Vozmitel Andrey A

Abstract

The system of social inequality exists in every modern society: The status of professions reflects the hierarchies of material benefits and prestige, which are connected to profession’s functional relevance for society. Therefore, high incomes are necessary to motivate people to do the functionally relevant work. Societies can have or not have consensus about the real existed differences in status and income. Consequently, these differences can be perceived as fair in case of the existence of such consensus or unfair in case of its absence. The paper analyses the dynamics of social inequality, which give rise to conflicts, from USSR to today’s Russia. There were different approaches in soviet social sciences how to realise the idea of social fairness. But all researchers assumed that social fairness means that people earn / become material benefits only if they work, and the amount of the salaries and other benefits depends on their contribution to the economy. Relative to stratification, the voucher privatization sharply strengthened the feeling of unfairness in the society. The appearance of “oligarchs” – very rich people, which didn’t earn, but appropriated their money - at the top of economic power caused by many Russians the feeling of insult and hatred of these subjects in particular as well as of the power in general. From the four features of stratification - income, power, education, prestige –today matters only income and power. The ruling elite forms due to these two criteria: power invests in income and property, property and income lead to power. The paper gives answers to the actual questions about the character of social inequality in our country. It describes, which socio-professional groups suffers the most from this inequality and which groups profits on it. Finally, it suggests the steps, which are necessary to avoid an antagonistic conflict as a result of increased social tension.