniture, and on alcohol and drugs. It should be noted that many people who are, in fact, not poor, in fact live as poor precisely because they do not know how to manage their own salaries, suffer from alcohol and drug addiction or gambling, are infantile in financial matters - that is, they themselves reduce your standard of living. In fact, in this case, those who blame the poor for their "troubles" are right, based on the propensity of a significant part of the latter to social vices. However, this concerns, again, first of all, the marginal segment of the Russian poor. Yes, and then important role In the affirmation of social vices in Russian society, there is a mass culture based on the ideology of consumerism and directing people to maximize the consumption of goods and services that they often do not need, to maintain the illusion of imaginary prosperity, which forces them to take loans, only exacerbating the already unstable financial situation.
Despite the fact that throughout the world the most disadvantaged categories of the population have traditionally been the unemployed and not working people, in modern Russia a very large part of the poor are working citizens. At the same time, the level of wages of the working poor may not exceed the subsistence level per capita. So, in Russia there are still wages in the amount of 5-6 thousand rubles, and they are paid to workers employed throughout the working day, including those who have certain qualifications. The least paid categories of the working population include nannies and junior caregivers kindergartens, librarians, museum workers, junior medical staff. Their incomes are much lower than the incomes of the same laborers, cleaners and other persons engaged in heavy and unskilled physical labor. A significant part of the listed "working poor" simply cannot physically survive without additional earnings or help from other family members - husbands or wives, older relatives or adult children. At the same time, the education and qualifications of many of them do not allow them to be attributed to the social lower classes of the country's population, while in terms of income they are on the verge of falling into the social stratum of the poor. Finally, the working poor include specialists who suddenly lost their jobs and exist on unemployment benefits, which are also very modest in Russia. Finally, the working poor include people who may have good incomes, but whose family members are unable to work make them share their income among all family members. Thus, in most cases, having many children is one of the most important reasons why Russian citizens fall into the category of the poor.
A major role in the formation of social inequality in modern Russia is played, as noted above, by the regional factor. The bulk of the Russian poor live in rural areas and small "depressed" towns. It was in the village and single-industry towns in the 1990s. the most terrible blow was dealt - enterprises and collective farms were closed, new jobs did not appear, as a result of which an impressive part of the population turned into unemployed and relatively marginalized. Many villagers live only on the pensions of older relatives and disabled relatives, as well as on odd jobs, which are of a single nature. In a large city, it is much easier to find a job with a salary that allows at least a more or less tolerable existence. This factor contributes to the gradual depopulation of the countryside, as internal migration develops from villages and small towns to large cities, primarily to the capital of the country, St. industrial centers, to cities of regional and regional significance. To belong to social category poor people, on the other hand, also affects the opportunity to get a more or less interesting, prestigious or tolerably paid job. The poor man is deprived of that starting resource with which he can begin his labor activity representative of another social category. For example, a poor person who does not own a car loses most of his chances of being employed as a taxi driver. An even greater number of vacancies becomes inaccessible to him in the absence of education, professional qualifications, but the poor person does not have the opportunity to get an education, if only because he does not have the resources to ensure his livelihood while studying. Finally, the social capital of the poor is very limited, as they are increasingly "boiled in their environment", which implies a lack of connections among the well-off categories of the population.
Inherited poverty threatens the social order
The transmission of "poverty" by inheritance is becoming more and more commonplace for modern Russia. Thus, at least half of the total number of modern Russian poor were born and brought up in poverty. Accordingly, they most often do not have adequate social capital, cultural capital, or personal qualities and ideological guidelines that could enable them to break out of poverty. This category of the population is becoming the bearer of a "culture of poverty" that is developing on the periphery of Russian society. On the other hand, the possession of cultural and social capital with a very high degree of probability guarantees a way out of poverty in the event of a sudden situational falling into the layer of the poor (the latter can happen to non-poor people in the event of ruin own business, dismissals from work, problems with the law, etc.). Most of those previously non-poor people who accidentally fell into a state of poverty, sooner or later again leave the stratum of the poor and move to more prosperous strata of society, which is most often the result of the “inclusion” of a number of resources - from their own intellectual and professional potential to the use of social connections.
