structure of the poor. Socio-demographic features of poverty in the Russian Federation
Introduction
1.1 The concept and characteristics of poverty
1.2 Causes of poverty
2.2 Income of the population in the Russian Federation
Conclusion
Bibliographic list
Introduction
One of the most acute problems of today is the decline in the standard of living of the population, the widespread poverty.
In Russia, the rapid growth in the level of poverty is due to a decrease in employment and the emergence of unemployment, a sharp decline in labor incomes at the initial stage of socio-economic reforms of the late 20th century in the context of an inefficient system of social protection of the population. The situation is further complicated by the fact that in recent years the level of poverty has remained high, and for some segments of the population the problem of life support has even worsened. Poverty is especially typical for those employed in the public sector of the economy, in rural areas and in small towns, for large families and families with incomplete composition. High absolute poverty in our country is combined with high economic inequality in the distribution of money income and property between the poor and the rich.
Over the years of market reforms, real incomes of the population have more than halved, and practically all indicators of the level and quality of life of the Russian population have deteriorated. More than a third of Russians currently have incomes below the subsistence level, and another 50% of the population barely make ends meet. Thus, the problem of poverty in Russia is extremely relevant today.
The purpose of my course work is to consider the problem of poverty in the Russian Federation in its development; track the dynamics of the development of this process.
The objectives of this work are:
) a comprehensive description of poverty as a socio-economic phenomenon;
) study of the causes of poverty;
) analysis of the current state of the poverty level in the Russian Federation;
) indicate the main directions of the socio-economic policy of the Russian Federation to combat poverty;
) on the basis of all analyzes to formulate a general conclusion.
poverty population living wage
Chapter 1. The essence of poverty
.1 The concept and characteristics of poverty
Poverty is not a threshold, it can be crossed...
(Jonsen Koikoliner)
Poverty is a complex concept, historically determined and multifactorial. An unambiguous, strict and generally accepted definition of poverty does not exist today. This concept is constantly concretized and modified.
· Poverty - extreme insufficiency of a person, family, region, state<#"justify">The legal framework for determining poverty in Russia is the Federal Laws "On the subsistence minimum in the Russian Federation , "On state social assistance", "On the procedure for accounting for income and calculating the average per capita income of a family and the income of a single citizen for recognizing them as poor and providing them with state social assistance." It is worth emphasizing that poverty is not homogeneous. There are her most difficult conditions (extreme poverty with incomes 2 times lower than the subsistence level), when it comes to direct malnutrition: there were about 9 million of them among all the poor at the beginning of 2009. Human. On the other hand, there are groups that maintain a balance at the upper poverty line, from which the budget for the minimum material security begins. Today in Russia the so-called fluid
poverty (temporary impossibility to provide for oneself) in comparison with stagnant poverty, which is characterized by a constant impossibility to provide for oneself without external social support. As a social phenomenon, poverty is inherent in any economic system. But its severity in society differs significantly in individual countries, depending on the pace of their economic development, accumulated wealth, the size of the production potential, the level of well-being of the people, and the characteristics of the distributive policy. In the most developed countries of the world, which focus on the social well-being of their citizens, there are small differences in the income levels of the rich and the poor, while developing countries and countries with economies in transition have polarized societies, characterized by a large number of poor, a small circle of the rich and a very small average class. The Russian Federation belongs to the last circle of countries. The problem of poverty in Russia today is concentrated not in villages, which are traditionally considered the most vulnerable zone in this sense, but in small towns where the resources of the village no longer exist, but the resources of a large city have not yet been formed, which can act as compensatory mechanisms for alleviating poverty and providing opportunities in the market labor. Another feature of the spread of poverty at the present time is a sharp change in its structure. Below the poverty line is not only an increased number of traditionally vulnerable categories of the population (pensioners, the disabled, large families and single-parent families), but also the "new poor" - the unemployed, low-paid workers and their dependents, refugees, internally displaced persons, persons without a fixed place of residence. In recent years, the "newest poor" have also appeared, including those who have been affected by massive delays in the payment of wages, social benefits, and pensions; those who have already failed in entrepreneurship, self-employment, property transactions and do not have a sustainable current income above the established minimum; able-bodied citizens who have become uncompetitive as a result of changing requirements and the structure of demand in the labor market; affected by more risky forms and types of employment in the informal sector of the economy. According to official statistics, 34 million people currently live below the poverty line in Russia - more than a quarter of the country's population. Now the incomes of the wealthiest Russians are 14 times higher than the incomes of the poorest citizens. Just as great is the difference in the so-called average per capita income in different regions. Also, the risk of poverty increases in the absence of a second income in the family, low incomes due to a high level of dependency, etc. According to the Living Standards Survey of families with children, having the first child increases the probability of poverty by an average of 9 percentage points, the second by another 12, and the third and subsequent by 16 percentage points. Poverty for the Russian people is a fairly new phenomenon. Under socialism, the general standard of living was, of course, low, but there were relatively few frankly poor people. It is poverty that determines the limited access of a significant part of the population of our country to development resources: highly paid jobs, high-quality education and health services, and the possibility of successful socialization of children and youth. The low level of income of a significant part of families, combined with excessive polarization of income, causes a social breakdown in society, causes social tension, hinders the successful development of the country, and determines crisis processes in the family and society. 1.2 Causes of poverty
Russia is a poor country in terms of the level and quality of life of its citizens. In the previous chapter, it was said that 35 million people live below the poverty line. These are those who do not eat well, do not have normal housing, do not have the opportunity to spend leisure time and rest normally. The vast majority of the poor are pensioners, workers, and the unemployed. Half of them have incomes of no more than 1,500 rubles. per family member per month. Another half - no more than 3000 rubles. Most of the poor are residents of medium and small towns and villages. Moreover, in many Russian regions, almost the entire population falls under the above poverty criteria. The average age of the poor is 47 years. Among them, there are significantly more large, single-parent families, more families, which include pensioners and the disabled. Many poor people have very poor living conditions, there is not enough furniture, necessary household appliances. Over 80% of the poor in Russia have less than 25 square meters of total space per person. Only 7% of the poor have at least some savings, up to 40% of poor families have debts, including utility bills. Is it possible to overcome poverty in Russia? "Russian" poverty has two underlying causes: the unobtrusive social policy of the state and the negative psychological attitude of the majority of Russians, which prevents them from achieving success, including at the professional level. The social vulnerability of the population has become aggravated in the last ten years. The main reason for poverty in Russia is that the bar for the demands of a huge number of Russians on the content and quality of their lives, according to the Soviet tradition, is extremely low. Ø Most of the working poor are performers on whom almost nothing depends at work. More than 40% of the poor believe that their work has no prospects, more than 70% note the low level of wages and the irregularity of payments. The poor pay much less attention to their professional growth, only 8% of them devote part of their free time to self-education. One in three of the poor have practically come to terms with the low quality of their lives and do not believe that they are able to change anything. Most of the poor constantly feel the unfairness of everything that is happening around them and are aware of their own helplessness due to the inability to influence what is happening. The majority of the Russian poor is dominated by a psychological attitude towards "survival" rather than success, the realization of oneself as a person. Their standard of requirements for themselves, their life, its content and quality is extremely low. For their children, they often only want to get a profession that would give them "a guaranteed piece of bread. Ø Another reason for poverty in Russia is related to our history and Christian ideology: the poor are pleasing to God, the rich are not. In essence, this was also promoted under the Soviet regime, since it was believed that it was impossible to acquire wealth in an honest way. The consciousness of modern people is still the same: it seems that we understand that the richer each person, the richer the society as a whole, but we have too much irritation in relation to wealthy people, and not only oligarchs, but also, for example, to our fellow villagers, who have a "good" house and a "strong" economy, even if all this "wealth" is created by the hard work of the whole family. This means that the main reason for our poverty lies in our psychology. Ø In addition, an indirect factor that also has an impact: the share of informal employment in the Russian economy is increasing. Informal employment - hiring an employee to work without concluding a contract and providing such social guarantees as paid vacation and sick leave, pension insurance, etc. This method of hiring is most widespread in developing countries. Ø By oral agreement, at least 10-12% of Russians now work on a regular basis, and they are hired for temporary work without drawing up contracts much more often. Half of those who work without writing find it profitable for themselves. According to the latest research by the All-Russian Center for Living Standards, only 9% of Russians can now be classified as middle class. The middle class is a relative concept, each country has its own specifics and its own "norms" in terms of income, quality of housing and level of education. The Russian "middle peasant" lives much more modestly: on the whole in the territory of the Russian Federation, in order to be considered a representative of the middle class, it is enough to have incomes from 12 to 27 thousand per family member. He can save for a "rainy day" only from 7 to 65 thousand a year. Compared to developed countries, this is an extremely low percentage. The middle layer in developed countries is more than 70%. In order to reach the level of developed European countries, the incomes of Russian families must increase at least 2-3 times. For Russia, a good salary is about $300, which is approximately one and a half to two times higher than the average salary in the regions. In large cities, this amount rises to $500. In America, middle-class salaries start at $1,500 a month. In one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America, Chile, the middle class includes families with an income of 600 to 1,600 dollars a month. But in China, its representatives are determined by the ability to purchase a vehicle. Today, less than 1% of the population belongs to the middle class in China. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of poverty, it is not enough for the state and public organizations to simply carry out social programs to support the poor, but also to stimulate an increase in the number of representatives of the middle class. Poverty is the most acute social problem. According to sociological polls, the values and attitudes of the rich and the poor in Russia diverge exceptionally far. Only the joint efforts of the state and society can change the situation for the better. Along with the development of social programs to help the poor, the state should be interested in the progress and in the progress of the life and behavioral attitudes of Russians. Chapter 2. Subsistence minimum, expenses and incomes of the population in the Russian Federation
2.1 The subsistence level of the population in the Russian Federation
In the Russian Federation, the assessment of the standard of living of the population is carried out through the indicator of the subsistence minimum. Living wage
is an indicator of the minimum composition and structure of consumption of material goods and services necessary to maintain human health and life. The subsistence minimum is a cost assessment of the consumer basket, which includes the minimum set of food products, as well as the cost of non-food products and services, taxes and mandatory payments, corresponding in terms of the cost structure for these purposes to the budgets of low-income families. According to Rosstat, the subsistence minimum in 2010 as a whole, based on quarterly data, amounted to 5,688 rubles. It turns out that, if we consider the whole of 2010, then 17.9 million people lived below the absolute poverty line (12.6% of the population). Compared to 2009, the number of absolutely poor people decreased by 0.4% (by 0.3 million people) [Table 1]. Table 1. Population with money incomes below the subsistence level and the deficit of money income. 2000200520062007200820092010Population with cash incomes below the subsistence level: million people42,325,221,518,718,818,217.9% of total population29,017,715.2 13.3 13.4 13,012.6 income: billion rubles 199.2286.9276.6270.3325.0352.1380.2 as a percentage of the total monetary income of the population5.02.11.61.31.31.21.2 If you look at the age and sex composition of the population with incomes below the subsistence level, it turns out that in 2010, according to Rosstat, 64.4% of absolutely poor Russians are citizens of working age (men and women from 16 to 59 or 54 years old, respectively) [tab. 2]. Table 2. - Distribution of the population with incomes below the subsistence level by age and sex groups, in % of the total. Year2000200520062007200820092010By age and sex groupsChildren under 16: 24,421,821,221,422,623,825.5 up to 1 year 0,50,70,70,81,11,11,21-6 years 5,76,06,26,57,38, 410.17-15 years18,315,114,314,114,114,314.2 Youth aged 16 to 3022,925,625,625,825,625,624.9Men aged 31 to 5918,218,719,018,918,618,719.2Women aged 31 to 5421,421,221,121,020,620.32 0.3 Men aged 60 and over3.83.53.63.83.53, 12.5 Women aged 55 and over9.39.19.59.69.18.67.5 Let us pay attention to the fact that a quarter of the poor population are Russians aged 16-30 years old, i.e. the most socially active group of the population. In addition, this is the only group whose share in the age and sex structure of the poor population has been constantly increasing since 2000 and has remained virtually unchanged since 2005. Thus, among the poor there are more and more young people - people with the highest social expectations. Let us also note this fact: among the poor, pensioners are by no means the most numerous group. In total, women over 55 and men over 60 accounted for 10% (7.5% + 2.5% respectively) of the total number of poor in 2010. It turns out that pensioners with their official pensions, which allow them to balance on the edge of the subsistence level, look almost the most well-to-do stratum of the population. The indicator of the number of citizens living below the poverty line varies significantly not only depending on gender and age, but also depending on the region. Interregional differences are associated both with differences in the amount of disposable money incomes of residents of a particular region and with different costs of living (the subsistence minimum established in the region, the level of consumer prices), and with the general level of socio-economic development of a particular region. According to the results of 2010, in the Republic of Ingushetia, almost 22.2% of the inhabitants were recognized by official statistics as absolutely poor, while in the Republic of Dagestan there were only 9.2% of the population [Table 3]. Table 3. - Number of the population with monetary incomes below the subsistence level (selectively, by region, 2010). RegionPopulation share, % Bryansk Region13.6Vladimir Region18.3Voronezh Region19.1Republic of Adygea16.1Krasnodar Territory15.6Rostov Region15.1Republic of Dagestan9.2Republic of Ingushetia22.2Republic of North Ossetia-Alania10.4Moscow10 Ingushetia belongs to the crisis regions that have undergone large-scale socio-political conflicts, which is why the economy of this region is in far from the best condition. Other regions with above-average poverty levels in Russia are also often underdeveloped regions whose economies are in a state of prolonged stagnation. Poverty in such regions is stagnant, it ceases to be a temporary phenomenon. A person living in such a region is often already considered poor. When evaluating the real number of the poor in Russia, it is also necessary to take into account citizens who are at risk of falling below the poverty line at any moment, i.e. those people whose income is slightly higher than the subsistence level. These are those citizens who formally are not below the absolute poverty line, but in fact their financial situation is no better than that of the officially poor population. Raising the poverty threshold by 5% leads to an increase in the proportion of the poor to 16%, or 1.1 million people. 2.2 Income of the population in the Russian Federation
Another important and objective indicator that characterizes the standard of living of the population is real disposable money income
[Table 4]. The dynamics of this indicator shows significant declines in 1992, 1995 and 1998-99, which were marked by serious economic crises in Russia, which had a negative impact on the personal budget of Russians. Since 2000, according to Rosstat, there has been an upward trend in real cash income. Table 4. - Dynamics of real disposable money income of the population, in % to the previous year. Year%1991116199252.51993116.41994112.91995851996100.61997105.8199884.1199987.720001122001108.72002111.12003114.92004108.22005 111.120061102007113.12008103.82009101.82010104.7 Despite this, in 2010 the level of real disposable money income of the population amounted to only 88.7% of the 1991 level. Thus, until now, the real money incomes of Russians have not reached the level of the beginning of the transition period in the economy. 2.3 Consumer spending in Russia
Another indicator of poverty can be used consumer spending
