Chronic inequality in Russia
Strange business. In Russia, the economic crisis, for several years the number of poor is increasing, and the oligarchs connected with the authorities still grow their incomes. The same picture emerged in the late 19 th century and early 20 at the Romanovs, but against the backdrop of economic growth.
What is there in the Russian public environment that constantly reproduces social stratification, unnatural income inequality and produces instability in society? The main income of the budget of the Russian Federation is derived from hydrocarbon rent and the government distributes it very unevenly, which does not cause discontent among the population. Of the 140 million people, 110 million receive income from the budget.
These people are dragging out beggarly existence from salary to salary, from pension to pension. They know that the surplus from hydrocarbon rent amounted to over $ 1 trillion over the past 17 years and no one asks: where is my money?
Vertical competition
From the guarantor of the constitution in Russia emanate invisible threads, on which all state employees are planted. The closer to the body, the fatter the soldering. At the end of 2016, in the hands of dollar millionaires, not much more than 132,000 people turned out to be 62% of the national welfare.
The Gini index in Russia has grown by 10% since the beginning of the century, which makes us think about the reasons for the staggering level of inequality in Russia. If you drop the fantastic versions about a special path, the world Zionist conspiracy and the hand of the evil state department, the analysis becomes slender and not spoiled by various fantasies. Between people in vertical structures there is a stable and not visible competition for a higher step.
In the course go all immoral methods, people substitute each other, knock, organize mass harassment. Last time in the course went the bases with bribes. Nikita Belykh brought wine and gifts, but in fact money and a provocation of bribes. Ulyukaev was bred with sausage according to the same scheme. If you think about vertical competition, then an environment with complete distrust to each other, mutual enmity and hatred that engender a gangster community instead of a civil society is drawn in your head.
Interspecific competition
In Novaya Gazeta, there was a remarkable article entitled Operation Vertical ... how the FSB cracked down on rival siloviki and step by step Oleg Feoktistov, who was not long ago retired, took control of the customs, UBEP, SK and the prosecutor's office. What it is?
It is the struggle of vertical structures that organize themselves into hierarchical groups with other competing communities. Vertical competition for the budget pie is strengthened by interspecific competition, and the shrinking resources make it increasingly fierce. The internal mechanism of inequality.
When in society less than 0.1% succeeds at the expense of 99.9%, this can not happen only because the minority is lucky or it "plays" significantly better than the rest. There is something that prevents the majority from using any successful strategies; some kind of a brake that forces the majority to choose in favor of such an inequality.
A crowd of state employees fighting for a piece of cake viciously hates each other and everyone is afraid that the neighbor will get more. The budgetary man prays to the chief who is sitting on the distribution board, he sleeps and sees how to infringe on the interests of his neighbor, to sit down as an ordinary boss and approach the budget pie.
That's why he agrees to work for a pittance. Moreover, these people compete with each other for pennies. The closest boss (the head of the school, the head of the polyclinic, the head physician of the hospital, etc., etc.) is ready to cut down the incomes of his subordinates in general, because they are in his full power, but he is very wary of the governor, his immediate superior, the excuse to drive him out.
That's why the petty boss is also ready to work for relatively little money, dreaming of sitting out someone from the regional department. The governor always knows this feature of vertical structures and all that is necessary for him, report on successes and endless loyalty to the president and ministers.It is for this that he receives money and is no longer small in comparison with state employees, but by Moscow standards, of course, are ridiculous crumbs.
Remains top from the vertical of power - these 160 thousand people together with the president. They simply do not worry about anything. As long as there is a bickering for copecks through vertical and interspecific competition, they can quietly through various mechanisms of rollback, cutting and drifting the lion's share of budget revenues into their pockets and this will be met by the entire budgetary population of Russia.
Moreover, it will still compete among themselves in loyalty. Two consequences follow from this, which always amaze me with its simplicity and stable mechanism of reproduction:
In resource-dependent societies, it makes no difference who is in power. Nicholas 2, Putin or Navalny. The main thing is the system of distribution of income from rent. It reproduces the vicious circle of universal not trust to each other, vertical and interspecific competition. It will always recreate the wild inequality in income. "Eat each other" is the fundamental principle of the relationship between people. While the distribution of money depends on one person, his power will be powerful even if he takes most of his money.
The entire vertical fiercely hates the opposition. Each budget is tied with invisible threads to its structure. And now new bosses will come and start making other pets! Inequality for obvious reasons increases and these people realize this on an intuitive level. Each of them gave gifts, podhalimazhem, bows created a cozy world of slavery. And he had to collapse overnight because of the nasty opposition! Of course, applicants for the authorities understand this well and are ready to sell quickly to the authorities even for a penny, if only something fell from the master's table. That's why there's no point in changing one president to another.
Divide and rule.
The main threat to power is people who are able to trust each other, conclude contracts and strictly enforce them. In this regard, it is very amusing to recall how Yabloko was negotiating with other liberal parties. Its special position and mutual distrust led to the current regime and a lot of administrative resources and budget money were spent on these strife.
At first, power, including with their help, got rid of the liberal opposition. Then, in the last elections to the State Duma, Yabloko members with a special position became completely unnecessary, they were dragged from their feet by the feet from the budget trough. Well, now they suddenly became revolutionaries.
To prevent people from creating an environment of mutual respect, trust and tolerance for each other's features, the arsenal is used by the authorities to promote violence, extremism, and ethnic hatred. If you include any central television channel, then you will pour a tub of hatred and anger in the form of programs with screaming and not hearing each other's people.
Shooting and violence in serials about psevdoslovikov, scenes of torture and beatings enter the subcortex and reproduce the fear of another and xenophobia. The tricks of Poklonskaya, the Orthodox fundamentalists, the demonstration of violence by people of other nationalities, the endless arrests of the siloviki and civil servants - all this cocktail is intended for one - to sow universal distrust.
In this way, power together with us creates a vicious circle with negative feedback: the more we hate each other, the less money is ready for existence, the more money in power that uses them to create an environment of mutual distrust. But the most disgusting, in my opinion, is the activity of the "creative" intelligentsia.
These people, as a rule, know about destructive vicious circle, but meaningfully for pennies they are creating a milieu of mutual distrust. The task of a political distributed network is to overcome this vicious circle and create a beneficial environment for institutional changes and a fair and even distribution of income.
Photo from facebook.