property inequality. The emergence of property inequality - social differentiation in the neighboring community

With the transition to the neighboring community starts to break down egalitarian society, that is, a society of equality. It is during this period that the property inequality - property differentiation. Wealth inequality means a difference in the amount of wealth. At the same time, all community members had the same social status.

basis for property inequality - property differentiation creates a transition to individual farm. Each big family She received income only from her land allotment. The harvest could be different. The reasons for this are:

1. People have different abilities. Everyone worked the best they could. One is talented, skillful, the other is not; one tries, the other is lazy; one is young, the other is aged; one is full of strength, the other is weak or sick.

2. Gender composition of family workers. When plow agriculture needs a male workforce. If there are many men in the family, they can do a lot of work. If there are few men, then the results will be worse.

3. Land plots have different fertility. Even adjacent plots may differ in natural soil fertility. One section is above, the other is below. One area is flooded, the other is drying, etc. All this together led to the fact that individual farms got a different harvest.

The emergence of wealth inequality created in the neighboring community Problems.

People envy more fortunate neighbors. Envy leads to conflict. If the wealthy community members neglected the interests of the community and began to become impudent, then this led to retaliatory actions on the part of other community members. Less fortunate community members united and went to smash the economy of the wealthy people. This entailed conflicts, fights, clashes. Community members could destroy each other. The hostility, given the custom of blood feud, could drag on for decades. Enemies could take advantage of this - they could attack and seize the lands of the community. The community could cease to exist.

neighborhood community tried to smooth out this wealth inequality:

1. When drawing limits, the fertility of the land was taken into account. If earlier the land was worse, then during the next redistribution, better land was given. And vice versa - if the land was better, then they gave the land worse. The families of the community members were provided with lands of different quality, good, medium, poor fertility. These lands were located not in one continuous array, but in stripes, in different places.

2. Redistribution of the produced product - liturgies. When organizing holidays, some families were assigned to hold them. They spent part of their income. As a result, the property leveled off. However, these measures only restrained property differentiation, but could not stop it.

Creation of a collective fund of the neighborhood community

In the neighboring community, people create a common (general community) fund - the so-called collective fund. Its funds will be spent on general needs: the construction of an irrigation system canals, dams, dams; organization of interregional exchange and military campaigns; maintenance of artisans; cult need.

Religious cults originate as cults associated with production. It is necessary to appease the gods to ensure the fertility of the earth, the fertility of livestock, the fertility of women. Religious ceremonies and holidays were organized in order to ask for fertility and fruitfulness for the entire community. For sacrifices, the gods needed plants and animals.

Funds from the collective fund went not only to meet collective needs, but also served as a backup (in case of expansion of production) and insurance (in case of natural disasters and crop failures) stocks - funds. collective fund served as a prototype of the future system of taxationperiod of statehood. The idea of taxes "grew" from the idea of a collective fund - Creation of a general fund for common needs. In primitive society, these were the general needs of the community, and when the first states appear, these general needs will become nationwide.

Historically, there have been two types of collective fund:

1. Sacred household under the household of the leader. This type of collective fund is characteristic of a society where irrigation did not play a big role or was not needed at all. For example, areas with rain irrigation, like the Eastern Slavs. Each household allocated a certain share of its income for general needs, part of the surplus product, that is, in excess of the needs of an individual farm, which kept the necessary product for itself. The collected funds were stored in large vaults. The leader, as the head of the community, also becomes the head of the collective fund. Since the leader will manage this property, storage facilities are built at the leader's household - for supervision and control.

The owner of the property of the collective fund community members considered the main god - the patron of this community. In fact, direct collective the entire community was the owner. Leader only managed this property.

From ethnographic material there are cases whenchiefs tried to take something fromcollective fund. As a result, at best, the community removed them from their posts, elected a newleader, and in the worst case -leader killed.

2. The sacred field of God. The term appeared just in antiquity. This type of collective fund characteristic of societies where irrigation was required. The community members continued to work together on the construction of irrigation facilities. In this case, the community allocated a part of the land, which was called the "sacred field of God", where the community members worked the land together. The harvest from this sacred field was stored in collective barns built at the leader's household and spent on general needs. The work on the sacred field was organized and directed by the leader. He did not have ownership of the land and property of the collective fund.

Thus, in the neighboring community there were two funds: 1) an individual fund, which included allotments members of the community, in respect of which the community acted as the supreme collective owner; and 2) a collective fund in respect of which the community was the direct collective owner.

In the processes of world production, an important place belongs to the distribution of income received by households. To measure income inequality, the statistical method of dividing the population into equal shares - desplies and quintels (1/10 and 1/5 of the studied population) is widely used. The measurement includes a comparison of income in the top, middle and bottom groups. The distribution of income by deciles, quintels reflects the degree of income differentiation and concentration levels

The purchasing power of the population.

Intercountry income levels. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were changes in the distribution of incomes by groups of the world population. The top five deciles have increased their share of income, mainly due to the rapid growth of incomes in the PRC and India, given their place in the world population. As the PRC moved from the top decile to a higher one, income growth in the first decile slowed down. In the early 1990s, this decile was defined by the populations of sub-Saharan Africa and Bangladesh.