, their structures. These indicators quite well reflect the actual standard of living of certain groups of households. Based on this, a citizen or a household can be considered poor, in the structure of expenditures of which the share of expenditures on essential goods in general and, first of all, on food prevails. Table 5. - Structure of consumer spending, in % of the total. 2001200520062007200820092010Consumer spending- Total 100100100100100100100
food and non-alcoholic beverages45,833,231,628,429,130,529.6alcoholic beverages, tobacco products 3,62,72,72,42,32,42.4clothing and footwear13,610,710,910,410,410,410.8housing services, water, electricity, gas and other fuels7,111,31 2,111,610,410,811,3 household items household appliances, household appliances and home care6,17,27,37,37,57,06.2 ,83.8organization of leisure and cultural events4,77,16,46,47,77,36.8education1,21,82,01,81,61,51.3hotels, cafes and restaurants2,62,92,63,03,03 .43.4other goods and services4.14.74.95.25.96.46.2 More significant differences in the structure of consumer spending are observed for population groups with different income levels. According to Rosstat, in the structure of consumer expenditures of the poorest Russians, the share of expenditures for the purchase of food in 2010 was 44.7%, while for the population with the highest incomes - only 21.1%. At the same time, it is obvious that, in absolute terms, the amount of food expenses of rich Russians significantly exceeds the amount of food expenses of the poorest. In addition, the structure of consumption of the poor is significantly shifted towards subsistence consumption (for example, growing vegetables and fruits in summer cottages and preparing them for home-made preparations for the winter). Such an analysis of consumer spending by population groups clearly confirms that the poor, in comparison with the rich, spend more on essential goods and, first of all, on food [Table 6]. Table 6. Structure of household consumer spending by population groups with different income levels in 2010 All households, of which by population groups, depending on the level of disposable resources, first (with the least disposable resources) second, third, fourth, fifth (with the largest disposable resources) Consumer spending- Total 100100100100100100
including by purpose of consumption: food and non-alcoholic beverages29,644,740,837,329,221.1 alcoholic beverages, tobacco products 2,42,62,72,62,42.3 clothing and footwear10,89,210,611,112,110.4 housing services, water, electricity, gas and other fuels11 ,316,814,912,910,39.2 household items, home appliances and home care6,23,44,65,56,77.1 84,64,54,22,9organization of leisure and cultural events6,83,24,05,48,87,5education1,30,71,21,42,01,0hotels, cafes and restaurants3,41,01,41,93, 34.9 other goods and services6,25,05,25,86,76,7 The distribution of durable goods across population groups with different income levels is very uneven. The smallest gap between the population group with the lowest income and the group with the highest income in 2010, according to Rosstat, was in terms of the presence of washing machines and tape recorders in the household - almost one to one. The maximum discrepancy - 2 times - by the presence of a computer. This discrepancy is understandable: for the rich, unlike the poor, the computer becomes a commodity of prime necessity. Table 7 - Population of durable goods by population groups with different income levels in 2010 Groups of the population depending on the level of disposable resources first (with the least disposable resources) second third fourth fifth (with the largest disposable resources)) 39Refrigerators, freezers113119119126123Washing machines979799101100Electric vacuum cleaners8489929595Sewing, knitting machines3642444844 So, the low level of income of a significant part of the population of the Russian Federation, combined with excessive polarization of income, causes a social breakdown in society as a whole, causes social tension, hinders the successful development of our country, and determines crisis processes. Chapter 3. The main directions of the socio-economic policy of the Russian Federation to combat poverty
Regardless of the different interpretations of this concept, poverty has affected all segments of the population, taking on the widest scale in the Russian Federation. According to the World Bank standards, Russia is classified as a medium-developed country in terms of GDP, and as a developing country in terms of poverty. The main direction for overcoming poverty is to ensure productive employment, increase labor efficiency, create conditions for the able-bodied part of the population to earn enough and thus support themselves and their families. In this case, the amount of wages received acts as the main guarantee against poverty. The role of the state is to create market conditions for strengthening the competitiveness of the national economy through ensuring the competitiveness of Russian enterprises - the implementation of the necessary industrial policy, the appropriate adaptation of the education and training system, the introduction of measures to protect domestic producers. ü The first step in the policy in the field of overcoming poverty is the construction of a typology of poor families and the definition of their target groups - complete low-income families, families with many children, families with disabilities, families with the unemployed. A thorough analysis of the causes of poverty in the context of these groups, the implementation of a differentiated approach to these groups. A mandatory means test is required for eligible families based on two criteria: ) the total family income is below the officially established poverty line (standard), ) the value of personal property is below some officially established regional minimum standard. Only the simultaneous fulfillment of these two conditions can be considered sufficient grounds to qualify for social assistance. ü Ensuring greater selectivity in the provision of social assistance, its predominantly declarative nature and the targeted nature of social payments, is one of the most effective ways to combat poverty. Here it is important to prioritize what and how much resources to distribute in the form of social assistance, to whom to give these resources - the poor, children, pensioners, the unemployed; in what proportion to divide them, to develop criteria for their "sharing". When choosing among socially vulnerable groups of the population, it is necessary to compare the officially established poverty line for them with their incomes, the minimum standard of property officially established for them with their property. ü The study of the problem of child poverty, including homelessness, street children, and children in crisis families deserves special attention. An important task of social policy is to identify barriers to access to social protection and social services for the population. The current system of identification and social support of poor families and the population in the form of numerous allowances, benefits, and other types of assistance is imperfect and needs to be adapted to the conditions of a market economy. Currently, funds allocated for social support to the poor are distributed inefficiently, often going to the wrong families that are really poor. As a result, the really poorest part of the population finds itself in an increasingly difficult situation, and stagnant, long-term poverty is becoming more common. Conclusion
Poverty is not only a lack of food, clothing, poor housing, people's lack of access to the necessary education and health care. And not only the lack of a sufficient amount of money to purchase everything necessary for life, at least at a minimum level. The problem of poverty also has a humanistic component; it affects the moral and ethical aspects of the relationship between the authorities and the people of the state. The poverty of the population of the Russian Federation for a long time continues to be one of the main social threats to the successful development of society. Various reforms in our country have seriously changed the social structure of society. There was a rapid social stratification, there were very rich and extremely poor citizens. Most people have lost the social protection of the state, and they are forced to adapt to life in conditions of instability. Therefore, under such conditions, the emergence of a large number of poor people is inevitable. Failure to meet the minimum human needs is already considered poverty. It, in turn, can lead either to a change in the normal life of a person, or to his death. The most vulnerable are young people, women, people of retirement age, low-skilled workers. The measures to combat poverty carried out by the Russian state are part of major political, economic and social measures. Our state has a rather effective set of means in resolving such a problem as poverty. For a more rapid reduction of the poor population, it is necessary to identify those subjects of the Russian Federation in which it is really necessary to accelerate the reduction of poverty. Thus, it would be enough to provide support to a small number of regions with dynamically developing economies in order to significantly reduce the overall number of poor people in the country. Efforts could then be focused on halving the poverty rate in those regions where at least 50% of the country's total poor live. In a single state, it is necessary to help everyone who has problems. The stronger must support the less weak. This will make it possible to solve the national task of reducing poverty in a short time. Bibliographic list
1.Federal Law "On State Social Assistance" dated July 17, 1999, No. 178 - Federal Law. 2.Federal Law "On the subsistence minimum in the Russian Federation" dated October 24, 1997, No. 134 - FZ. .Bobkov V., Russian poverty: measurement and ways to overcome // Society and Economics, - No. 3, - 2005, pp. 71-78. .Vaneev O. Problems of urban poverty: municipal policy and practice. // Man and labor 2010, №2. .Denisov N. Expenses and incomes of the population of Russia // Economy and life, 2001. No. 6. C.3. .Eliseev I.I., Vasiliev E.K. Demography and population statistics. - M.: Finance and statistics, 2006. .Leonidova A.I. The problem of poverty in Russia. M., 2000. .Maksimova T.N., Social development and standard of living // Bulletin of Economics, - No. 6, - 1999, pp. 53-58. .Neshchadin A. Poverty is a vice of Russia. // Man and labor 2004, №1. .Razumov A., Classification of the main approaches to the definition and measurement of poverty // Man and Labor, - No. 9, - 2002, pp. 27-28. .Rzhanitsyna L., Poverty in Russia: causes, features, ways to reduce // The Economist, - No. 4, - 2001, pp. 71-73. .Roik V. Poverty: causes, consequences, ways of overcoming. // Man and labor 2010, №1. .Romanov A.N. The standard of living of the population / A.N. Romanov, V.M. Zherebin - M.: Unity-Dana., - 2008. .Savchenko P., Fedorova M., Shelkova E. Level and quality of life: concepts, indicators, current state in Russia // Russian Economic Journal. - 2000. - No. 7. .Sagdarov A.A. Economic demography. Tutorial. - M.: Infra - M, 2005 .Surinov A. Problems of measuring social inequality and poverty in Russia. // Society and Economics 2004, No. 3. .Tikhomirov N.P. Demography. Methods of analysis and forecasting - M.: Exam Publishing House, 2005.
According to the Federal State Statistics Service, the proportion of the poor in the entire population of Russia from 1992 to 2015 decreased from 33.5% to 15.9%, and until 2014, poverty was declining, and only in the last 2 years has it been growing. having per capita cash income below the subsistence level, and a shortage of cash income [Electronic resource] // Federal State Statistics Service. 2015. URL: http: //www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/population/urov/urov_51g. doc.
According to Rosstat, in the first quarter of 2014 there were 19.8 million poor people in Russia (13.8% of the population), and in the first quarter of 2015 - 22.9 million people (15.9% of the population) cash income of the population with the subsistence minimum and the number of the poor in the whole of the Russian Federation in the first quarter of 2015 [Electronic resource] // Federal State Statistics Service, 2015. URL: http: //www.gks.ru/bgd/free /B04_03/IssWWW.exe/Stg/d05/111.html. .
Having analyzed the statistics of Rosstat from the standpoint of the deprivation approach, N.E. Tikhonova came to the following conclusion: "According to calculations, the number of the deprived population in Russia is about 25%. Taking into account the population with incomes below the subsistence level, the proportion of those who can be considered as poor in modern Russian society reaches almost a third. The discrepancy between the results obtained in the study data on the total number of poor, Rosstat’s data, with almost complete coincidence of data on the share of the poor “by income”, reflects the underestimation of a number of circumstances in its calculations of the subsistence minimum - from the difference in the cost of living in different settlements to the characteristics of consumer behavior of different age groups" Tikhonova N. E. The phenomenon of poverty in modern Russia // Sociological research - 2014. - No. 1. 2). .
Tikhonova's estimates are based on data from a study conducted in the spring of 2013.
Both Rosstat's estimates and Tikhonova's estimates using the deprivation approach may already be out of date as economic conditions change rapidly.
In 2015, there was a certain increase in the nominal incomes of the population (albeit slower than in previous years), but taking into account consumer inflation, real incomes fell quite noticeably.
According to the results of VTsIOM surveys, in November 2014, when the economic crisis was not yet felt by the Russians, the average per capita income of 33% of respondents in the family did not exceed the subsistence level of 8234 rubles. per capita VTsIOM poll results database. Initiative survey July 4-5, 2015 [Electronic resource]. URL: http: //wciom.ru/zh/print_q. php? s_id=1031&q_id=71221&date=05. 07.2015. .
social group poverty russia
In the III quarter of 2015, the cost of living was already 9673 rubles On the ratio of monetary income of the population with the value of the subsistence minimum and the number of poor people in the whole of the Russian Federation in the III quarter of 2015 [Electronic resource] // Federal State Statistics Service. 2015. URL: http: //www.gks.ru/bgd/free/B04_03/IssWWW.exe/Stg/d06/249. htm. . In November 2015, 36% of respondents in the family had an average per capita income that did not exceed the subsistence minimum of 9,673 rubles, and in March 2016, 38% did. In November 2014, 15% of respondents subjectively assessed the financial situation of their family as bad or very bad, a year later - 20%, and in March 2016 - 23%.
Even more noticeable changes have occurred in Russians' assessment of their own consumer opportunities: in November 2014, they claimed that weekly door-to-door surveys with personal formalized interviews conducted on the initiative of VCIOM on a multi-stage stratified sample; stepwise selection of households using quotas at the last stage of selection.
Each survey is conducted in 46 subjects of the Russian Federation, 130 settlements. 1600 people take part in each survey. The survey represents the population of the Russian Federation over 18 years old by sex, age, education, and type of settlement. The maximum error size (taking into account the design effect) does not exceed 3.5% with a 95% probability.
In the course of another survey, it was these two groups of respondents who believed that over 80% of Russians could be classified as poor. How do Russians themselves perceive the recent increase in poverty in the country and the very phenomenon of poverty? As studies have shown, "the beginning of the stigmatization of the poor, the formation of their portrait as a portrait of the underclass" is clearly traced. Tikhonova N.E. The phenomenon of poverty in modern Russia // Sociological research - 2014. - No. 1. (2). .
Judging by the results of the VTsIOM polls, Russians are anxious about what is happening, apparently based on negative stereotypes, some of which were recorded in the 1990 polls. 66% are sure that over the past 5 years, poverty in the country has only grown in 1990 ; 59% of the inhabitants of the RSFSR spoke about the growth of poverty. Poverty is not a vice? [Electronic resource] // VCIOM. Press release No. 2944. 2. 10.2015. URL: http://wciom.ru/index. php? id=236&uid=115416. .
The proportion of pessimists among respondents with a poor financial situation (according to their own estimates) is relatively higher - 77% and residents of million-plus cities - 74%, excluding Moscow and St. Petersburg. 82% of respondents believe that there are many poor people in our country; in 1990, 69% thought so. This opinion is relatively more widespread among respondents over 44 years old (86%) and residents of million-plus cities (87%), excluding Moscow and St. Petersburg. 32% consider our country to be "poor" or "rather poor than rich"; in 1990 - 66% Poor in a rich country [Electronic resource] // VTsIOM. Press release No. 2890. 29.07.2015. URL: http://wciom.ru/index. php? id=236&uid=115332. .
Poverty in modern Russia is more often reported by Russians with incomplete secondary education (42%) and poor financial standing (41%).
It turns out a paradoxical situation: in a country that has grown rich over the past 25 years, there are many poor people, and poverty is only growing; according to 50% of the respondents, the proportion of the poor will only increase in the next 2-3 years. At the same time, in December 2015, 66% believed that their own financial situation was "average", "good" or "very good"; 23% believed that in a year they would live worse than now, and 27% - that they would live better Poor in a rich country [Electronic resource] // VTsIOM. Press release No. 2890. 29.07.2015. URL: http://wciom.ru/index. php? id=236&uid=115332. .
The hypothesis about the chronic poverty of some Russians is not consistent. The nature of poverty is gradually changing. The share of those in chronic poverty (feeling poor all their lives) has decreased from 24% to 15% over 25 years. Among those who consider their financial situation "bad" or "very bad", only 33% are chronically poor. The proportion of those who say they have never been poor has increased from 13% to 27%: primarily among young people under 25 (45%) and wealthy Russians (46%) Poor people in a rich country [Electronic resource] // VTsIOM . Press release No. 2890. 29.07.2015. URL: http://wciom.ru/index. php? id=236&uid=115332. .
What do respondents see as the causes of poverty? The fact that their work is underestimated (27%), that some compatriots have illegal sources of income (19%), but the main thing is that the incomes of rich Russians are too high (40%) Is poverty not a vice? [Electronic resource] // VCIOM. Press release No. 2944. 2. 10.2015. URL: http://wciom.ru/index. php? id=236&uid=115416. .
This opinion is widespread in most age groups, including among the respondents aged 25-34, whose conscious life went on after the collapse of the USSR, with its communist ideology of universal equality, and whose childhood fell on the period of poverty in the 1990s.
"When analyzing life chances, and, accordingly, the risk of poverty in Russian society, researchers traditionally pay attention to such socio-demographic factors as gender, age, especially retirement age, health, household composition, including the presence and nature of dependent burden, type of settlement, residence in a city or village, region of residence" Lezhnina Yu.P. Socio-demographic features of poverty in the Russian Federation // Sociological research - 2014. No. 1.S. 20 - 28. .
For a more holistic perception of the phenomenon of poverty, in the 1990 and 2015 VTsIOM surveys, the opinion of Russians on the relationship of poverty with some other factors was studied: state support for the poor, educational opportunities, and some features of the psychology of the poor themselves.
