Sociologists explain why the poor will not take to the streets to protest

Economist Dmitry Prokofiyev makes interesting conclusions based on sociological research in his channel. Contrary to the aspirations of the opposition, the growing inequality of property in Russia will not only not lead to a social explosion, but, on the contrary, will in every possible way contribute to further “tightening the screws” on the part of the state and the oligarchs loyal to it.

The author recalls the events of the 1990s, when the bosses remembered perfectly well that the people's reaction to the 1998 crisis eventually became a wave that lifted them to the heights of power, and they categorically did not want this scenario to be repeated. The money accumulated in the reserve funds turned out to be enough to compensate people for the crisis losses, and the bosses hoped that people, in gratitude for such support, would thank them with loyalty.

But something went wrong. As soon as the post-crisis economic recovery pushed the per capita income to the Russian Federation for a thousand dollars a month, so - in exact accordance with the theory of Seymour Lipset - citizens felt the strengthening of their financial position, looked around, and ..."went to the streets" - to declare their claims to participate in the management of society.

The authorities drew the most serious conclusions from this story, the main one of which was the conviction of the bosses that their position is not threatened by the poverty of people, but by the growth of their well-being - and since then the bosses have been trying to prevent the growth of the well-being of the people.

The theory of Seymour Lipset connects the political activity of citizens with the level of their well-being. Quite simply, as soon as the per capita GDP surpasses $ 11,000 a year, people stop being afraid of their bosses and begin to take an interest in what is happening around them.

In principle, Lipset is right, but the causal relationship is more complicated here, explain sociologists Sebastian Jungkurz and Paul Marx, who studied how people's attitudes towards politics change with changes in their income and social status.

It is not how much money you have that matters, but how much money your parents had. Researchers have shown that the factor determining a person's political activity is not so much his own income as the income of his parental family.

The degree of inclination to political participation among people from poor and rich families differs significantly (the poor are less involved in politics).

But, most importantly, this tendency practically does not change in the future with an increase or decrease in the level of income of an adult.

That is, even “having come to success”, a person in the sense of political activity continues to behave like a poor man.

But already the children of the “rich generation” are participating in politics much more actively, a study by a group of sociologists from Johns Hopkins University proves.

Having studied the electoral behavior of residents of Indian reservations, who received significant cash transfers from the US government in the 1990s, scientists found that the additional money did not in any way affect the political activity of its recipients.

But adolescents from families that received transfers in the future showed a much greater interest in political life than their peers from families that did not receive benefits.

That is, efforts to reduce income inequality will have the effect of narrowing the gap in the use of their civil rights by people with different incomes, the researchers note.

That is why reducing income inequality is not in the interests of the oligarchy.

As Armin Schafer's research shows, as income inequality rises, the political activity of the poor decreases, leading to a further gap between rich and poor, and provoking an even greater indifference of the poor to political participation.

That is, the policy of the authorities, expressed in the words “no money”, and a categorical unwillingness to increase people's real incomes under any pretext is a more complicated policy than it might seem.

Squeezing people's incomes and consumption, the bosses insure not only themselves, but also their children from political competition - a generation that grew up in poverty will not be able to oppose anything to the oligarchy, and even if one of the poor manages to get rich despite the strengthening of the bosses, he will not go to street".

Actually, as Lipset said, "A society divided into a huge impoverished mass of the people and a small privileged elite will inevitably come either to an oligarchy (...) or to tyranny".