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Размышления о российском среднем классе в контексте статьи Л.Д. Гудкова и Н.А. Зоркой «Стерилизация социальной дифференциации: российский «средний класс» и эмиграция»
The given paper is an analytical reflection of an alternative view to the article published by L.Gudkov and N.Zorkaya “Sterilization of Social Differentiation: Russian ‘Middle Class’ and the Emigration” in previous issue of The Universe of Russia. Authors deliver an idea that there is no middle class in Russia. Instead they speak of a minority of educated and well paid young salariat in megapolises the main civil and political intensions of whom are formed by their will to emigrate from the country. On pages of the current volume V.Anikin brings to attention that in the scope of another methodology these people could be considered as those from upper middle class in Russia. According to the author L.Gudkov and N.Zorkaya explorer an approach of functionalist perspective of social structure. On the basis of broad literature and empirical studies V. Anikin argues that structuralist view is likely to be more appropriate when middle class is considered as a social group. The latter is crucial in the course of defining the frontiers and internal structure of middle class. In this paper it is shown that structuralist way of thinking discovers the heterogeneity of the middle class in Russia, both its core and periphery. According to studies cited by the author the Russian upper middle class constitutes the social core of this group that may embrace up to 15% of the total population from urban and rural areas. It consists of managers, supervises, executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals that gained computer skills and qualification that is required by the contemporary state of Russian economy. In other words these people could be considered as informational workers that constitute upper middle class not only in Russia. The lower middle class in Russia is defined highly structured as consisting of both close and far periphery. The close periphery (21%) comprises self-employed, semi-professionals, workers characterized by status inconsistency between their qualification and occupational statuses, and unemployed pensioners. Far periphery (23%) includes those of Russians who either have no tertiary education or demonstrate low self identification, or low well-being (lower than the median level for their settlements measured by the durables consumption and income). V.Anikin points out that structuralist approach resulted in the estimations like these makes it possible to forecast the further trace of the middle class. At transition to postindustrial society the worldwide shrinkage of middle classes in different countries might be reflected in Russia in the process of elitisation of the upper middle class and prolitarization of the lower middle class.