In July 2015, the respondents stated that the poor are families whose average per capita income does not exceed 11,173 rubles. per month. At the same time, respondents living in the most difficult conditions, who (according to their own statement) do not always have enough money even for food, named a slightly higher amount - 13,517 rubles. In any case, both of these estimates are significantly higher than the subsistence minimum set by Rosstat for the 1st quarter of 2015 - 9673 rubles. per person. According to the Russians, who do not always have enough money even for food, they need an average of 18,809 rubles. per person per month to "make ends meet" The poor in a rich country [Electronic resource] // VTsIOM. Press release No. 2890. 29.07.2015. URL: http://wciom.ru/index. php? id=236&uid=115332. .
Analyzing the group of social poor, it should be noted that belonging to this group is due to the socio-demographic characteristics of certain categories of the population, this group includes the disabled, the disabled, the sick, as well as those who are forced to bear a large dependent burden (breadwinners of large families, single women with children) .
Particular attention must be paid to the group of workers - the "new" poor, when full-fledged workers with high qualifications find themselves in a situation in which they cannot ensure the level of well-being accepted in society with their labor.
The main reason for the poverty of workers is low wages; Basically, the "new" poor are workers in the public sector. The social group of the poor "according to deprivation", i.e. those who are insufficiently satisfied with their needs for food, clothing and footwear, housing, quality medical care, in comparison with the standard of living accepted in this society, are more often represented by small families from urban areas, with the smallest proportion of young men and the largest proportion of elderly women .
The poor "in terms of income", as a special social group, i.e. those whose average per capita income per family member is below the officially established subsistence level are more often represented by large families in rural areas, and they include many children and young people.
It should also be noted that stagnant poverty is determined by the duration of time and is more typical for rural areas. Temporary poverty is characterized by short periods and is most typical in modern conditions for the urban population due to delays in wages and layoffs.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the most significant factors that determine the risk of poverty of the population are distinguished: socio-demographic (age, gender, marital status, dependent load), professional (education, occupations, sector of the economy) and medical (health).
FEDERAL FISHING AGENCY
FEDERAL STATE EDUCATIONAL
INSTITUTION OF HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
"MURMANSK STATE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY"
Department of History and Sociology
ABSTRACT
in the discipline "Sociology"- on the topic: "The social structure of poor families and the factors of reproduction of poverty in Russia"
Group: Te-201(2)
Checked by: Ryabev V.V.
Murmansk
2011Introduction……………………………………….…………………….………..3
- Poverty and Inequality …………………...………………….….…..….5
- Poverty as a social phenomenon…………………….………..5
The main indicators of the standard of living of the population……….……..9
Federal Law “On State Social Assistance”………………11
- Poverty in Soviet Russia today…….……………..…15
Poverty Reproduction Factors…….……..……………..22
Methods of combating poverty…………………….…………….26
References……………………………………………………………..30
Introduction
The problem of poverty is one of the most acute social problems of modern Russia. It is poverty that determines the limited access of a significant part of the population of our country to development resources: highly paid jobs, high-quality education and health services, and the possibility of successful socialization of children and youth. The low level of income of a significant part of families, combined with the excessive polarization of society, causes a social breakdown, causes social tension, hinders the successful development of the country, and determines crisis processes in society and the family.
Research interest in socially determined changes in the family is dictated by the fact that the family is the most ancient and constantly dynamically developing basis for the interaction of the individual and society. The family, both as a social group and as a social institution, has a colossal historical experience of survival and self-preservation in various social conditions, apparently due to the existence of certain mechanisms for regulating family relations and self-organization of the family itself. Interacting with all spheres of social life, the family changes and develops under the influence of the socio-economic process. Of particular interest are families in a situation of poverty, since the problem of poverty is one of the most controversial both in politics and in science.
As you know, the decline in the living standards of most families in modern Russia has led to changes in the structure, forms and functions of families. This led to the relevance, scientific and practical interest in understanding the processes of functioning of the "new poor" families that arose in the course of reforming Russian society. Impoverished people develop certain behavioral strategies, ways and mechanisms of protection that help them adapt to the current life situation. The marginality of the "new poor" families is primarily caused by socio-economic changes that have led to a decrease in their social status. They acquired features characteristic of the "traditional" poor, which caused a corresponding transformation of the functions of the family as a social group.
Of particular relevance is the study of the social identity of the "new poor" families, since it is one of the criteria for distinguishing a given social group and, ultimately, determines its position. The transformation of the social structure and social institutions of Russian society is carried out in a short time and is accompanied by a fundamental change in values, norms, patterns of behavior, roles, statuses, and the system of social control as a whole. Together, the transitivity and incompleteness of these processes can be defined as a crisis of social identity.
This work is devoted to the analysis of the self-identification of poor families, changes in their behavioral strategies in modern Russia, the problem is insufficiently studied and, undoubtedly, relevant. The relevance of the study is also given by the task set by the President of the Russian Federation before the government - to reduce the number of poor people in the country in the coming years.
Poverty and Inequality
Poverty as a social phenomenon
Poverty and inequality are closely related concepts. Inequality characterizes the uneven distribution of the scarce resources of society: money, power, education and prestige among different segments of the population - this is social inequality. The main measure of inequality is the number of liquid values. This function is usually performed by money, and its quantity determines the place of the individual or family in social stratification. The most common and easy-to-calculate way to measure inequality is to compare the lowest and highest incomes in a given country. Another way is to analyze the share of family income spent on food: the poorer the individual, the more he spends on food, and vice versa. If inequality is compared 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: this is economic inequality. Inequality characterizes society as a whole, while poverty concerns only part of the population. 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.
One of the criteria for the civilization of any state in the social sphere is the maintenance of an acceptable standard of living for a given country for those groups of the population (families) who, for some reason, were not able to observe the customs and living standards accepted in society, even at a minimum level (eat, dress, spend leisure time, etc.). In other words, the material situation of this part of the population, the level of their incomes do not allow them to satisfy a certain range of minimum needs - necessary for life, preservation of working capacity, procreation, certain social recognition. Failure to meet the minimum needs of a person (family) is considered poverty.
The definition of poverty as a condition in which a person's essential needs exceed his ability to satisfy them is of a general nature, because it does not specify what essential needs are. What are needs, what is their significance for human life?
A need is a need, a need for something that needs to be satisfied. This is a certain form of communication between living organisms and the outside world, necessary for the existence and development of an individual, human personality, social group, society as a whole. Depending on the tasks of studying needs in modern science, various classifications are used. The existing standards reflect modern scientific ideas about human needs for goods and services - personal needs. However, they should not be absolutized, as they are changeable, which makes it difficult to quantify them. Personal needs reflect the objective need for a certain set and quantity of material goods and services and social conditions that ensure the comprehensive activity of a particular person. Personal needs are divided into physiological (physical), social and intellectual (spiritual).
Physiological needs are decisive - of the first order, since they express the needs of a person as a biological being. These are the needs of people in everything that is necessary for their existence, development and reproduction. In their composition, the primary needs are food, clothing, footwear, housing, rest, sleep, physical activity.
Social needs. They are connected with the fact that a person belongs to society, occupies a certain place in it. Social needs include the needs for work, creation, creativity, social activity, communication with other people, that is, in everything that is a product of social life.
Intellectual needs relate to education, advanced training, creative activity generated by the internal state of a person. The social qualities of a person also give rise to spiritual needs. If physical (material) needs have reasonable limits, then the satisfaction of a person’s spiritual needs opens up scope for personal development, elevates a person, makes his life interesting and meaningful. Here, the need for knowledge, creative activity, and the creation of beauty are manifested.
The external form of manifestation of personal needs is the demand of the population, although both quantitatively and qualitatively it differs from the actual need. A more reliable assessment of the degree of inequality in the distribution of incomes of the population, in terms of the critical level of well-being in society and its quantitative measurement, can be made through indicators of absolute poverty.
The criterion of absolute poverty is the level of poverty, which can be measured by the following indicators:
- Degree of poverty;
Poverty threshold;
The scale of poverty;
threshold of poverty;
The scale of poverty;
Degree of poverty;
income deficit;
Poverty Depth Index;
Poverty severity index;
At the same time, despite the large number of studies on the problem of poverty, there is still no accurate and well-established idea of what poverty is. Hence the differences in the assessment of the scale of poverty, they range from 20% to 40% (and even more) depending on the approach used to define and measure poverty.
The main indicators of the standard of living of the population
The standard of living is determined by a combination of various qualitative and quantitative indicators, which allows an analysis of the real standard of living of various groups of the population and the entire population as a whole, such a combination shows an assessment of the standard of living of individual subjects of the Russian Federation.
The main tasks and directions of statistical study of the standard of living of the population:
1) General and comprehensive description of the socio-economic welfare of the population;
2) assessment of the degree of socio-economic differentiation of society, the degree of differences in the level of well-being between individual social, demographic and other groups of the population;
3) analysis of the nature of the degree of influence of various socio-economic factors on the standard of living, the study of their composition and dynamics;
4) identification and characterization of low-income strata of the population in need of socio-economic support.
The standard of living, its dynamics and differentiation are largely determined by the level of development of productive forces, the volume and structure of national wealth, the production and use of the gross national product, the nature of distribution and redistribution of income. An analysis of trends in changes in the standard of living of the population makes it possible to judge how effective the socio-economic policy of the state is, and to what extent society is coping with the tasks set.
There is a system of indicators that covers both general (macroeconomic) indicators and private (microeconomic) ones: general indicators and the consumption fund of GNP per capita, incomes of the population (in cash and in kind), consumption and expenditures of the population, monetary savings in total and on types of deposits, accumulation of property and housing, social differentiation of the population, low-income strata of the population, demographic situation in the region, health, education, labor market, social security and social services, ecology and public safety. The main indicators of the standard of living are cash incomes, real disposable cash incomes, nominal accrued average monthly wages, real accrued wages, the average size of assigned monthly pensions (including compensation payments).
Three aspects of studying the standard of living are possible: 1) in relation to the entire population; 2) to his social groups; 3) to households with different amounts of income.
Directly related to the standard of living is the consumer budget, which summarizes the standards (norms) for the consumption of material goods and services by the population, differentiated by social and age and sex groups of the population, climatic zones, conditions and severity of work, place of residence, etc. There are minimum and rational consumer budgets. Other basic social standards include: the minimum wage and temporary disability benefits, unemployment benefits for able-bodied persons, minimum labor and social pensions for the elderly and disabled citizens, the disabled; minimum scholarships for students, regular or one-time targeted benefits for the most financially vulnerable groups of the population (large and low-income families, single mothers, etc.).
Federal Law "On State Social Assistance"
The term "social security" first appeared in the "Social Security Act" in the United States in 1935. and in the Social Security Act in New Zealand in 1938.
In the definition of social security, the key point was the report of W. Beveridge in Great Britain in 1942. In this report, he defined social security as follows: “social security means providing a minimum income from unemployment, illness, accident, old-age dismissal and preventing losses from the dependency of others, as well as to solve the problem of exceptional expenses arising in the event of birth, death, marriage ".
P. Larock argues that social security continuously determines the standard of living for the working masses, and in all cases, ensuring an appropriate minimum standard of living through the redistribution of income, based on the principle of solidarity, guarantees such a standard of living.
We can say that the definitions given by scientists to the concept of social security are very diverse. However, they see the main meaning and purpose of social security in ensuring the right to a decent existence through ensuring a minimum standard of living. Thus, they include in this concept the social and economic functions of the state.
Lawyers and jurists believe that the purpose of social security is to protect the right to life. Politicians often use welfare as a political slogan. Economists understand social security as a redistribution of income.
Taking into account these trends, the concept of social security can be defined as follows: Social security in the narrow sense means that the state, which has the goal of social policy to ensure a minimum standard of living for society, guarantees each individual from the main dangers that threaten the loss of livelihood - such as disease , industrial accident, old age, unemployment, poverty; in a broad sense, social security means a system that, through the state and public organizations, provides resources for living and services to those in need, in order for a person to live like a human being, and through the redistribution of income strives for social equality and full equilibrium development.
The International Social Security Association classifies the various forms of the social security system as follows: social insurance, social assistance and social services. We can assume that the basis of the social security system is, first of all, social insurance. The basis of social insurance is usually made up of the following elements: a) pension insurance: b) medical insurance: c) industrial accident insurance: d) unemployment insurance.
Social assistance is subdivided as follows: a) life protection; b) medical assistance; c) support for military invalids. d) disaster relief.
A feature of social assistance is that in order to receive benefits, its need must be confirmed. This is the main difference between social assistance and social insurance.
Thus, all conditions related to the life of the population somehow: income security, medicine, health care, education, employment, housing - are objects of social service.
The most important function of the social security system is, of course, to ensure an acceptable standard of living for the population. The structure of such a system is as follows: the disabled are provided with social assistance; the able-bodied are provided with the possibility of social insurance, those in need of social support are supported by social services.
The second most important function can be called the function of income redistribution. A typical example of income redistribution in social security is social assistance, which can be said to carry out "vertical income redistribution". Another structural direction that performs the function of "vertical redistribution" is social services. The functions of "horizontal distribution" are performed by social insurance.
The third main function of social security is the function of economic stabilization.
The Federal Law "On State Social Assistance" clearly articulates the goals of providing state social assistance: it is "maintaining the standard of living of low-income families, as well as low-income citizens living alone, whose average per capita income is below the subsistence level", as well as "targeted and rational use of budgetary funds "(v. 3).
It is emphasized that only those poor people whose average per capita income does not reach the subsistence level for reasons beyond their control can be recipients of state social assistance (Part 2, Article 6). In Art. 5 also defines the sources of state social assistance. At the same time, it is noted that "in case of insufficient funds of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and funds of local budgets for the provision of state social assistance, such funds are allocated to the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and local governments at the expense of the budget of a higher level of the budget system" (part 2 of article 5).
An important provision is that state social assistance is provided only temporarily (Part 1, Article 6).
Another significant innovation is that the Law provides for the possibility for social protection authorities to conduct an additional check (commission examination) aimed at confirming the information provided in the application for state social assistance (clause 2, article 8). It also regulates the procedure and terms for making a decision on such applications (clause 3, article 8).
The law specifies in great detail the reasons for refusing state social assistance (part 1, article 9), as well as the grounds for terminating it (clause 1, article 10). At the same time, the Law establishes the obligations not only of state bodies providing social assistance on behalf of the state (as is usually done in social laws), but also the obligations of recipients of social assistance.
Thus, the latest social laws testify to the desire of the legislator to get rid of the paternalistic approach to the provision of state social assistance and overcome the dependency inherent in such an approach.
Poverty in Russia
Poverty in Soviet Russia today
Poverty in Russia existed before the Bolsheviks, they did not create it, but in the course of two wars, imperialist and civil, with the famine and devastation that followed them, they reproduced poverty on a gigantic scale. Here is the time to recall the capital work of P. Sorokin "Hunger as a factor", which interprets the influence of wars and famine on people's behavior, social organization and social life.
Wars and famine produce a negative selection of the population, because: they carry away mainly people of working age and the most physically healthy, leaving the old and the young; self-seekers, cowards and persons without consciousness of civic duty shirk, "dig in", do not take risks and death; the war takes mainly men, not women; it takes away first of all the most gifted, talented and energetic people. By virtue of the laws of heredity, Sorokin continued, the worst not only survive, but they also become producers of subsequent generations. Not only the best perish, but along with them their offspring. As a result, the whole nation worsens and weakens the more, the stronger and more often it fights.
War and the accompanying impoverishment, the inability to feed a family, create a moral situation opposite to peaceful life. Peaceful life inhibits the reflexes of murder and violence, war elevates them to the norm of behavior. Peaceful life develops initiative, personal freedom, productive work - war accustoms to unquestioning obedience and irresponsible obedience, disaccustoms from creative work, accustoms to commit purely destructive acts. Peaceful life strengthens respect for the individual and his rights - war instills exactly the opposite reflexes.
