About the reference point

Any discussion of socio-political topics, especially if we are talking about discussions in an ideologically divided society, makes no sense without a common starting point, without a common set of ideas about what is unspoken due to common knowledge and banality. Of course, nothing in the near future will correct our political culture so that debaters do not try to fill the imaginary field of discussion with a jumble of figures at the start. This is how up to 95% of political conversations in Russia end: both sides, intending to win over an imaginary third party, namely the silent people, demonstratively place on the field so many figures declared to be super-powerful that there can be no talk of their clash. Both grandmasters walk away from the board to their supporters with a victorious and only slightly confused look. As always, we are right, but there is no point in being right. The remaining five percent is a narrow field of possible conversation, in which “let’s assume” never means “come on over here, you nonentity, don’t be afraid, you fool.” This is where common ground is needed (all other options, in general, do not require anything more than a loud gulp), and it is usually not difficult to find it.

The trouble is that the starting agreement cannot be false.

And it is, as a rule, false, and not through our fault: the volume and quality of our knowledge about society, for many reasons that can be discussed, is so low that, to be honest, in the last couple of years I have really enjoyed discussions in which participants fundamentally renounce any preliminary judgments and opinions, independently examining any fact. This course of action seems especially correct to me after studying the publication of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IS RAS), the last major publication in 2014, which published the data of the second wave of general research on the position, characteristics and worldview of the Russian middle class. Over the past few years, few sociological reports have contained assessments that so convincingly demonstrate that society's generally accepted ideas about itself are arbitrary, very often incorrect and can almost never be used in the way that is customary among politicians. In isolated manifestations, this is, of course, not news, but the report of the Institute of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences is a concentrated matter of such inconvenient facts (to the extent that sociology deals with facts, but discussion of this topic outside the professional environment is of little practical use to anyone).

It makes sense to start with a warning, which is also pointless to discuss: there is no “dispute” about what the middle class in Russia is among sociologists; they ended in the late 90s with a consensus on the possibility and operationality of its description in the same definition , which described it from the 1960s to 1970s for the UK, Germany and France. The debate about how the middle strata of the population and the middle class relate in Russia exists and is not over, since it is also common for Russian sociology to accept the hypothesis of the “old” and “new” middle classes (the report of the Institute of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences calls the new middle class, and considers the combination of the old and new middle classes as the “middle strata”). Finally, for the middle class in Russia, sociologists from the Institute of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences distinguish, as is typical for any post-industrial society in Europe, a “core” and a “periphery.” As a rule, in Russian journalism, only its core is recognized as the middle class; sociologists reject this approach, also identifying the periphery in other classes, potentially capable of becoming part of the middle class. The Institute of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences currently considers 50% of the population to be the limit for the size of the middle class in Russia. These are all purely methodological differences and will not affect the outcome of any discussion. But a consensus based on general opinions about the properties of the middle class in Russia will immediately lead conscientious debaters to places where it would be better not to end up at all.

For example, the general opinion that the middle class in Russia is predominantly men is absolutely refuted by the Institute of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Yes, in the core of the middle class, male managers have some weight, including in industrial and trading companies. But numerically, in comparison with women from the middle class, they are significantly inferior: 70% of the middle class are women, and in the social formation itself there are middle-class families, there are single middle-class women, but almost no single men. Let me remind you that in the country almost all meaningful political polemics have always been and are being conducted towards an imaginary man from the middle class. This is the consensus from the left to the far right: is it any wonder that the campaign does not achieve its goal?

In this case, it is advisable to agitate young people from the middle class or wealthy men of older age groups. Alas, the current and real “masters of the country” should be looked for in the wrong place, say the IS RAS. The largest group of the middle class in 2014 is people aged 31 to 40 years old, 40% of them. The majority, let me remind you, are women, not men, and married women - because, no matter what they say about the middle class in Russia, there are statistically significantly more married men and women in it than in the working class. Living alone outside of marriage is more common outside the middle class; no “Western influences” in the middle class harm the family.