Due to the decrease in per capita income, the sixth to ninth deciles have reduced their shares. Seventh decile, comprising the population of middle-income countries, mainly countries Latin America, lost about one point. The population of oil-exporting countries is concentrated in the ninth decile, their share in world income has decreased by three points - from 27 to 24%.

The bottom decile of the world's wealthy increased their share of income due to relatively rapidly economic growth in the US.

In general, the top and bottom deciles increased their shares, while the front groups decreased. Differences between deciles remain significant. Despite significant growth in the top five groups of the world population, per capita income does not exceed 10% of the world average, and only 1.25% of per capita income in the top group (Table 16.1).

Dividing the world population into five groups of 20%, according to other estimates, the share of world income attributable to the richest quintile increased from 1965 to 1990. before. 83%. The share of other quintels decreased. In 1965, the average per capita income in the richest quintile was 31 times that of the bottom quintile, and in 1994 it was 78 times greater. For comparison, we note that the total income of the 582 million inhabitants of the least developed countries in the top decile is almost 8 times less than the total wealth of the 200 largest billionaires, which was estimated at $1,135 billion in 1999.

One way to analyze personal income is to plot the Lorentz curve (Figure 16.1). The horizontal axis ranks income earners by share groups in relation to the entire population - usually in deciles or quintels. Shares are plotted on the vertical axis total income received by each group. The end of each axis is 100% and they are equal. The graph is enclosed in a square, and a diagonal passes from the lower left corner to the upper right. At each point on the diagonal, the percentage of income received is equal to the share of the population receiving it. This is the line of equality in the distribution of income. Each percentage group of income recipients gets exactly the same percentage of total income (Figure 16.1).

There is not a single country in the world in which there would be complete, ideal equality in the distribution of income, therefore the Lorenz curve is always located to the right of the diagonal coming from the lower left corner. The more uneven distribution of income between percentage groups population, the more the Lorenz curve is curved towards the horizontal and right vertical axes.

Most often, relative income inequality is shown as the Gini coefficient, or Gini concentration coefficient. It can be calculated by dividing the area between the diagonal line and the Lorenz curve by the area of half the square in which the given curve lies. The Gini coefficient is a cumulative, aggregated indicator and can vary from 0 to 1. An indicator equal to zero means complete equality of the population in the distribution of income, while an indicator equal to one means complete inequality in the distribution of income. Thus, the higher the value of the Gini coefficient, the greater the level of inequality in the distribution of income in the country. In countries with uneven distribution income coefficient ranges from 0.5 and above, and in countries with a relatively even distribution of income - from 0.20 to 0.35.

Gini coefficient indicators, as well as comparisons of income shares per tenths or fifths of the population, show a widening gap in the distribution of world income. In 1960 it was 0.44, in 1989 it was already 0.55.

Property inequality in subsystems. The gradation of income recipients shows a much deeper wealth inequality in developing and Eastern European countries than in Western countries. The gap between the poorest and richest 20% of the population in Western countries is six times, and in developing countries- almost ten times. In the 1990s, the gap between the poorest and richest

Groups slightly decreased in industrial developed countries, while in developing countries it remained at the same level.

In developed countries, levels of inequality have declined over a long historical period. In developing countries, as per capita income increased, inequality in the distribution of wealth increased. In Latin America, the inequality in income distribution at the bottom and top floors of the pyramid is deeper than in all developing countries. The poorest 20% of the population accounted for 3-2.5% of income, and the richest 5% of the population accounted for 30-33% of income, i.e. the gap was 11-12 times. In the 1990s, in many Latin American countries, the income of the richest 20% was 15 times that of the bottom quintile, and in Brazil it was 26 times, and the deciles were 53 times (1996). Similar trends have been observed in relatively low-income countries. In general, the general directions of changes in the distribution of income in developing countries do not confirm the thesis of S. Kuznets that inequality in the distribution of income in the early stages of development increases and then begins to smooth out.

The persistence, and in a number of countries, the deepening of inequality does not change the property status of a significant part of the population. A stagnant or falling income share of the lowest groups is sometimes accompanied by a reduction in their incomes in absolute terms. The problem of income distribution both between countries and within countries, especially developing countries, is one of the sharpest contradictions in the world. Economic policy based on growing inequality in the distribution of income, or the persistence of such a situation, is contrary to development.

Previously, separate concepts have argued that greater income inequality can have a positive impact on the economic growth by redistributing income in favor of the rich, who save it, while the poor do not. This view assumes that higher growth can be achieved at the cost of greater inequality.

Practical experience has long shown that less inequality can increase production efficiency and economic growth. As income gaps close, healthcare and workforce education challenges are being addressed

Social inequality- a form of differentiation, in which individual individuals, social groups, strata, classes are at different levels of the vertical social hierarchy and have unequal life chances and opportunities to meet needs. In the very general view inequality means that people live in conditions in which they have unequal access to limited resources of material and spiritual consumption. As of 2006, the richest 1% own more than 40% of the world's wealth. According to other estimates, the top 2% own more than 50% of the world's wealth.

