Union of Labor and Capital

Now this topic has calmed down a little, but a couple of years ago they were rushing around like a crazy bag. I can’t even remember what it was called, either some kind of civil peace, or solidarity. But the meaning was simple - they wanted to marry a white rose with a black toad, to organize a union of sword and ploughshare, labor and capital.

They were looking for new ways to explain to a hard worker who can barely make ends meet that a rich man is not his class enemy at all, but a friend, comrade and brother, not a freeloader, but a partner, that he is also a Russian, a citizen and generally of “the same blood.”

The information on the incomes of university rectors and their loved ones published today by the Ministry of Education and Science tells us that this kind of idyll, the moment when a lion and a doe recline side by side, is not a matter of such a distant future.

An ordinary Russian university shows us a clear example that this is possible. That a working system is possible in which the work of some of its participants is valued 20-30, or even more times less than the work of others.

And this is considered normal and taken for granted. Civil peace in action?

Yes, of course, the measures of responsibility vary, the scope of responsibilities varies, but 20-30 times!

My, perhaps servile, consciousness just can’t accommodate the idea of ​​how this actually works? Why does it work? What does it rest on? How is this justified?

Not in the existential aspect, because it actually exists, go to any institute, university. And in the ethical.

How do they look into each other's eyes, and do they look?

These people, whose prices vary by 20-30 times, are they colleagues? Do they really live in the same world, do they live in the same business? Do they really have common values?

I doubt.

Some, fewer of them, get into an expensive and comfortable car, go to a restaurant, and think about which of their many apartments to spend the night in today. Others, more in number, those same, according to Livanov, “teachers of a low level”, self-respecting people up to thirty thousand, run to a second job and a third, returning after it to a tattered Khrushchev building, or even a hostel, so that in the morning they can join in the endless run in the name of survival.

Some receive honors, awards, recognition, the same money. Others are pokes, slaps, reproaches of unprofessionalism, along with a pitiful salary.

Some are treated, eat deliciously, drink sweetly, and tell how they are spreading around the world. Others “make a living” and get acquainted with foreign wonders on TV and the Internet.

Some are devoted to their superiors, others to students and science

In theory, there should be a classic “two worlds - two systems” here, but no, before us is a union of labor and capital, a model for imitation and transfer of experience.

The system is working. Is everyone happy?