At the same time, it would be wrong to assess the real standard of living of the population in Russia, guided only by official statistics and sociological research materials. It should be noted that the standard of living differs not only among different social strata, but also among different age categories of the population. The impact on the standard of living is exerted not only by income, but also by expenses. Moreover, lending is widespread in Russian society, as a result of which people who are really poor can give the impression of more or less prosperous people (mortgage apartment, car on credit, furniture bought on credit, etc.). Appliances, despite the fact that the payment of loans can take almost all wage, that is, there is no money left to satisfy the simplest necessities of life). On the other hand, people can get very small income, but at the same time have a solid property. For example, many pensioners of the Soviet generation own apartments, garages, dachas, the total cost of which can be many millions of rubles. However, the received monthly pension of 6-10 thousand automatically allows you to classify a pensioner as a poor part of the population, although his funds in the form of real estate can be very significant. Finally, one should take into account the huge segment of the shadow labor market. Officially, people employed in the shadow sector of the economy are considered unemployed or unemployed, have no or almost no income, but their real level of earnings can be quite decent and even very significant. Finally, there is another category of the poor - these are foreign labor (and non-labor) migrants who ended up on the territory of Russia and work in a low-paid job, or who lost it due to the economic crisis and were unable to return to their native countries. The emergence of a large number of foreign outcasts poses a particular threat to the country's security and public order, and in recent years, not only criminals have appeared among migrants - due to the cultural specifics, many of them are recruited by radical organizations operating both in Russia and abroad. Considering that control over migrants is not carried out effectively enough, this trend looks very dangerous, especially in light of the current military-political situation in the Middle East or in Ukraine.
The presence of a large stratum of the poor in modern Russia is aggravated by the colossal difference in living standards that exists between the main part of the country's population and the "super-rich". About a hundred of the richest families currently control at least 35% of Russia's national wealth. The social polarization of the population in Russia reaches colossal proportions, comparable only to some developing countries. Meanwhile, the existence of such large-scale social inequality is a direct threat to social stability and political order in the Russian Federation. Since there is a “conservation” of poverty, which is acquiring more and more hereditary, class features, sooner or later the phenomenon of “class hatred” will arise, which is still absent among the modern poor, who blame themselves, fate, the current government for their miserable attitude, but by no means social system which led to such a level of stratification of society. On the whole, the Russian poor are more likely to be politically passive. They are not interested in politics, primarily because they do not believe in the possibility of any real change in their social position, and if their own social position does not change, then there is no point in demanding any political changes in the country. Secondly, the majority of poor Russians are characterized by an increased focus on banal survival, which also leaves them no time and energy for any political or social protest activity.
But at the same time, one cannot deny the fact that with effective influence "from outside", the huge masses of the Russian poor can turn into a very explosive contingent. Any anti-state forces interested in undermining the political and social order in the country. Moreover, these forces can raise slogans of social justice, in fact, they are not at all going to put them into practice. That is, the social inequality inherent in modern Russia can play a very negative role in the fate of the country - at least if the state does not take up the solution of the accumulated numerous social problems Russian society. It is difficult to disagree with Russian political scientist Alexander Karatkevich, who believes that “exceeding the permissible degree of inequality leads to a large difference in the standard of living of certain status groups in society, which can be regarded as discrimination, infringement of certain groups of the population. This circumstance often leads to the emergence of social tension in society, serves as a fertile ground for the emergence, development and spread of social conflicts. Therefore, each society should develop a system of regulators to reduce the degree of social inequality” (Karatkevich A.G. Social inequality as a threat to political stability and social security // PolitBook, No. 4, 2014).
Is it possible to change the existing social stratification as a result of government policies aimed at reducing social inequality? Undoubtedly. This is evidenced by the experience of a number of European countries, in which, at the beginning of the 20th century, the level of social inequality far exceeded Russian indicators, but by the end of the 20th century, the distance between the richest and poorest citizens was many times reduced. But solving the problem of social inequality will require appropriate efforts from the leadership of the Russian state. Will the current political elite be able to give up their individual financial interests and put the interests of Russia, its stability and development, above their own, or will they not be able to - the decrease in the social polarization of Russian society primarily depends on this.
Photo materials used: http://nnm.me/blogs, pro100news.info.
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