Let’s immediately talk about the facts that destroy both the “liberal” and “conservative” picture of the world in Russia: the political views of the middle class in Russia have gradually become equal to those of the other classes, and they are anything but “pro-Western”. For example, the overwhelming majority of the middle class in Russia identifies itself as Orthodox Christians (this is precisely self-identification), and among the remaining classes there are slightly more atheists (17%) than among the middle class (14%). The choice of the general cultural path of development for Russia is almost identical for the middle class and the rest of the population: more than half of both the middle class and other classes are confident that the Western path of development is inapplicable for the country. Previously, in 2004, 43% of the core of the middle class (precisely the core - let me remind you, these are mostly young women) were confident in the need to choose the “Western” path, whatever that means, now their number has dropped to 33%. The middle class trusts the CIS countries as political partners of Russia significantly less than the working class, but if you don’t go into details, two thirds of the middle class, like everyone else, are sure that “you can only trust in Russia.”

But it is pointless to build a traditionalist pastoral on all this: the middle class sees a “third way” for Russia quite well, and this is by no means a national Russian state (16% of the middle class and 20% of the rest want it), not “hard authoritarian power” (16 % and 21%) - in any case, there are slightly more supporters of these ideas than supporters of pure economic libertarianism (14% in the middle class and 10% among the rest - this is even more than the number of abstract “Westerners”, supporters of integration with the EU and the USA ). The five preferences of the middle class, which diverge slightly from those of the working class, are both predictable and surprising. First place for everyone is Russia as a state of social justice (49% of the middle class and 56% of the working class). Next comes a trio of purely political preferences: the middle class believes that Russia should be a “great power” (35%, workers are interested in this, you will laugh, less - 31%), they also want to make Russia a country that respects traditions and moral values (34% and 32%), finally, Russia should be a country... of human rights, democracy and respect for the individual (32% and 27%). Zealous supporters of the social revolution in Russia are 1% in the middle class and 2% in the rest. Its categorical opponents are 27% in the middle class and 29% in the rest. It’s also, in general, a revolutionary situation.

Okay, but what is “your own path of development”? As with the working class, the middle class most of all values ​​non-conformism, internal locus of control (“man is the architect of his own happiness, everything depends on us”) and “a society of equal opportunities.” In Russia, support for forced equality is significantly higher than in the West; moreover, the middle class is no less concerned about social inequality than the working class (this is not me saying, these are polls by the Institute of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences - complaints about sociologists), but more than half of the middle class is under “in a special way” implies precisely the “American dream”: whoever works more earns more (for example, five times within the same activity for different qualifications). The majority of the middle class (61% of the payroll) does not like the current level of social stratification, but it, like the rest of the population, considers social stratification in itself necessary. Now in his eyes it is simply excessive, it must be reduced - but not destroyed as a phenomenon. Hello everyone: the IS RAS states that Russian society is a fairly typical modern society.

The class struggle, meanwhile, is more than shown. Anyone who believes that the middle class in Russia are incomprehensible conformists randomly taken from nowhere should know: the middle class is an inherited status, the qualification is the higher education of the parents. Having one or two parents with higher education increases the probability of an individual entering the middle class to 69%; more than half of those successfully born end up in the core of the middle class. You need to be born and raised in a city with a population of over a million people, at least in a regional center, and socialize as a teenager, certainly in a city with a population of at least 500 thousand people - otherwise the likelihood of being in the middle class is much less. Yes, we all come from the USSR, just in an unusual way. If you are a communist and still dream of the growing severity of the class struggle, the Institute of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences specifically notes that the prevalence of the feeling of conflict between owners and employees from 2004 to 2014 in the middle class decreased from 16% to 9%.

It’s probably better to bet on the ordinary working class - there this feeling is typical for about 20%. It’s not typical for the rest. Rot front, genossen, I don’t know how to console.

I don’t know how to console the ultra-liberals either. The middle class in Russia is not at all the entrepreneurs and employees of privatized enterprises reaping the benefits of the liberal reforms of the 90s. 68% of the core of the middle class works in state-owned enterprises and government institutions, and only 12% in privatized ones. It is mainly the same working class that works in privatized enterprises—43% of its composition. The middle class is mainly the quaternary sector of the economy, that is, women professionals in the public sector, from financiers to consultants. Those who believe that these women have achieved just a decade of investing their labor in the growth of their qualifications are mistaken - on the contrary, the number of such exemplary smart women has decreased in the middle class from 15% to 6%. In general, a kind of social despondency is quickly spreading among them - over the course of a decade, the number of those among them who admit that in the workplace nothing really depends on them has grown significantly, to half the middle class. The number of workers who consider themselves meaningless pawns is larger, but at least not growing.