Yet, despite three devastating wars, famine years and mass repressions of the Bolsheviks by the end of the 1960s. managed to create a welfare state where poverty as a social phenomenon was absent or was forced out into the deep pores of the social organism. In Soviet times, there were many social ladders, to the top of which only a few could reach, but there was no such social category of people as the poor. The Soviet system needed a lot of cheap labor, but the distribution system of goods and social funds did not allow a working person to fall below the subsistence level. The socially guaranteed minimum was a fundamental principle of social policy.
Moreover, almost from the very beginning of his conscious life, the Soviet person felt himself in demand. One can sneer for as long as one wants to be in demand in an authoritarian society, noting the given corridor of social opportunities, the ideological conditionality of a successful professional career, but, be that as it may, a person who even stood at the very bottom of the social ladder had the state-guaranteed opportunity for socialization and professional development. promotion. Even poor young people from the outback did not feel socially deprived - they could study (let me remind you that secondary education was compulsory), and there were a variety of opportunities for professional advancement (schools for working youth, technical schools and colleges, evening and correspondence education at universities and secondary specialized educational institutions).
In the declining years of life, a pensioner with a minimum pension also had some sector of choice: a protected lonely old age or an active social life. It is interesting that once N.S. Khrushchev tried to introduce into the public consciousness the line between those "who go to the bazaar," that is, active, hard-working people, and those "who go from the bazaar," that is, those who retire, retire. Didn't get used. On the contrary, the further, the more, and especially in the pre-perestroika period, the social activity of the elderly low-income people was extremely high.
It is no less significant that in Soviet times, neither in the system of official, ideological postulates, nor in the mass consciousness, there was a dichotomy "rich - poor". There were others: educated and not, qualified and not very, active - passive, etc., but the starting financial position has never been the main measure of future social opportunities. On the contrary, there was a focus on equalizing material opportunities, on raising the average level of prosperity. Yes, there was a ceiling on legal opportunities to achieve a standard of living "according to needs", but there was no such propaganda of unbridled money-grubbing and hoarding, as there is today.
But maybe it's all temporary? Will the notorious "transitional period" end, the rich will be satisfied, and the masses of the suffering will finally find themselves in the bright realm of capitalism? That is, they will live peacefully and humanly?
The liberal reforms of the 1990s in Russia caused intensive processes of social transformation, gave rise to the problems of deepening the social polarization of society, inequality and marginalization of some social groups. Social changes in Russian society are of a systemic nature, they have affected all the main subsystems of society: politics, economics, spiritual and social spheres. New types and forms of relations have appeared in the country, previously non-existing layers: large and medium-sized owners, the managerial elite, the unemployed, the “new rich” and the “new poor” and adaptive behavioral strategies corresponding to these layers. Those social groups of the population found themselves in a special position, most of which previously belonged to the middle class of Soviet society and became impoverished as a direct result of the socio-economic reforms that have taken place in Russia since the early 1990s. To single out such a group, researchers are actively introducing the category of “new poor” into scientific circulation.
According to official data, today in Russia 23.1 million people are below the poverty line, that is, 16.2% of all Russians. According to the World Bank, there are 25% of such people in the country. According to sociologists, from 25 to 40% of the population. These discrepancies are not only the result of using different calculation methods. Poverty is a social concept that includes not only the level, but also the quality of life, satisfaction with it, opportunities for social advancement, access to world information and cultural resources. "Poverty" includes the past, present and future of a person.
Therefore, very, very many people are below a certain economic line (living wage). And the deceived investors of the "pyramids" of the 1990s, and those whom the state then instantly made poor, depriving them of deposits in state savings banks. The Russian government has carefully paid the foreign debts of the former USSR, and is not going to return the debt to its citizens.
Among the poor, I also include minority shareholders of large private companies, whose cases have been pending in Russian courts for years. And those who, with the last of their strength, have to endlessly pay officials, doctors, teachers so that their children can get an education. But t
etc.................
As you know, ordinary people are responsible for any experiments and miscalculations of the government. And he always answers with his well-being, although in Russia it is already more objective to say - with the worsening of his plight. According to official data from Rosstat, there are already 20 million poor people in Russia, that is, 14% according to official statistics alone. But is this really how things are with poverty, and maybe, as the official authorities report, our population really lives well and cannot get enough of the government and the head of state?
STATISTICAL POVERTY AND POVERTY
Statistics classify as poor only those who have an income level below the subsistence level. And this, according to Rosstat, is 20.3 million people. At the same time, pensioners practically do not fall into the category, since, according to a government decree, those pensioners whose pension is below the subsistence minimum are paid additional payments to bring their pensions to the subsistence level, but in the structure of the poor, pensioners account for 16.7%. Pensioners who receive additional payments - 5.3 million out of 43.8 million. Considering that the average pension is 11.9 thousand rubles, all these 43.8 million can be safely classified as poor - their incomes exceed the subsistence level less than 2.5 thousand rubles. Although legislators are convinced that this difference is significant, and it separates a poor person from a person with an average income, and that it is quite enough for the life of one budget student, after all, almost as many (slightly less, this is the level of a postgraduate scholarship) are scholarships in universities.
This is the only category of poverty in Rosstat - people who do not have enough or barely enough money to buy food, who usually no longer have the opportunity to buy essential goods. It is impossible to call this phenomenon poverty, only poverty. And the cost of living in this regard is a mockery of Russian legislators, who believe that this amount can be used to feed themselves, pay utility bills, cover public transport costs, pay rent for those who do not have it. So, the minimum number of beggars in Russia is 64 million people! If the subsistence minimum remained at the same level of the average wage as in 1999 - 59.6%, and not at the current level of 28.5%, then the poverty line would be determined by Rosstat at an income level of 20.3 thousand rubles . And this is not 20.3 million people, but 70.8 million people! That is, according to the methodology of 1999, there are 70.8 million poor people in Russia - 48.5% of the population, that is, almost half!
And now let's calculate how many poor and needy there are in total. To do this, we first define who the poor are. This is the population, whose funds are only enough to meet the primary needs - food, services, rental housing. At the same time, the poor can no longer afford education, and if they study on credit, then, taking into account the conditions (10% per annum and payment immediately after graduation), dooms themselves to poverty, barely paying off the loan for education, which, in fact, is on the market. not so competitive, since there are a lot of such a gray mass of young bachelors without exact specialization and work experience. The poor can by no means afford to buy a vehicle, much less their own home. The latter category is more at risk of falling into the category of beggars. At the minimum calculation, the poor are the population whose income is below the average salary in the country. This creates a feeling of poverty among people against the background of expectations of reaching the level of the average wage. In aggregate, according to Rosstat, 68.7% of the population of Russia have average per capita incomes below the average wage. And this is already over 100 million people!
They feel psychologically poor.
PORTRAIT OF A STATISTICAL POOR
As already shown, Rosstat does not consider the majority of pensioners to be poor. By his standards, he is a middle-class man. The social portrait of the poor is different. These are mainly employed people (62.8%), as well as children under 15 from poor families (over 20%). In the structure of the poor, the unemployed account for only 1.6%. The poor are 63% people with children, the age of the Rosstat poor is mainly from 16 to retirement (60.5% of the poor belong to this category). That is, poverty is mainly associated with low wages, which the liberal government calls for even more reduction. 37.1% of the poor live in rural areas, another 28.4% live in cities with a population of less than 50 thousand people, that is, these people became victims of the collapse of rural areas and small towns, when production was closed in a hurry. This is the result of the systematic destruction of the Russian economy, when only one task was set - to ensure the functioning of the oil and gas sector. Low wages are a common phenomenon in such industries as agriculture (24.4% of those employed in the sector receive wages below the subsistence level), education (23.7%), activities of recreation, entertainment, culture and sports organizations (20.6% ), provision of communal and social services (20%). Thus, the poor, according to Rosstat, is basically a family person with children who, for various reasons, is forced to work at a low-paid job. Poverty becomes not just a phenomenon of one year, when the standard of living in the country as a whole worsens. It acquires a long-term character: one cannot quickly change jobs, a quality education takes 2–4 years to get a more prestigious job, and you still need to earn money for education! Raising a child with all current expenses takes 20–23 years. In this way, poverty becomes an ever-present phenomenon, dragging one into the cycle of poverty.
WHO IS GUILTY?
It is possible to talk endlessly about the psychological nature of poverty, appealing to the fact that people do not know how, do not know how or do not want to earn money, and their support by the state is reprehensible, since it forms dependent moods. Or blame the West for everything with its sanctions, which only showed that the Russian government is not able to protect the population from aggressive external influences. But you can still take a closer look at the half-true data of Rosstat, at the life of an ordinary Russian outside the Moscow Ring Road, in order to come to the obvious conclusion that poverty is a consequence of the disastrous economic course of the Russian liberal government, which became especially clear against the backdrop of lower oil prices and the current crisis.
1. The increase in poverty is due to an increase in unemployment, which, according to Rosstat, is actually not growing, but in fact we see that . And this is quite natural - the demand of the population is falling, hence industrial production is declining, enterprises are laying off unused employees or moving on to the notorious cost optimization. The second factor is the state strategy of raising salaries for state employees within the framework of May decrees through staff reductions: the dismissal of teachers, medical workers, law enforcement officers, etc.
2.
Over a long period of rule, the liberal elite achieved the destruction of industry, the liquidation of production capacities, city-forming factories and enterprises. Here are just two of the latest examples. The village of Pozhva on the banks of the Kama Reservoir in the Perm Territory, which is home to an estimated 3,000 people. The main enterprise that provides the city with employment is the oldest Pozhvinsky machine-building plant, which was engaged in the production of fire fighting equipment and is the main employer for Pozhva. The enterprise carried out production under the state order, however, in 2014, the owners bankrupted it and put it up for auction, selling it to an unknown entrepreneur from Moscow, Andrey Kuzmin, although earlier the residents of Pozhvinsk were promised that the enterprise would be sold to those who would establish the production of cell towers at the plant. The owner, although he promised that the plant would work, in a few months he completely sold it for scrap, selling everything to the smallest detail, leaving not a single outlet intact. Rallies and strikes of Pozhvin residents did not help to save the plant.
The authorities were indifferent to the fate of the oldest enterprise, which was able to survive even in the seemingly most terrible 90s for the industry. Pozhva was left without a plant-employer, where, according to statistics, every fourth inhabitant of the village worked, as well as many other small settlements scattered throughout the country, urban-type settlements and single-industry towns.
The industry is not saved by imaginary state support. Recall that Europe and the United States have imposed a ban on the supply of drilling equipment to Russia. In the country, the production of drilling equipment for the oil and gas sector was also carried out by the Kungur Machine Plant, which produced about 30% of Russian equipment in this segment. In December 2015, the Kungur Machine Plant was declared bankrupt. But he produced exactly the equipment, access to which is closed to us! There are countless examples, as well as countless workers of factories and enterprises thrown to the mercy of fate.
3. The growth in the conditions of the crisis of delays in the payment of wages, when people do not receive wages for months, and only formally, according to Rosstat, they are poor or middle class, but in fact they simply do not have a livelihood.
4. Increasing pressure on small and medium-sized businesses in the form of an increase in the tax burden, administrative barriers, which led to a reduction in entrepreneurial activity, going into the shadow economy. But SMEs are the main employer in small towns.
5. The devaluation of the ruble led to a sharp increase in food prices, for which the poor already lacked funds. It is only according to Rosstat that inflation for food is 15%; in fact, for food consumed by every household, price growth was significantly higher over two years (Fig. 1).
Rice. 1. Price growth for two years (2014 and 2015) for basic individual food products (according to Rosstat)
6. The state refused to influence the processes of social stratification. As a result, the fund ratio increased from 13.9 to 16 in 2014. The progressive scale of taxation was not introduced. The tax burden on the population is not only 13% of personal income tax, but also numerous taxes: VAT in the form of 18% of the cost of goods, excises, etc. In Russia, the rich pay less income. For example, from dividends until 2015 - 9%, no tax is levied on deposits in banks if the interest income does not go beyond the established limits. In Russia, in fact, a regressive taxation scale has developed.
Social stratification does not just indicate poverty, it indicates that the system is sick and failing, which must be eliminated. And this failure is manifested precisely in the fact that an increasing number of people receive practically nothing from the goods produced in the country, while the rich continue to increase their incomes. According to , which reflects the flows of goods produced in the country, the entire population of the country receives about 55% of the goods in one form or another, which they spend on their own needs, but the stratum of a narrow group of beneficiaries - 16.3%. There is no fair distribution system. The state does not receive taxes from the rich to the budget in order to fully implement its functions, including social protection, but requires this money from the population through an increase in the tax burden.
7. Disastrous for the country was the collapse of the education and health systems. The low quality of education, its cost and inaccessibility to the poor strata of the population gave rise to the problem of personnel thrown out of the labor market. The system condemned them to low-skilled labor with below-average incomes.
CONSEQUENCES OF POVERTY
Poverty is not the scourge of one single person. It generates degradation processes in society:
Deterioration of the demographic situation. People in crisis conditions will not decide on a family or the birth of another child;
Entire sections of the population are left out of the Russian economy. The poor cannot get a decent education, as a result for the labor market they become low-skilled workers, given the shortage of hands, the problem of those employed in technological production should be exacerbated. True, not in Russia, since production is simply curtailed, preparing an army of hired workers on a rotational basis to serve the needs of oil and gas companies;
Part of the professional staff with a long work history is forced to move to work with a high level of income, but not of such social significance - in other words, a former doctor and teacher, in order to live, is forced to become a salesman. And this is an irreparable blow to the Russian economy and to the way of life of a person;
The growth of crime. Low-income people are becoming a vulnerable group to crime. To survive, the poor are forced to go to illegal ways of earning.
WHAT TO DO?
It is not just poverty that needs to be eradicated. You can organize charity events indefinitely, helping the poor with food and used clothes. But this does not solve the problem of socialization - the population survives, but does not break out of the clutches of poverty. It is necessary to eradicate the cause - to change the socio-economic policy of the country. The following measures are proposed:
Increase in social payments from the budget for impoverished Russians in order to ensure a decent standard of living for them during the period of fundamental reforms;
Progressive taxation. Russia is home to 80 dollar billionaires from the Forbes list, many dollar millionaires. Unlike Europe, where income taxes are 40-60%, in Russia the rate is only 13%, and even less for the rich, taking into account tax evasion under the offshore scheme. The progressive scale will help to ensure that super profits go to the benefit of the Russian people through a system of budgetary redistribution;
Support for Russian industry - the creation of new production capacities, especially in rural areas and small towns, the activation of state orders and the growth of state investment, strategic planning of industrial policy;
Stimulation of the Russian economy and macroeconomic stabilization - abandoning the floating rate, which leads to excessive volatility, from the policy of regulating inflation through the containment of the monetary supply;
Solving the housing problem of the population by providing mortgage loans at 1-2%, state construction of housing stock for low-income, young families and youth;
Increasing spending on education, refusing to commercialize the sector, improving the quality of education, including through abandoning the Bologna system and attracting talented personnel;
Return, firstly, free, and secondly, high-quality health care;
Reducing the tax burden on small and medium-sized businesses, which are the main employer in rural areas and small towns, increasing income taxes for large businesses, reducing the salaries of top managers;
Raising the wages of the population of Russia, not reducing it. Rejection of the liberal paradigm of reducing labor costs, the growth rate of which, according to liberals, lags behind the increase in labor productivity.
I would like all this to be implemented by the government. But a miracle does not happen - those in power cannot wake up and radically unfold everything that they have been doing for the past 15 years. They can't and don't want to. And do not break it with protest votes. Although strikes are starting in the country for those whose boiling point has been crossed. Truckers have already started chanting "Government resign, Putin resign."