The most dangerous is the grassroots inequality of opportunities, not associated with the personal efforts of members of society, when talented people from birth cannot realize their talents due to unfavorable socio-economic conditions in childhood and adolescence. For example, bright children from poor families do not have the opportunity to receive a good education and, as a result, find themselves in the "poverty trap" .

Social inequality is perceived and experienced by many people (primarily the unemployed, economic migrants, those who are at or below the poverty line) as a manifestation of injustice. Social inequality, property stratification of society, as a rule, lead to an increase in social tension, especially in the transition period.

The main principles of social policy are:

protection of living standards by introducing various forms of compensation for price increases and indexation;
providing assistance to the poorest families;
issuance of assistance in case of unemployment;
ensuring social insurance policies, establishing a minimum wage for workers;
development of education, health protection, environment mainly at the expense of the state;
pursuing an active policy aimed at ensuring qualifications.

Causes of inequality

From the point of view of the theory of conflict, the cause of inequality is the protection of the privileges of power, who controls society and power, he has the opportunity to benefit personally for himself, inequality is the result of tricks of influential groups seeking to maintain their status. Robert Michels deduced the iron law of the oligarchy: an oligarchy always develops when the size of the organization exceeds a certain value, because 10 thousand people cannot discuss the issue before each case, they entrust the discussion of the issue to the leaders.

Changing the degree of social inequality in the process of history

Gerard Lensky compared the stages of development of society in terms of inequality and found:

Inequality criteria

Max Weber

Max Weber identified three criteria for inequality:

The first criterion can be used to measure the degree of inequality in terms of income differences. With the help of the second criterion - by the difference in honor and respect. With the help of the third criterion - by the number of subordinates. Sometimes there is a contradiction between the criteria, for example, a professor and a priest today have a low income, but enjoy great prestige. The leader of the mafia is rich, but his prestige in society is minimal. Rich people statistically live longer and get sick less. A person's career is influenced by wealth, race, education, parental occupation, and personal ability to lead people. Higher education makes it easier to move up the career ladder in large companies than in small ones.

Figures of inequality

The horizontal width of the figure indicates the number of people with a given amount of income. At the top of the figure is the elite. Over the past hundred years, Western society has evolved from a pyramidal structure to a diamond-shaped one. In the pyramidal structure, there is a vast majority of the poor and a small handful of oligarchs. The diamond-shaped structure has a large share of the middle class. A diamond structure is preferable to a pyramidal structure, as a large middle class will not allow a handful of poor people to arrange a civil war. And in the first case, the vast majority, consisting of the poor, can easily overturn the social system.

Notes

Guardian 6 December 2006 World’s richest 1% own 40% of all wealth, UN report discovers
BBC , 5 December 2006 Richest 2% own "half the wealth"
Arnold Khachaturov. Country of Inequality // Novaya Gazeta. - 2018. - No. 107. - S. 8-9.
Carnegie Moscow Center September 19-20, 2018

Even during the Mesolithic, some families in a number of ways (number, individual qualities, the condition of their activities) turned out to be higher than other families. It was these families that took away a greater amount of surplus product - the main factor in the emergence of property inequality.
From the very beginning, the excess product was almost impossible to accumulate, but it was used as a way to increase their own authority and increase their popularity.
The richest families could influence the poorer families, they gave them food, and in return they received their support.
The settled way of life was also a key factor in the formation of property inequality. With the advent of agriculture, there is a division of labor, some of the most influential families no longer have to be engaged in the extraction of food, they led those who obtained these products.
Property inequality gave rise to social differentiation of society and specialization. In addition to the extraction of products, more honorable and easier activities appear. Among these occupations was the leadership of the entire economic activity, and then the social life of society. Some take up religious activities. It began from the fact that people wanted to somehow encourage the most useful occupations and gave a certain circle of people a significantly higher position in society.
As the population grew, the need for everyone to work was exhausted, a certain circle of people could now only deal with administration.
Such people not only had strong influence and prestige among their community, but also received economic and social benefits or privileges. So people accumulated much more property than others - hence the inequality of property.
From that moment, the decomposition of primitive society began, classes began to be created. People who had a higher rank in society received a significantly larger amount of surplus product than everyone else.
Special privileges were received not only by the richest members of society, but also by those who possessed special individual qualities and, of course, the most useful to society. Even greater advancement on the social ladder could be achieved by arranging feasts, holidays, and only the richest could afford such a family. Thus, only a small number of persons could increase their position.
In addition to all this, ancient people believed that a person’s wealth was due to the favor of gods or spirits towards him, which means that such people had to occupy a special place. The prestige of the owner of wealth thus grew substantially. Such people usually had the support of other members of the community.
It is then that the most influential and wealthy members of the community take over the management of this community. Such people are the first step from wealth inequality to social differentiation society. The richest in terms of property, as a rule, occupied the highest rung in social pyramid society. In turn, those who occupy the highest position in society have even greater opportunities for the subsequent accumulation of property. Thus, the top of society was formed, subordinating all power to itself, and as a result, the birth of the first state began.
Thus, the emergence of property inequality gives rise to social differentiation, and that, in turn, further exacerbates property inequality.