Their work is also unique: only half of working Russians use a computer at work (and the middle class is not much larger than the working class), but only 21% do not use it at all. Four-fifths of Russian citizens are computer literate - but basically electronic technologies are about private life, entertainment and the process of consumption, but not about work, which is mainly neither with the Internet nor with anything digital at all and is not really connected. Are you learning English? Perhaps in vain. Three quarters of the middle class are confident that their work does not require knowledge of a foreign language; professional literature on specialization in English is a myth; almost no one reads it. And it’s clear why this is so. According to estimates by the Institute of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the middle class in Russia is the group most affected by the “new stagnation”. 40% were proud of their professional and career successes in the core of the middle class in 2003, 14% in 2014, 25% on the periphery of the middle class ten years ago and 5% now. If social elevators were closed for anyone under Vladimir Putin, it was for them. It is completely clear, based on the report, what happened to them - they were dragged into the civil service, provided with an income gap with workers and left without further professional prospects.

Is this income great? There is some, in particular, up to a third of the core of the middle class have savings that allow them not to work for one year (but no more), the rest have such savings only from interest. 10% of the core of the middle class have a second permanent home (an apartment or a non-summer house for permanent residence); among the rest of the population, 3% have a second home. However, the use of second housing as income-generating capital is much less common in the middle class, according to the Institute of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, than in the working class. Rentiers with Moscow apartments, as a rule, have nothing to do with the real middle class. At the same time, it’s interesting, but the middle class in Russia is not a more saving group of the population, but a more spending group: the periphery of the middle class, for example, saves more actively than its core, which is rampant consumers. Those who paint a picture of a “consumer society” as a mass of proletarians who bought panels and cheap foreign cars with retail loans should first of all look in the mirror and see the huge expenses on travel and, in general, on the smart lifestyle. Consumer society means eco-design and yoga, and not completely innocent barbecues at a credit Toyota in Serebryany Bor.

But what really amazed me is that 13% of the Russian population and about 4% of the middle class say that they do not have a refrigerator in their home.

And again, what a picture is drawn that is suitable for pathetic statements! Some senseless middle-aged PR women who betrayed national interests for a dust-free job in state-owned companies and were disappointed in their choice, muttering something incomprehensible about social justice and equality, but not inclined to self-education, generally somehow lost. And at the same time, people don’t even have a refrigerator. But don’t rush to feel sorry for anyone, it’s better to feel sorry for yourself: this middle class doesn’t care about you with your programs for reorganizing everything.

What is he doing, what is he working on? As befits the middle class - above itself. For example, you will say that the middle class in Russia is characterized by atomization, a severance of social ties - the working class lives more amicably, traditionally, with a button accordion and a common feast, with military songs. If. Firstly, sociologists at the Institute of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences generally deny the existence of defined social boundaries and barriers in Russia: half of the core of the middle class and two-thirds of its periphery have poor families in their constant, daily friendly circle of contacts. The middle class notes three times more non-personal, positively assessed social events than the working class - sociologists from the Institute of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences generally say that the growth of current incomes outside the middle class in Russia does not lead to significant changes in life in general; money changes little for the working class. This largely correlates with the fact that the middle class, which is usually perceived as deep snobs of the European type, is in solidarity with a much larger number of designated social groups than other classes - speaking of “social space”, we can state that for the middle class it is approximately one and a half times wider. Social solidarity is the lot of the middle class, not the working class: if anyone needs an understanding of the mechanisms of political events in Russia over the last three years, from Bolotnaya to Slavyansk, this is also where it comes from. Just think about what married middle-aged women from state-owned companies want - this will be part of what we do not understand about Russia.

I think this is enough reason to speak openly - we are sufficiently misinformed and sufficiently evolved to engage in political discussions without using the phrase "common knowledge." Not generally known, in general, almost nothing. We live again without feeling the country beneath us. Therefore, it now seems to me more conscientious to be an honest, open supporter of ideology in its pure form, operating with logical conclusions based on moral principles, than a “pragmatist” and an opportunist who develop stereotypes about another country, another time and other people.

The first ones at least know what they are talking about.