And not to carry out within the framework of the legislative initiative. The State Duma is dominated by United Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party, living on donations from corporations that do not benefit from higher wages.
For the convenience of studying the material, we divide the article Development into topics:
What are the differences between HDI and poverty indices? If the HDI measures the level of progress in a society or country as a whole, then the poverty indices measure the extent of deprivation in that part of the population that progress has bypassed. From the point of view of the calculation structure, poverty indices consist of the same components as the human development index, including taking into account gender [HDMI].
The poverty of the people
Poverty has always been an urgent problem, but in Russia this issue is especially acute. At present, almost the majority of the population is either on the poverty line or already below it.The causes of poverty is the loss of work, which means a social tragedy. Also, personal bad luck in life connects the social bottom with illnesses, with fate, bad education. The third reason for poverty is one's own guilt, a tendency to vices (drunkenness, drug addiction, prostitution). In Russia, the poorest are the elderly, pensioners, families with many children, the disabled, the unemployed, and others, others, others. But to treat these people with contempt is simply inhumane. "Poverty is not a vice, but a misfortune" is the Russian proverb, but for some reason modern society forgets about it. Most of the poor would like to get out of the social bottom, but they can't-do not allow for various reasons. These people should not be despised and blamed. Not everyone is lucky in life. They need to be understood.
In a person, the main thing is not the financial situation, the main thing is how rich a person is inside. And you should not forget about this, otherwise life will respond with a boomerang for your egoism. Rich today, poor tomorrow. And if you are not kind to people with a smaller wallet today, tomorrow no one will give you a helping hand either. Russian society needs to be more merciful, and society begins with us, and with me, and with you.
Population poverty
The category “poverty of the population” is inherent in a market economy.Its socio-economic content can be reflected through the following macro-social indicators:
The number of low-income citizens of the country;
- poverty line;
- the standard of socially necessary consumption;
- social minimum;
- living wage;
- minimum consumer budget;
- the minimum required standard of consumption.
The countries of Eastern Europe are characterized by the indicator “standard of socially necessary consumption”. It is understood as the amount of consumption that satisfies the basic vital needs of a person at a minimum level.
In Russia, the term “living wage” is used, which is interpreted as an integral social standard that reflects a set of consumer goods and services necessary for the physiological reproduction of a person and the maintenance of life.
The concepts of "poverty line" and "living wage" are used in world practice as equivalent. The size of these indicators is determined by the value of the minimum allowable limits of consumption, below which the normal development of a person is impossible.
The social minimum is the amount of consumption of material goods and services that at the minimum level satisfies all the needs of a citizen of the country, which are considered necessary at this stage to ensure the usual living conditions. The size and structure of the minimum consumer budget (MBB), which underlies the determination of the level of poverty of the country's population and the development of a system, state measures in the social sphere, can be defined as the minimum size of a rational budget that allows you to ensure a normal state of human life in the amount of rational consumption norms that reflect reasonable current needs. The concept of a rational consumer budget characterizes the prospective reasonable needs of the country's citizens.
The poverty line (threshold or boundary) can be measured by each of the following calculation methods:
Statistical - justifies "poverty" as a relative category and has two types:
1) the poverty line is set at the level of income that a certain proportion (10-20%) of the poorest citizens of the country has;
2) the poverty line is the minimum average per capita income of persons recognized by society as the least well-to-do members of society;
- normative - based on specially developed standards, i.e., sets of goods to meet the basic physiological and social needs of a person in the context of individual sex and age groups. It is based on the so-called consumer baskets of goods and services;
- combined - combines elements of the first two methods, therefore it is also called the normative-statistical method. Expenses are determined according to scientifically based standards and current prices of goods and services. The minimum set of food products and goods of a cheap assortment for an average family of four is taken as a basis. It is generally accepted that food costs account for 70% of the total family expenses;
- subjective - based on the analysis of the results of sociological research among the population;
- resource - involves taking into account the possibilities in providing the material and spiritual needs of the population.
It is important to establish the so-called national standards of the subsistence minimum, not only in value terms, but also in physical terms. In practice, such concepts as “absolute poverty” and “relative poverty” have gained the greatest popularity and application.
Absolute poverty is the absence of income as such or the absence of income necessary to ensure the minimum living needs of an individual (or family). Absolute poverty affects, first of all, such categories of citizens as persons without a fixed place of residence, street children, persons who do not have the status of forced migrants, etc. In Russia, they make up about 5% of the total population.
Relative poverty is determined by the amount of income below the subsistence minimum budget. In world practice, relative poverty is characterized by an income that does not exceed 40-60% of the average income of citizens.
In UN practice, the poverty index is used for an integral assessment of the low quality of life. Thus, for developing countries, the index of poverty of the population is calculated on the basis of three indicators: the proportion of the population who does not live up to 40 years; adult illiteracy rates; the arithmetic mean of the proportion of the population without access to health services, safe drinking water, and the proportion of children under five who are underweight.
For economically developed countries, it is calculated on the basis of four indicators: the proportion of the population who does not live to be 60 years old; proportion of functionally illiterate adults; proportion of the population with incomes below 50% of the median income; levels of stagnant poverty. In Russia, the poverty index is not calculated.
The share of the poor in Russia is estimated at 20%. An analysis of the structure of poverty shows that among the poor, about 50% are people of working age. The high level of able-bodied citizens in the total number of the poor is determined, first of all, by the low level of wages. About 30% of the poor are families where all able-bodied citizens have a regular paid job. Geographically, poverty is concentrated in rural areas and small towns.
Poverty carries a significant negative social potential. Children from poor families have significantly fewer opportunities than children from wealthy families to receive higher and secondary vocational education, which further reduces their competitiveness in the labor market. In Russia, when implementing real measures, the problems of poverty come to the fore.
Causes of poverty
Very often one hears the question "If you are so smart, then why are you so poor?" This expression refers to a significant mass of Russian citizens. In recent years, only a very busy or very lazy person has not received a diploma of higher education, and some have several higher educations. However, if we evaluate the level of their material well-being (average), then it will turn out to be no higher than a hard worker who has completed eight classes.Therefore, let's try to consider the main psychological reasons for the poverty of the average Russian:
1. A person is financially illiterate and does not even strive to become at least a little more financially literate. Schools, colleges and universities did not teach this and do not teach. For example, a person comes to the store to buy a tablet or a mobile phone, there is almost no cash, but he wants to immediately take the gadget home. He buys on credit for 60-70% per annum, as a result, a thing with a price tag of 20 thousand rubles, taken at a 10% down payment for one year on credit costs 35 thousand. Plus, the obligatory warranty service of a thousand and a half, credit insurance and the absence of discounts when buying goods on credit. The final cost of the purchased item turns out to be 35 thousand. But you could go, for example, to Sberbank and take a consumer loan at 20% per annum without any extra markups, and the coveted contraption would cost 25 thousand. Savings - 10 thousand rubles. But after all, for this you would have to go to Sberbank a couple of times, collect documents, wait for a response from a loan officer. In general, we would have to spend an additional 3-4 hours of time (half of one working day). And our hero is unaware that with a salary of 30 thousand rubles, one of his working days costs one and a half thousand wooden ones. That is, if you save 10 thousand rubles, you could, for example, take another week at your own expense and rest, or spend this money on something else.
2. Chasing fast and big money. It is a continuation of the previous cause of poverty, that is, impatience and illiteracy. Various financial scams, financial pyramid schemes that promise a fortune in a few months with a small investment, in practice turn out to be a complete swindle. There is a game on the desire of a person to earn income without doing anything.
3. The presence of only one source of income, which depends solely on the personal efforts of a person. A person turns out to be a slave at his job, cannot defend his rights, ask for a salary increase, career advancement, because he is afraid of falling out of favor with his superiors and losing his job in this regard. To increase income, a person begins to plow like a horse and very quickly wastes vital energy. As they say, it is better to have 1% from a hundred sources of income than 100% from one. Now even in Russia there are many opportunities that give a person alternative sources of income.
4. A person does not take into account expenses, spends money under the influence of emotions. I came to the store, I saw the thing, I liked it, I immediately bought it. A few years later, she realizes with horror that a significant part of things is a dead weight, only during cleaning, reminding of herself.
The same causes of poverty manifest themselves when buying fancy things. A person buys a thing with functions, 90% of which he never even masters, and another 9% of them are used only occasionally and generally when there is no need. Remember, the rich is not the one who earns a lot, but the one who skillfully spends money.
5. Pursuit of external symbols. Received a promotion, accidentally managed to earn money, so you need to buy a new thing on credit (car, suit, phone, watch). But money has not yet been earned for the expenses that the operation of these things requires. So, we take loans again. A friend of mine bought a foreign car, but in order to repay a loan for it, after his main job he works in a taxi, lacking sleep and wasting a lot of nerves.
6. Giving large amounts of debt. As a rule, 95% of people do not repay their debts on time, and 20% never repay them. Generally speaking, lending money is an art. The psychological causes of poverty lie precisely in the fact that people do not know how to refuse and say "No!" Who wants to please everyone, does not like anyone.
7. Fear of starting to work for yourself. To become a wealthy person, you need to work on increasing the incoming financial flow and increasing financial literacy in order to invest it correctly. But fear prevents you from taking real steps. As a rule, in the future people regret their cowardice, but it is already too late. In a word, "Oblomovism".
8. Belief in all rumors about money and earnings. As life shows, until a person himself checks this or that scheme in practice, he will not understand anything. For some, even the most seemingly reliable schemes fail, for others money is obtained, again, it would seem, out of thin air. Therefore, if you learned something interesting, get experience and only after that make a conclusion.
9. We try to be like others. In our country, during the Soviet years, it was drummed that big money is big problems, that it is bad and shameful to be rich. And now people around treat a person quite normally if he has no money, despite the fact that he has opportunities to earn money. Most people live paycheck to paycheck.
10. Uncertainty about your success. This reason actually should have been put in the first place, but I left it "for dessert". Studies of American millionaires who became rich through their own efforts, rather than through inheritance or winning the lottery, show that they went bankrupt an average of five times before becoming rich. Out of ten business ideas, only 1-2 lead to success. Our fellow citizens, on the other hand, usually, after one or two attempts, give up the whole business and get a regular job, that is, a job for their uncle.
Economic poverty
The program of socio-economic development of the Russian Federation for the medium term is aimed at ensuring a sustainable improvement in the living standards of the population and high rates of economic growth, reducing social inequality, and strengthening the country's position in the world community. Actually, the thesis about raising the standard of living based on economic growth is not new. But this document no longer defines an abstract "" as a means of achieving program goals, but "the formation of a model of the Russian economy that has a long-term potential for dynamic growth."Some optimism is inspired by the emerging change in the paradigm of state regulation - the phenomenon of poverty is positioned in the context of the entire economy, and not just in its artificially isolated "social" part. Issues of employment, income and standard of living are no longer considered as elements of exclusively "social policy" and "social protection". Poverty is beginning to be perceived as a factor holding down economic growth! This is all the more obvious if we consider the phenomenon of poverty through the prism of labor economics, and not just "targeted" social assistance.
So, unlike the previous ones, the new economic program is aimed not at "acceleration" or "improvement" of the given quantitative parameters, but at a qualitative change in the macro. The former growth model, which made it possible to achieve relative economic prosperity and some improvement in the well-being of citizens, has been officially recognized as unsustainable and does not meet the country's ambitious strategic plans.
As noted in the Program, the high rates of economic growth are largely the result of loading capacities that were idle before the financial crisis. ruble, providing domestic producers with competitive advantages, prompted them to increase output, but without improving its quality and significant modernization of production. At the moment, the reserves of production capacities are practically exhausted.
In our opinion, any changes in the macroeconomic strategy directly affect the three most important socio-economic parameters - employment, and aggregate effective demand, in relation to which other social processes are secondary, derivative. Let's start the study with an analysis of the Russian labor market model, since it is the state of the economy that determines poverty. In parallel, let's ask ourselves the question: what is the effectiveness of the social programs implemented in the post-reform years, to what extent did they contribute to changing the level of poverty?
Wage is a source of livelihood for the absolute majority of the country's adult population - 65 million people employed in the economy. It is logical to assume that it is low wages (respectively, the "unsuccessful" configuration of relations in the labor market) that are at least one of the main factors determining the poverty of Russians: "The correlation (0.88) between income inequality due to wages with general inequality cash income is higher than for all other sources ... "
Why did wages drop so low? Let's try to figure it out.
The demand for labor is a function of the characteristics of demand in the market for goods and services produced and the characteristics of the production process that affect the price of labor. At the dawn of economic liberalization, it was expected that the formation of market relations would lead to saturation of the commodity market and a corresponding increase in wages for those employed in the economy, and, ultimately, to an increase in the welfare of the nation. What is it really? The inability of the majority of Russian enterprises to work in market conditions, the displacement of uncompetitive domestic goods by imported ones, a sharp decline in production, overstocking, disruption of production cycles, severance of economic ties that developed during the Soviet period.
Increased trade in commodity markets under trade liberalization led to an increase in prices for goods and services, and hence to a higher wage elasticity of demand for labor. However, the Russian labor market reacted to a sharp decline in production not with a classic increase in the layoff of employees (as happens during depression years in industrialized market countries), but with a sharp decline in real wages, which significantly outpaced the rate of decline in production. The annual rate of decline in wages in real terms amounted to more than 60% and was about one and a half times higher than the rate of decline in GDP. At the same time, unemployment, calculated even using the ILO methodology, has long been inadequately low for such a deep recession. Predictions of widespread unemployment have not materialized. Unemployment has reached almost 10% (ILO methodology) with an economic downturn close to 40%. The entire social policy of the state also contributed to the policy of mass employment at any cost: "for the most part, the measures of social protection of the population were reduced to preservation at existing enterprises."
Thus, one of the features of the Russian post-reform economy was that the domestic labor market reacted to the decline in production not by a decrease in open employment, but by its transformation into latent forms. On the one hand, we observe quasi-employment (reduction of hours worked, forced administrative leave) in the official economy, on the other hand, an increase in production and, accordingly, employment in the alternative economy, especially in its shadow sector. The annual number of layoffs in the country has never exceeded 2% of the total number of people employed in the domestic economy.
The state chose to support inefficient industries while maintaining formal employment over the hard version of reorganization through unprofitable enterprises. But high employment in depressed sectors of the economy and lower labor costs can only be achieved by reducing the demand for it in the form of a sharp reduction in labor costs. As a result, instead of the expected wide-scale unemployment, we got wide-scale employment poverty.
Experts have been talking and writing about the change in the profile of poverty, the emergence of the category of "new poor" or "working poor" for a long time. It is obvious that the country's entry into the WTO (as well as the country's intensifying process of integration into ) will inevitably lead to an increase in the elasticity of demand for labor in many sectors of the economy, where enterprises will be forced to operate in the conditions of global competition, while adapting to the realities of the international division of labor that are unfavorable for our country. .
Without a significant modernization of production on a national scale, the country will lose in the global competition, and the population for the most part will remain poor. At the same time, the renewal of enterprises is again hindered by the low cost of labor, which prevents its replacement by capital.
This thesis is illustrated by the simplest two-factor production function that describes the dependence of output (Q) on the ratio of labor (L) and capital (K): Q = f (L,K). The substitution effect, which leads to the interchangeability of labor and capital in normally functioning markets, does not work in an economy of "cheap" labor. it is not economically viable to modernize production at low labor costs.
So, there was no layoff of workers due to a reduction in production, and a drop in consumer demand due to a decrease in the level of wages, in turn, hinders the development of normal commodity markets, closing the vicious circle of the "economics of poverty." Moreover, a special one has developed: unregulated, spontaneous markets for cheap low-quality goods, massive turnover of counterfeit products, illegal labor markets, mass secondary employment, self-employment hidden from statistics and widespread self-sufficiency of the population with natural products. This should also include the social sectors of the economy: health care, education and, of course, the planned unprofitable housing and communal complex, shackled by non-payments of the poor population and equally "poor" municipal budgets. The most dangerous thing is that all this is reproduced, i.e. poverty, as we shall see, generates itself in a vicious circle of the "economics of poverty".
During the years of reforms, the "labor reserves" of the country have significantly regrouped. Russian households reacted to the economic crisis of the "official" economy by developing secondary and hidden (informal) employment, unrecorded labor and commercial migration, subsistence production, and shadow business. Analyzing the features of Russian poverty, one cannot but take into account these economic factors characteristic of the country's transition period, which played a dampening role in the context of a decline in production and economic stagnation.
The scale of the informal, i.e. of the sector of the economy not taken into account by official statistics, according to various estimates, today make up from 10 to 40% of the "open" economy. Low officially calculated wages are "successfully" combined with unofficial earnings. The share of steadily increasing hidden wages in the total wage reaches 30-35% of the total wage. According to experts, even at officially registered enterprises, the actual salary of a fifth of workers exceeds the amount determined by the terms of labor agreements, and the differences vary from 2 to 20 times.
In the last decade, a fundamentally new and rather large-scale segment of the domestic economy has emerged - "shuttle" trade and "near-shuttle" service. According to estimates, their turnover is from 10 to 23 million dollars, and the number of employees is from 10 to 20 million people. For comparison: the number of economically active population is 71-72 million people, the average annual number of people employed in the economy is 64-65 million, the number of unemployed is 7-8 million people.
It is obvious that incomes from hidden, secondary employment and private household plots significantly mitigate the social consequences of the ongoing economic transformations, acting as "balances" to widespread poverty.
On the example of health care and education, the poverty of these sectors is indicative of the parameters of comparing budget financing and their social efficiency, as well as the scale of payment for services, indicating that budget financing does not ensure the normal functioning and development of these sectors.
Education. According to the Ministry of Education of Russia, the budget is chronically short of funds to implement the provisions of a number of previously adopted federal laws.
Payment for services is widely practiced in the system of higher education. Today, more than 40% of students study on a paid basis, and state universities are currently leading in the provision of paid higher education services. There are two points of concern: on the one hand, the reduction of state funding for the higher education system stimulates the development of a low-quality system of mass higher education, on the other hand, the size of informal, i.e. shadow payments of the population for higher education reach 0.75% of GDP.
With the financial distress of the industry, the collection of fees in educational institutions has become a daily and widespread practice. It is not even necessary to give examples here, since it is unlikely that there will be at least one family that does not encounter fundraising, traditional since Soviet times, in schools or kindergartens. Moreover, if in Soviet times gifts were considered normal for teachers in schools and educators in nurseries and kindergartens, then recently parents (voluntarily or "voluntarily-compulsorily") collect money already for toys, teaching aids, furniture, window cleaning, repairs buildings and many other typical "budgetary" (!) items of expenditure.
But the "economy of poverty" manifests itself most clearly in the consumer goods market.
The problem of meeting the consumer demand of various groups of the population for high-quality and safe goods as a whole remains unresolved.
Of more than 2.5 million samples of food products annually examined by the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Service of Russia, an average of 4.5-5.9% do not meet sanitary requirements for chemical and 6.5-7.3% for microbiological indicators, and the volume of For this reason, from the circulation of food products, including food raw materials, is 11 thousand tons.
Increasing cases of detection of counterfeit medicines in the distribution network cause serious concern.
The economic basis for the receipt and circulation of low-quality, counterfeit and counterfeit goods on the consumer market is the limited purchasing power of the majority of citizens and the associated price advantages of goods, and not their consumer properties (quality). It is no coincidence that in the total volume of retail trade turnover up to 30% falls on small wholesale food, clothing and mixed markets, where the bulk of counterfeit products are sold at lower prices.
This is by no means a complete list of functional indicators of the "economics of poverty", indicating the degradation of the country's social infrastructure. Obviously, in such a disastrous state of affairs, it is hardly possible to increase the rate of economic growth and dynamic social development of Russia.
extreme poverty
Often, in the analysis of poverty, international criteria for assessing the prevalence of poverty are used, in particular, the UN benchmarks. The United Nations Development Program for international comparisons uses the World Bank criterion - the purchasing power parity scale in US dollars. For example, per capita consumption of less than $1 a day means a level of extreme poverty. For the countries of the Caribbean, a poverty line of 2 dollars per day is adopted, for the countries of Eastern Europe and the CIS - 4 dollars. Sometimes levels of 1 are used; $2.15 and $4.3 per day.The extreme poverty of a people is almost always the crime of its leaders, wrote the French lexicographer and philosopher Pierre-Claude Victor Buast.
Poverty in the world
Between the "golden" and "hungry" billions - a long-standing abyss, they have contrasting levels, quality and lifestyle. In the era, the socio-economic polarization of humanity at the extreme points is intensifying. At the beginning of the XXI century. the share of the most developed countries accounts for less than 12% of the population and about 60% of world GDP. The share of the least developed countries in the world's population is 12%, in world GDP - 1%.The fact that today poverty, poverty, backwardness are characteristic, first of all, for the "third" and - especially - the "fourth" worlds, does not make the problem irrelevant in relation to highly developed countries. The inability of most of the poorest countries to break out of poverty on their own has made the problem of poverty global, universal. There is a growing conviction in the world community that the gulf between rich and poor countries and peoples cannot be bridged by relying on the natural course of events, without coordinated efforts at all levels - from local to global.
The concern caused by the problem of poverty in the world is explained not only and not even so much by the fact that it holds back world development, diverts funds from more profitable, from the point of view, areas of capital investment. In its current form, globalization, which gives the world an unprecedented wholeness, does not destroy or smooth out its internal contradictions. On the contrary, it strengthens and sharpens it. As a result, growing interdependence turns into increasing mutual vulnerability.
The main danger of dividing the world into zones of prosperity and poverty lies in the fact that in the context of global transformations, the connection between poverty and other global threats and risks - illegal migration, terrorism, the growth of transnational crime, etc.
Social tension generated by backwardness, poverty and poverty pushes politicians and governments of the poorest countries to search for internal and external enemies, multiplies conflicts in the developing world, and increases the danger of international terrorism. In the era of globalization, all states become vulnerable to new and old threats, regardless of their size or location.
World poverty is a serious problem for developed countries in yet another respect. A poverty-stricken existence, unsanitary conditions, and health undermined as a result of malnutrition make the population of the poorest countries easy prey for various infectious and epidemic diseases that pose dangerous threats to rich countries (HIV, Ebola, SARS, and other pandemics).
The problem of poverty is exacerbated by the development of demographic processes. Although population growth will slow down by 2030 in most developing countries, a strong positive impact on poverty and poverty reduction is not expected. In the next 20 years, the world's population will increase by almost 1.5 billion people. More than 97% of this growth will come from developing countries. At the same time, the population in sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty is stagnant and passed from generation to generation, will increase by 320 million people.
Today, three-quarters of the world's poorest people live in rural areas. However, urbanization is fundamentally changing the distribution and nature of poverty.
Life in the slums is a high level of morbidity, infant mortality, crime and other manifestations of antisocial behavior. The closeness of life prospects creates a breeding ground for instability and increases the potential for violence. "The world is sitting on a time bomb," is the conclusion of the authors of the study.
Thus, poverty becomes a complex problem: economic, social, cultural, political, international with great destabilizing potential on a global scale. There is no doubt that in the coming decades it will be one of the sore points on the world agenda.
Fight against poverty
Almost the most important task of the state for the second term of President Vladimir Putin was declared to be the fight against poverty. It is clear that this was perceived positively by the whole society, and the setting of such a goal strengthened the prestige of the president.We are not interested here in the goal, but in the doctrine underlying it, the idea of the "enemy", the dynamics of processes, the scale of the phenomenon - everything that can be defined as the intellectual toolkit of the developers of this large program. Do they use those means of cognition and mastery of reality, which are developed in the rationality of the Enlightenment - or discard, voluntarily or involuntarily, these means?
First of all, let's ask a fundamental question: on what ideological platform is it supposed to conduct an understanding of poverty and fight against it? Does the current power brigade of reformers see the problem of poverty through the prism of the philosophy of neoliberalism, that is, do they follow in line with the thinking set at the first stage - or do they fundamentally depart from the postulates and logic of the 90s? If they do, what are the features of the “new rationality” of Vladimir Putin's brigade for the coming period?
Let's remember the starting points. For any way of life, an important quality is the idea of poverty - an attitude to the fact that some of the members of society have a very low, by the standards of this society, income level. This refers to the threshold in the level of income, below which the poor and the prosperous, prosperous part form two different worlds in terms of consumption of goods and type of life (in early England they spoke of two different races - the “race of the poor” and the “race of the rich”).
On this basis, the Soviet system of life differed sharply from the liberal society of the West. During the reform, Soviet criteria and principles were rejected, and it was the West that was taken as a model of the “correct” way of life, supposedly eliminating the hated “leveling”. Let's not wag - the denial of egalitarianism is nothing more than giving poverty a legal character.
This is exactly what happened in the West during the formation of a market economy (“capitalism”). Moreover, it happened both at the level of everyday everyday customs and attitudes, and at the level of social philosophy. As F. Braudel wrote about the change in attitudes towards the poor, “this bourgeois cruelty will intensify immeasurably at the end of the 16th century. and even more so in the seventeenth century. He gives the following record about the order in European cities: “In the sixteenth century. a beggar outsider is treated or fed before being kicked out. At the beginning of the seventeenth century they shave his head. Later he is beaten with a whip, and at the end of the century the last word of suppression was his exile to hard labor.
Leading liberal thinkers and economists (A. Smith, T. Malthus, D. Ricardo) believed that poverty is an inevitable consequence of the transformation of a traditional society into an industrial one. Indeed, the Protestant movement gave rise to a new attitude, unknown in traditional society, towards poverty as a sign of rejection. This idea has passed into ideology.
In the middle of the XIX century. Social Darwinism became an important foundation of liberal ideology. He proceeded from the fact that poverty is a natural phenomenon, and it should grow as social production grows. In addition, poverty is not a social problem, but a personal one. This is an individual destiny, predetermined by the inability of a particular person to win the struggle for existence. The ideologist of social Darwinism G. Spencer even believed that poverty plays a positive role, being the driving force behind the development of the individual. The neoliberal ideologist F. von Hayek also believed that poverty is a natural phenomenon in human society and is necessary for the public good. He called for limiting government involvement in poverty reduction and making the individual responsible for his own poverty.
The establishment of a market economy for the first time in history gave birth to a state that deliberately made famine a means of political domination. When in England in the XVIII century. new Poor Laws were being prepared, the philosopher and politician Lord Townsend wrote: “Hunger will tame the most ferocious beast, teach the most vicious people good manners and obedience. In general, only hunger can sting the poor in such a way as to force them to work. The laws established that they must be forced to work. But the law, established by force, causes disorder and violence. While force breeds evil will and never induces good or acceptable service, hunger is not only a means of peaceful, inaudible and continuous pressure, but also the most natural stimulus to work and diligence. A slave should be forced to work, but a free man should be left to his own decision.
Thus, poverty in bourgeois society is not caused by a lack of material goods, it is a purposefully and rationally created social mechanism. The researcher of poverty, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work "The Political Economy of Hunger", A. Sen shows that poverty is not related to the number of goods (more broadly - goods), but is determined by the social opportunities of people to access these goods. In the social reality of even the richest Western countries, poverty is an indispensable element (“structural poverty”) and serves as an important factor of consolidation. Every citizen should always have before his eyes the sad example of people thrown out of society. This is what holds the “two-thirds society” together.
Both the philosophical foundations of the Soviet system, and the anthropology underlying them, bearing the imprint of peasant communal communism, and Russian Orthodox philosophy, and our traditional cultural attitudes proceeded from a completely different attitude: poverty is a product of injustice and therefore it is evil. This was the officially declared principle and this was the important stereotype. In this, the official Soviet ideology and the spontaneous worldview of people completely coincided.
These are two polar worldview concepts of poverty. Putting forward the slogan of combating poverty, Vladimir Putin's government cannot avoid defining its own vector between these two poles.
After 1917, the ideologists of the Western bourgeoisie, frightened by the world revolution of the poor, moved towards social democracy. Poverty, especially extreme poverty, began to be interpreted as an undesirable, disadvantageous social phenomenon. The West has experienced a period of softening of morals, a kind of attack of humanism. Limiting poverty has come to be seen as an important condition for the way out of severe crises. US President Roosevelt talked about this a lot. L. Erhard in the program of the post-war reconstruction of the FRG proceeded from the following guidelines: “Poverty is the most important means to make a person spiritually wither away in petty material everyday worries that do not make people freer, they remain prisoners of their material thoughts and aspirations.” L. Erhard even included a guarantee against sudden depletion among the fundamental rights: “The principle of price stability should be included among the fundamental human rights, and every citizen has the right to demand that the state preserve it.”
In a number of definitions, even these moderate attitudes are categorically incompatible with neoliberalism and classical social Darwinism. Let me note in passing that V.V. Putin in his argumentation of the rejection of state paternalism (assuming that this rejection will emancipate the potential of a person) literally follows the ideas of Spencer and von Hayek, and not L. Erhard and W. Palme.
Let us record the fact that at the end of the 1980s our elite intelligentsia, represented by a close-knit but still shadowy intellectual brigade of future reformers like Gaidar and Chubais, made a quite definite philosophical choice. She adopted the neoliberal concept of the individual and society, and thus the neoliberal concept of poverty. The mass impoverishment of the population of Russia was cold-bloodedly provided for in the reform doctrine. Poverty in this doctrine was not seen as an evil, but as a useful social mechanism.
Chubais wrote in his "theoretical" development: Among the immediate social consequences of the accelerated market reform are:
General decline in living standards;
- growth of differentiation of prices and incomes of the population;
- the emergence of mass unemployment ...
The population must clearly understand that the government does not guarantee a place of work and a standard of living, but only guarantees life itself ...
For the duration of the reform (or at least its decisive stages) extremely anti-strike legislation will be required...
We should expect an accelerated institutionalization of the neo-liberal economics, the political basis of which will be part of the current democratic forces…”.
Thus, in the course of the reform, there was not a failure, not a social breakdown, but a planned change in the structure of society. The reform program itself did not provide for mechanisms to prevent the impoverishment of the population.
It is clear that under such conditions the announcement of a “fight against poverty” and, at the same time, an announcement of “an unchanged course of reforms” mutually contradict each other, for poverty in Russia is a necessary and desirable product of precisely this course of reforms. If we accept that the government is currently reasoning rationally, it follows that one of the two incompatible statements is demagogic and serves only to cover up the true goals of the government. Which of these statements should be believed, we cannot yet determine, there is not enough information for this.
It is striking, however, that even sociologists who study poverty do not seem to see the internal inconsistency of their reasoning. On the one hand, they record the obvious fact that mass poverty arose as a result of the reforms. On the other hand, they complain that the "comrade reformers" did not finish their work, lost sight of it, and so on. Indeed, from their texts themselves it directly follows that if the "comrades" had not allowed poverty, then no reform of them could have taken place.
Here, for example, we read about rural poverty: “The negative social consequences of the transformation of the USSR affected the rural population more than the urban population ... Socio-economic transformation is a force majeure circumstance that often exceeds the survival of an individual rural family.” The sociologist gives a reasonable explanation for this: “More than three-quarters of the able-bodied rural population of Russia were workers on collective farms and state farms. Soviet agricultural enterprises not only provided jobs, but also provided their members with housing with all the conditions necessary for life and supported almost the entire range of social services.
Let us now clarify what happened in Russia in the course of the reform and what exactly VV Putin proposes to fight against, what kind of poverty.
As a result of reforms in the Russian Federation, structural poverty arose - a permanent state of a significant part of the population. This is a social problem that is not related to the personal qualities and labor efforts of people. VTsIOM notes: “Society has identified stable groups of poor families who have virtually no chance of escaping from poverty. This state can be described as stagnant poverty, deepening poverty.” According to VTsIOM, only 10% of the poor can theoretically increase their income by increasing their labor activity.
The peculiarity of Russian poverty is that it is the poverty of working people. Of the total number of poor, more than two-fifths are employed. The main area of employment for rural residents remains work at agricultural enterprises, and the average amount of wages and social payments in agriculture in recent years has been below the subsistence level. The wages of four-fifths of agricultural workers are below the subsistence level.”
All the results of the impact of poverty on health, culture, character and behavior of a person are of a long-term nature - half of the children of the Russian Federation have gone through a state of poverty.
Being in poverty has already had a strong impact on economic behavior. For example, poverty generates and makes it highly sustainable in that it benefits both workers and employers. But the shadow economy in turn reproduces poverty, resulting in a vicious circle. Here is how things stand in the countryside: “Informal employment allows the villagers to survive, but it does not solve the problem of poverty at all ... - they cannot receive either medical care or education ... The “black” wage labor market is beneficial to employers - farmers and entrepreneurs, as it allows: save on social contributions; use cheap labor in agricultural work, which is more profitable than the use of expensive herbicides and equipment.
These are just a few strokes of the picture. But even from them it is clear that poverty is not reduced to a reduction in the consumption of material goods (as, for example, this happened during the Patriotic War). Poverty is a complex system of processes leading to a profound restructuring of material and spiritual culture - and of the entire society, and not just that part of it that is impoverished. If the state of poverty continues long enough, then a stable social type and way of life of the poor is formed and reproduced. Poverty is a trap, that is, a system of vicious circles from which it is very difficult to escape.
Is this how the intellectual associates of V.V. Putin see the system of Russian poverty that is to be destroyed “in three years”? From those fragmentary statements that were made on this occasion, we can draw a preliminary conclusion that no, they do not see such a system. They reduce the problem practically only to transferring, somehow, additional "social transfers" to the impoverished part of the population. The measure of poverty for them is per capita income. Therefore, sometimes you even have to hear the ridiculous expression "reduce poverty by half."
On the fight against poverty, Vladimir Putin said:
“It is clear how much money will be needed to solve this problem and the timeframe that will be required in order to solve this problem ... Everything is there for this.”
From the context of such statements, it just follows, firstly, that the government is not clear "how much money will be needed to solve this problem." And secondly, that there is nothing for this. And above all, there is no sober understanding of the scale, depth and structure of the problem. There is not even an understanding that it does not come down to money at all. Behind such declarations, one can see the naive optimism of the new Russians of the early 1990s, when all their rationality was reduced to the postulate: “Grandmas, in kind, decide everything!”
We structure the problem on the basis of simple and almost obvious statements. First of all, it is not so much the parameters of poverty that are important, but rather its genesis, the nature and dynamics of its occurrence. Both the West and the “third world” have, although different, but long-established types of poverty, they have integrated it into the social system and can well control the equilibrium, stationary processes occurring in this system. They can, for example, fine-tune poverty through well-established social assistance mechanisms.
Poverty in Russia is of a completely different type. It is a product of a social catastrophe, a breakdown, it is a sharply non-equilibrium transitional process. In a country where “structural poverty” was eradicated long ago and, frankly, forgotten so that no one was afraid of it anymore, mass poverty is literally “built” by political means. The artificial creation of poverty in our country is a colossal experiment on society and man. It is so cruel and huge that many do not fit in the head - people do not believe that they have been thrown into hopeless poverty, they consider it some kind of temporary "failure" in their normal life. This something like a war will end, and everything will be fine.
People do not believe that old people, still in decent old clothes, are digging through the garbage not out of strange curiosity, but really in search of a means of subsistence. On the contrary, people willingly believe the mocking and vile tales of television about the fabulous incomes of the poor and the romantic inclinations of the homeless. The attitude towards poverty is not rational either among the “poor” or among the “prosperous”. Still, special efforts are required to develop a conceptual apparatus, even just to describe the ongoing processes. Without this, neither a rational plan of action nor a rational assessment of the means necessary for success is possible.
The second feature of the nature of Russian poverty is the fact that it, having been created by inflicting a series of lightning strikes on society (such as price liberalization and confiscation of citizens' savings), subsequently began to reproduce and deepen as a result of a series of massive, very inertial, but began to go with acceleration. processes. I will name some of them.
This is, first of all, the elimination or degradation of jobs due to the long-term paralysis of industrial and agricultural production, the sale, as well as the physical and moral deterioration of the entire production base of the country. The consequence of this was a sharp impoverishment not only of the mass of the unemployed or semi-unemployed, but also of those who continue to occupy jobs in a state of their qualitative regression. In terms of the scale of its impact on the well-being of the population, this process is simply incommensurable with “social assistance”.
The second massive process is the degradation and even destruction of the country's housing stock and housing and communal services infrastructure. The point is not only that the system left without proper care and repair requires more and more expenses for its maintenance, which are shifted onto the shoulders of the residents. Living in houses that turn into slums before our eyes creates a syndrome of poverty in people's minds, which pushes people into real poverty. The sharp deterioration and high cost of transport services do not give people the opportunity to improve their situation through mobility.
The third massive process is the fading of work and life motivation, the decrease in the qualifications of workers and the rapid increase in illiteracy and illiteracy. Here is what was said at a meeting of educators on this problem: "We now have 10 million completely illiterate people and 2 million school-age children who do not study for various reasons." This not only drastically reduces opportunities for professional growth and income generation, but also creates an environment in which poverty is accepted as normal. Rural children's access to secondary vocational and higher education has drastically reduced, and rural youth crosses this path out of their life plans.
To overcome poverty, a large recovery program is required - the restoration of all major life systems. This requires, first of all, the restoration of rational consciousness and the mobilization of material, technical and labor resources, and not at all "a certain amount of money." The government of the reformers, being imbued with a "monetarist worldview", puts the problem of money at the forefront when considering the state of large systems. This is hypostasis, a departure from the essence. This, of course, is a bad sign, because in critical situations, as a rule, it is not money that decides the matter, but "real" resources - material, personnel, intellectual. When the king exclaimed “Horse! Half my kingdom for a horse! ”, Then he needed a horse, and not money equal to the price of a horse at a fair.
More “lighter” and mobile processes that gave rise to poverty in Russia – and a change in the type of income distribution. Privatization has deprived the overwhelming majority of the population of the Russian Federation of a permanent source of significant income in the form of a "partial owner" - from public ownership of land, industrial and other enterprises. These dividends were distributed on an egalitarian basis in the form of low prices for the main goods of life or even the free provision of such goods (for example, housing). The change in property relations and the elimination of the right to work allowed employers to drastically reduce wages.
In the course of the reform, the principle has also changed dramatically. In a market economy, material goods are produced to satisfy only effective demand, and not for the consumption of "all segments of the population." This is what caused the sharp differences in prices in the USSR and in the West. In the West, essentials were relatively very expensive, but the goods that a person begins to buy only at a higher level of wealth are cheap. Bread, milk and housing are very expensive relative to a car or a VCR. This pricing principle created a rigid barrier in the West that locked people with low incomes in a state of poverty - forced to buy expensive necessary products, people could not save up money for cheap “products for the prosperous”. In this way a “middle class” was created, sharply separated from about a third of the “poor”.
In the USSR, on the contrary, low prices for the most necessary products dramatically eased the situation of people with low incomes, almost equalizing them in terms of fundamental indicators of their lifestyle with wealthy people. Thus, poverty was eliminated, a person was “pulled” out of poverty by prices, and the USSR became a “middle-class society”. In the course of the reform, the price structure changed radically. The population will buy essential products at any price, which encourages merchants to inflate prices in order to extract super profits. As a result, bread has risen in price relative to an average car (VAZ-2105) by about 8 times, and metro fares by 10 times.
Prices for non-food products of varying degrees of need have changed in different ways. For example, smokers cannot do without cigarettes (moreover, most of them smoke cheap domestic cigarettes). Prices for this product rose 8 times more than for jumpers and jackets. And, for example, aspirin of domestic production. has risen in price relative to a tape cassette (without recording) by 300 times. Thus, the poorer the person, the more expensive the "basket" of goods necessary for him.
Of course, the state has the power to change the state of affairs in the sphere of property relations, and in the distribution of income, and in the structure of prices. But this means a radical change in the course of reforms, a fundamental rejection of the neoliberal doctrine, an active influence on the processes in the economy, and actually becoming a "social" state. Are there signs of such a turn in the intentions of Vladimir Putin's government? There are no such signs within sight, and “reading in the hearts” does not make sense.
And since there are no such signs, then there is no rational idea of the problem, which means that there can be no rational plan for resolving it. Of course, when there is no doctor with his rational scientific approach, you can go to a healer or shaman, try to overcome the disease with slander and spells. It happens that this gives a psychological effect, and the disease recedes. But this rarely happens. It is hardly possible to defeat poverty without relying on rational methods.
At the moment, the authorities are unwilling or unable to turn to rational methods. This can already be seen from the fact that even close experience of overcoming poverty in one's own country is completely ignored. It is unpleasant for anti-Soviet ideologists that this program was developed and implemented precisely by the Soviet authorities, but one cannot be so petty.
In the Russian Federation today there is not even a more or less reliable "photo" of our poverty, its "map". The methods used to measure this phenomenon are not very informative. The data collected by the State Statistics Committee are in poor agreement with the data of the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center and budgetary studies of international scientific groups. The criteria for calculating the subsistence minimum and defining the "poverty line" are vague, the shadow flows of money, food and goods are almost not studied.
In some respects, the social situation in Russia today is worse than imagined by Western experts and Russian sociologists who think in terms of Western methodology. Rather, it is not just worse, but is in a completely different dimension. Negative social results of reforms are measured by experts in the usual indicators. But the situation in Russia has come to those critical points when these indicators become inadequate.
For example, with a sharp social stratification, in principle, many average values lose their meaning. Thus, the indicator of per capita income, which is quite informative for the USSR, does not say anything, because the incomes of different groups have become simply incommensurable.
Soviet power inherited the deep, stagnant poverty of a huge mass of the peasantry, aggravated by the devastation of the World and Civil Wars. And almost immediately after October, large research and then practical (including emergency) programs were launched.
The first survey of the budget and everyday life of workers' families was carried out on the initiative of S.G. Strumilin already in May-June 1918 in Petrograd. Then it covered 40 cities. Important results were obtained, and in 1920-1922. work according to the refined methodology was carried out in various regions of the country. In 1918, the first attempts were made to calculate the living wage for establishing a mandatory minimum wage. Studies were conducted on actual consumption and physiological norms.
In December 1922, an all-Union monthly budget survey of workers and employees was carried out. From 1923 to 1928 such monthly surveys were conducted in November. It was a large project, during which a lot of data and methodological experience was accumulated.
Largely due to a rationally developed comprehensive program, the Soviet government literally changed the type of society during the NEP, eliminating the "poor man's syndrome", which led to a sharp increase in life expectancy, a decrease in infant mortality, and the eradication of mass social diseases.
I.A. Gundarov writes: “The absence of objective grounds for a significant improvement in health in 1921 suggests the operation of the law of “spiritual-demographic determination”. Indeed, the crime rate, which jumped in 1914-1918. twice, then in the early 1920s it decreased from this value by four times. In subsequent years, a striking improvement in the spiritual state of society continued. If in 1922 the criminal record rate in the RSFSR was 2508 per 100,000 inhabitants, then in 1927 it fell to 1080. The number of mental illnesses has decreased, which is confirmed by a reduction in the number of beds in psychiatric hospitals by 31% compared to 1913. The years of the NEP represent present an astonishing picture of a dramatic improvement in health care and public health.”
The program to overcome poverty and its inherent social diseases in the 1920s led to the emergence of that anthropological optimism that predetermined the success of industrialization, the mass thirst for knowledge, the victory in the Great Patriotic War, and the rapid recovery after the war. But then the Soviet government did not yet have large material resources for this, success was achieved thanks to the general "molecular" participation of the population in this program, the clarity and fundamental nature of the goals and criteria set, the method of organizing actions, consonant with the cultural traditions of the people.
Can we expect all this today? So far, there are no grounds for optimism.
After all, not only the Soviet experience gained within the framework of our own culture is ignored, but also the “experience of civilized countries”, that is, the West, so respected by the reformers. The United States has a large fund of dissertations devoted to the study of poverty in different countries and cultures, as well as the methodology for studying this problem, and the specific experience of programs to combat poverty. This knowledge has no way out into the Russian "intellectual space".
Try to name at least one book in Russian that clearly and concisely outlines modern scientific ideas about poverty. There are no such books. If I am not mistaken, there is not even a translation of A. Sen's famous book "The Political Economy of Hunger" - and after all, it was awarded the Nobel Prize, what else do our intellectuals need! In works on poverty, Russian sociologists first of all refer to publications of the World Bank, for example, to such books: Poverty in Russia: State Policy and the Response of the Population. Washington: World Bank Economic Development Institute (ed. J. Klugman). 1997; “Reverse reform for the benefit of everyone and everyone. Poverty and Inequality in Europe and Central Asia”. Washington: World Bank. 2001. But the publications of this organization, which bears a significant share of the intellectual responsibility for poverty in the dependent countries of the world, are extremely ideologized - how can they be taken as a guiding thread!
There is a large international organization of the Catholic Church "Caritas". It conducts exceptionally broad and in-depth research into poverty in all its dimensions. I was able to work in the library of this organization in Spain and read the reports of its research groups. This is very important material for us - not as recipes, but as a lesson in long reflection and study of the problem of poverty in a particular culture. The leadership of this organization donated a whole collection of scientific papers and reports published under its auspices for work in Russia. But neither state, nor scientific, nor public organizations have shown any interest in the modern knowledge on the problem of poverty accumulated in this organization in Russia. There was no interest in the experience of India, studied by Russian orientalists.
Year after year, the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation refused even small grants to introduce this generalized information into scientific circulation in Russia and start domestic methodological work in this area. Russian Humanitarian Foundation experts are not starving! But the Russian Humanitarian Foundation did not finance original research either.
The following happens. Approximately half of the population of Russia is in distress as a result of the loss of access to the most elementary conditions of existence. In fact, half of the people suddenly found themselves in a new, previously unknown environment for them. In order to survive, an urgent acquisition of new knowledge is required, which this half of the people does not possess in the form of at least empirical experience. Has science, now ruled by "new-thinking people", turned to the needs of these "strata of the population"? In no way - in no scientific forum, no one even hinted at this. We see the exclusive orientation of the elite of the scientific intelligentsia to "solvent demand", to the needs of only the propertied part of the population. This is indeed a radical departure from the norms and even the ideals of the Enlightenment. National science is facing a national problem of great importance - and there is no desire to explore it with the methods of science!
Foreign experience does not give us direct instructions and recipes, but much of the already developed methodology is of general importance - and we have hardly touched this knowledge. Perhaps we have knowledgeable specialists, but their influence on the thinking of the authorities, the elite and the broad circles of the intelligentsia is not felt.
But for a rational presentation of the problem, the fact that poverty is a disease of society is already important. The disease needs to be treated, it does not stop simply from some improvement in patient care, although this is very important. Even such a relatively well-known and remembered manifestation of poverty as hunger requires special knowledge and caution to bring a person out of this state. Give a person after a long fast just to eat - and it will kill him.
How superficial our ordinary knowledge of poverty is, says this fact, widely reported in the literature. Attempts to help the starving in different parts of the "Third World" by sending and distributing food very often ended in failure simply because the body of people who were starving for a long time "did not take" food - they either vomited or severe indigestion began. People affected by gastrointestinal diseases and helminthiases died of starvation with excess food - they did not digest it. These people needed to be treated, not just fed.
In the same way, a formal increase in their income will not help a significant part of people suffering from poverty - others will take their money from someone, someone will drink it away, someone will hide the money out of irrational fear of a "rainy day". In order for this additional money to be “assimilated”, it is necessary to treat the entire society in which the poor live.
Moreover, British sociologists who studied impoverished residents of working-class areas with long-term stagnant unemployment noted in them such a phenomenon as a “loss of rationality” in handling money. These people have forgotten how to count and spend money wisely! Having received the amount of money that allows them to live tolerably, they spent it on completely ridiculous, unnecessary things or delicacies - and again fell into need. Such behavior was observed in the past at the first contacts of Europeans with the inhabitants of the colonies, when the latter began to get used to money. But those "savages" did not have the skills of logical thinking, establishing cause-and-effect relationships, and prudence. Their handling of money has been studied with interest, but not surprising. But it turned out that the poor English fell into such a state. Efforts to rehabilitate them are needed to turn them back into "rational consumers". Do the Russian developers of the “reducing poverty by half” program understand this?
More importantly, poverty is a diverse and highly dynamic disease. In its development there are threshold phenomena, critical points and qualitative transitions. In Russia, the majority of citizens have so far become impoverished, so they "understand" each other. This is what we are holding on to. All of them still retained the common cultural basis given by their general education, the same way of thinking and reasoning, the same language of words and images. All this is greatly spoiled by television, but it is also spoiled in almost the same way for everyone. The vast majority of our poor still have housing, and in the apartment there is light, running water, heating, and books on the shelves. All this "holds" a person at a very high social level.
Poverty in the slums of a large capitalist city is a completely different matter. Here it acquires a new quality, for the definition of which there is still no suitable word in the Russian language. Rather, the meaning of the word, which accurately translates into Russian, the term used in the West, is completely different for us. Poverty (poverty - English) in the urban slum in the West for the majority quickly turns into insignificance (misery - English).
What is this - nothingness? First of all, this is inescapable poverty - when nameless social forces push you down, do not let you climb over the threshold. It seems a little - and you got out, and there, beyond the threshold, everything turns out to be cheaper and more accessible, and they even help you get back on your feet. We don't know it yet, but our poor are already on that threshold.
In such a situation, your own strength runs out very quickly, and you lose all the personal resources that are necessary in order to rise. In our country, we see this among a small contingent of degraded people, primarily alcoholics, but this is another matter, they are “under anesthesia”, even in a sense happy and do not want to tear themselves away from the bottle. Insignificance is a constant and stupid desire to get out of the hole, and at the same time, the inability to strain, this is the degradation of your culture, will and morality. You can escape from this state of nothingness only by making a jump "down" - into the anti-slum society, into a different order and a different law, most often into the underworld.
The transition of people across the barrier separating poverty from insignificance is an important and unfamiliar phenomenon for us. If it acquires the character of a mass social process, then our entire social system will change dramatically - and our consciousness has not yet mastered the transitional processes. It is necessary to observe and study what happens on this edge, in this “phase transition”. If we understand the essence of non-linear processes and threshold phenomena, if we feel approaching a critical point, then it is possible to help people stay in the phase of poverty with a small amount of money or even move into this phase “from below”, from insignificance.
But for all this, we need to make an impartial inventory of our intellectual toolkit. And then, for sure, you will have to start with an urgent program to restore the skills and norms of rational thinking. No matter how unpleasant it may be to our political bosses.
social poverty
What is poverty? Ozhegov's dictionary explains this word as "poverty, lack of means of subsistence, need, squalor, ugliness."The Russian Social Encyclopedia is more academic: poverty is a category expressing the absolute or relative lagging behind the standard of consumption achieved in society.
Interestingly, until the middle of the 18th century, the very concept of “poverty” did not exist. The society consisted either of the very rich or of the hopelessly poor - there was practically no balancing middle ground. In the Age of Enlightenment, when European society began to create certain social standards of life, it turned out that there are people who are unable to meet these standards.
As a condition, poverty existed from time immemorial, but was considered quite common, inherent in the vast majority of the population. In Asian, ancient and feudal societies, the division into rich and poor depended little on a person's personal abilities: the level of needs and the ability to satisfy them depended on the class and legal status of the individual. Different social groups had different lifestyles, so the impossibility for the lower classes to follow the prestigious lifestyle of the upper strata was perceived as the usual norm of life. In capitalist society, for the first time, a contrast arose between the legal equality of all citizens and the actual strong economic inequality. Therefore, the impossibility for some to live the way others live is perceived as social injustice.
The first to pay attention to the problem of poverty was the "inventor of the market" Adam Smith. True, he considered poverty to be “social rust” and believed that the poor man is not the one who has little, but the one who has little and at the same time wants a lot. In addition, Protestant ethics, which determines the moral climate of society, considered them "wrong" citizens. Therefore, the study of poverty as a phenomenon not only economic, but also social began relatively recently.
In 1917, the Russian sociologist Stopani first studied the family budgets of Russian workers and introduced the concept of "poverty line". Today it is recognized that poverty is one of the most important indicators of the life of society. If there are many poor people in a society, it means that it is economically disadvantaged. True, until now, sociologists around the world interpret the very concept of who should be considered poor in different ways.
Analyzing the works of philosophers and scientists of different historical eras and trends, as well as representatives of economic, political, aesthetic and religious thought, we will give different interpretations of poverty as a social phenomenon. So, Plato, reflecting on the stratification of people into poor and rich, saw the state consisting of two parts: one is poor, the other is rich, and they all live together, plotting each other intrigues. In the work "The State" it is shown that the poor and the rich are layers, groups within the class of farmers and artisans, there are none among the guards and rulers.
Aristotle also considered the issue of social inequality and argued that in all states there are three elements: one class is very rich, another is very poor, and the third is average. According to his position, the state needs to think about the poor, because when many poor people are excluded from government, they will inevitably become its enemies. Poverty breeds rebellion and crime, and a state that has many poor people is doomed to perish.
In Hobbes' reflections, there is a point of view that the existence of privileged classes is unacceptable in society, since they cause chaos. J.-J. Rousseau saw in poverty, as well as in ignorance, a condition of moral ill health. I.Kant believed that in society there will always be the poor, including the disabled and the sick, whose maintenance requires state funds (in almshouses and hospitals). The philosopher also allowed other forms of state support for the poor. For example, giving them benefits. These ideas of I. Kant, as is known, are widely practiced by socially oriented states. In turn, G. W. F. Hegel gave different characteristics of poverty and wealth. He puts forward the concepts of "impoverished mass", "needy", "poor class", "accidental need", "poverty" as opposed to "wealth", "poverty". He views poverty as a social phenomenon, i.e. one that acts as a certain specific state of the individual, social group and society. He singles out two sides of poverty: the objective, connected with the circumstances, and the subjective as the area of the morality of the subject. The philosopher was worried about the question: "how to eliminate poverty?". Hegel did not consider charity as the means by which the problem of poverty could be solved. He wrote about the "middle class" as dominant in civil society.
The philosophy of positivism had a significant influence on the formation of various concepts of poverty. So, in the concept of G. Spencer, the positive-sanitary role of poverty, which performs the function of natural selection, was affirmed. H. Spencer linked the emergence of poverty with the growth of social production, and since it is impossible to stop production, it is impossible to eliminate poverty. According to Spencer, poverty is not so much a social phenomenon as a personal problem, a kind of “individual choice” and “individual destiny”. In the concepts of egalitarians (E. Reclus, E. Bellamy, C. Hall, P. Kolkahan, V. Goldwyn and others), poverty was seen as a social evil that hinders the harmonious development of society. As a way to solve the problem, they proposed revolutionary upheavals and other drastic measures in relation to the existing order (for example, in the system of resource distribution). Liberal reformist concepts, close in essence to egalitarianism, saw in poverty the roots of a social disease that can and should be eradicated through reforms. From here, methods of solving the problem that were relatively loyal to the existing socio-political and economic system were proposed.
Representatives of social Darwinism see poverty as an inevitable consequence of industrial development and population growth. Poverty is considered by them as a natural phenomenon of a hierarchically organized society. So, T. Malthus tried to explain the phenomenon of poverty by the natural laws of nature. He argued that the state, helping the poor, encourages their reproduction. J. Bentham took a more radical position in relation to the poor. In his opinion, the poor are guilty of their own poverty, and society should not bear any responsibility for them. Hence the conclusion was drawn about the need to abolish various kinds of benefits to the poor. Moreover, he offered to place all the poor in places with a prison regime. P. Proudhon saw the main cause of poverty in the contradiction between the boundlessness of consumption and the limited production. He believed that a person in a state of civilization receives through labor what is required to maintain his body and develop his soul - no more, no less. This "strict mutual limitation of production and consumption is poverty," and "poverty quickly punishes immoderation and laziness." Hence Proudhon saw the solution to the problem of poverty in general economy and labour.
A brief analysis of the phenomenon of poverty, carried out in philosophical and scientific thought, allows us to give the following definitions of poverty:
Poverty is a state of sociality in which one or more components are missing: economic, social, moral, legal, spiritual, aesthetic, expressing the needs and values of an individual, group, society, civilization, which makes this state destructive.
Poverty is the prevailing absence of the entire system of values in the social subject, the extreme degree of poverty.
Deprivation is the state of a social subject, characterized by the lack of the possibility of self-realization, gaining self-sufficiency in social time and space.
Country poverty
Poverty, by definition, is a characteristic of the economic situation of a person or family, in which they cannot satisfy a certain range of minimum needs necessary for life, preservation of working capacity, procreation.The poverty line or poverty line is an approximate level of income that allows you not to fall into poverty.
This level depends on many factors: the number of dependents in the family, addiction to bad habits, the need to pay interest on loans, the ability to spend as much money as they have.
Countries also differ in the extent to which access is provided to resources that make up the needs of the population - medical care, a range of food products, their quality, and more.
The exit from the poverty zone of the population is an increase in the average salary in the country, which should automatically lead to an increase in the minimum income of the population.
How? This is an economic and social mechanism established on the basis of the laws of the country.
The important thing is that poverty is a relative concept and depends on the general standard of living in a given society.
In the United States, the cost of living is approximately 60% of the average salary - this determines the poverty line, beyond which a person is eligible for state support.
The average salary in the US is $3,861 per month, and the cost of living is $2,300.
However, it is possible to live (although it is very, very difficult) on $900 a month - this value is accepted as the poverty line.
In Russia, where the average salary is $700 a month, the poverty line is 13,000 rubles, or about $420. Officially, about 15% of the population is behind it, but in reality, as follows from the economic sources of Russia, about 40%.
The consumer basket of Russia includes 156 items of goods and services, France - 300, Germany - 475.
In Israel, the poverty line, if defined according to the American methodology, where the subsistence level is 60% of the average salary ($2,318), is at the income level of $1,390.
If we apply the median method - to determine the value of the salary at which 50% of employees receive a higher salary, and 50% - lower, then the true average salary in Israel is much lower - 6665 shekels (1717 dollars), and the poverty line is 1030 dollars.
Thus, it turns out that more than 1.8 million Israelis, or 24.8% of Israelis, live below the poverty line in Israel.
About 14% of families in which one of the spouses works are below the poverty line.
The number of children in families that the ruthless Israeli method of calculation defined as "living below the poverty line" is about 870,000.
And now let's bring the poverty line in different countries to a common denominator.
Regarding the Russian concept of poverty, there are very few poor people in Israel - so many lonely people receive old-age benefits, and in the USA there are none at all.
If poverty is defined relative to the Russian consumer basket, in Israel the poor can be considered those who have an income below $600, and in the United States, where the consumer basket is much "thicker" than in Russia, and by 25-33% than in Israel, The poor are those who have an income below $900.
According to the American concept of poverty, in Israel up to 40% of the population are poor, and in Russia - 75-80%.
It is strange that when publishing a government report on poverty in Israel, which was reprinted by all Israeli publications, no one was willing - or was unable to - make an absolute and relative analysis.
Poverty Solutions
At the present stage of the development of civilization, as never before, questions arose, without the solution of which the further progressive movement of mankind along the path of economic progress is impossible. Despite the fact that the economy is only a part of universal human activity, from its development in the XXI century. the problems of security and preservation of peace, the natural and human environment, as well as moral, religious and philosophical values depend to a greater extent. The significance of global problems especially increased in the second half of the 20th century.They significantly influence the structure of the national and world economy. Historically, the world economy as a whole has developed by the beginning of the twentieth century. as a result of the involvement in world economic relations of most of the countries of the world. By this time, the territorial division of the world had been completed, two poles had formed in the world economy. At one pole were industrialized countries, and at the other - their colonies - agrarian raw material appendages.
The latter were drawn into the international division of labor long before the establishment of national markets there. The involvement of these countries in world economic relations actually took place not in connection with the needs of their own development, but was a product of the expansion of industrialized countries. The world economy formed in this way, even after the former colonies gained independence, for many years preserved the relationship between the center and the periphery. This is where the current global problems and contradictions originate. As a rule, huge material and financial resources are required to solve global problems. The main criteria for classifying a particular problem as a global one is considered to be its scale and the need for joint efforts to eliminate it.
essay poverty
I will start the essay with a quote: “Poverty is not a vice, it is the truth. But poverty is a vice!” (F.M. Dostoevsky, “Crime and Punishment”). Indeed, even if poverty is the result of the imperfection of the economy, or some reasons beyond the control of a given person (war, for example), it is not difficult to remain a Human if you are still poor. Poverty only throws a person into an internal search for reasons: why did this happen, and why is it with him, why is he worse than rich people? Of course, he falls under direct dependence on who provides him with existence. That's what it is, the slavery that the poor man is in. Under an ideal set of circumstances - only economic slavery, worse - when a person sells himself completely, but this is already poverty. You can live in poverty, but be happy, with poverty this will not work. The entire history of mankind, according to Karl Marx, is the history of improving the methods of exploiting people.Today, in highly developed countries, it is completely invisible to the naked eye. But let's look at the African continent, South America, Eastern Europe, Asia. Millions of people! Millions of destinies buried under the banner of poverty. Looking at them, seeing their actions, it is difficult to talk about humanity on their part. It is even more difficult to talk about humanity in general in a global format when there is such a gap between classes. First of all, people, of course, are to blame for their own situation. But they, too, are a product of the domination of a market economy, capitalism, and, accordingly, are on the axis, thrown out of the game; those who did not manage to sell themselves in time or buy someone in time, who did not manage to suppress others, and became depressed. The real slaves of our time. And who claimed that slavery was abolished?
Let's now look at those who tried to buy freedom with money. They are on the other side of the abyss. But still close to her. Why? In fact, everything is simple. I think it is not difficult to imagine the behavior of a person who has become rich. More often than not, it's the simplest one possible.
A person does not stop there and yearns for more and more, gradually ceasing to see money as a means, but only an end. Reaching the pinnacle of material wealth or stopping is difficult. And everything is a man on the hook. Both rich and slave. And this “rich-slavery”, by the way, is very dangerous not only from the moral side. A person, having become very rich (I just do not believe in excessive material wealth achieved in an honest way), exposes himself to physical threat. It is probably very embarrassing and scary to hear behind your back in the bank: “You have too much money!”. It's even harder to bear the thought that your money has stopped buying you freedom. Voluntary slavery.
Summing up what has been written, I will add that I believe that the “golden” mean between poverty and excessive wealth will not exist as long as there is a huge gap between them. Let, in fact, they are polar, but they are the result of one vice - capitalism. It is a pity that a real, working alternative to it has not yet been invented.
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