Social inequality it is an evil that affects the whole world, especially countries that are still developing. Inequality can be measured by income brackets, where the averages of the richest compared to the poorest are considered. Factors such as the HDI, schooling, access to culture and access to basic services — such as health, safety, sanitation, etc.
Income, by itself, does not guarantee that inequality data are fully verified, as quality of life can, in some cases, be independent of it. However, in general, quality of life and income go hand in hand. It was with this in mind that the Italian statistician Corrado Gini created, in 1912, the Gini index or coefficient, a formula that allows the classification of social inequality. The index ranges from 0 to 1, with 0 being the perfect condition, where there is no social inequality, and 1 being the highest possible index of inequality. The Gini Index is measured based on income.
Read too: Brazilian culture: from diversity to inequality
social inequality and ideology
There is an old ideologization of social inequality that, in general, tries to justify or explain the dominance of certain classes over others. In the 17th century, Jacques Bossuet it asserted that kings had the divine right to rule. This implied accepting as divine also the existence of an aristocracy that lived a standard of life infinitely superior to the standard faced by the European serfs, commoners and peasants of the time. An important detail is that what maintained the luxury of the aristocracy were the taxes paid by the poor.
Herbert Spencer, founding sociologist of the theory called social Darwinism, it was a defender of an ideology that explained inequality, but between different societies. According to the theorist, the misery faced by peoples who inhabited the southern continents was explained by the low intellectual and genetic development of these peoples, in contrast to white Europeans, who, according to his theory, were superiors.
Extremely racist and ethnocentric, this theory did not explain the real reason for the misery found in Africa, South America and part of the East: European exploitation through colonialism and the imperialism. The countries that were summarily exploited for centuries are those that present, today, the highest levels of social inequality, in addition to the misery that usually accompanies them.
In the german ideology, Karl Marx points out that there is an ideology behind the capitalist system that aims to keep in order what is in progress: the exploitation of the working class for the bourgeoisie.
According to the theorist of socialism, ideology is a set of norms, ideas, laws and symbols created to maintain the exploitation of the worker by the bourgeoisie. The monopoly of information, education, the judiciary and the entire production chain concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie would make up so much of the infrastructure (material structure of production) as the superstructure that would maintain the ideology, which is the factor that makes workers accept be explored.
Social Inequality for Karl Marx
Second Marx, the origin of inequality was in the unequal power relationship in which the bourgeoisie, stronger and owner of the means of production, exploited the work of the proletariat, a weaker social class and owner only of its labor force, expropriated by the bourgeoisie.
there is an social abyss between the two classes, and this relationship was even clearer in the English manufacturing activity of the century XIX, in which there were no labor rights, such as minimum wage, social security or regular working hours of work. Factory workers faced shifts of up to 16 hours a day, every day of the week, without fixed pay, and were at the mercy of the bourgeois.
What was seen in England, and what Marx observed to write The capital, was an extremely unequal system, in which a small portion of the population had a lot, and most of the urban population lacked even the basics.
Supported by his sociological observations, based on the historical materialist method, and by an already existing socialist ideal (now called utopian socialism), Marx developed scientific socialism, which exposes inequality and proposes how solution to proletarian revolution, which would be the taking of power, infrastructure and superstructure by the workers, implementing a dictatorship of the proletariat that should extinguish social classes through the socialization of the means of production and the end of property toilet.
This initial moment would be called, by Marx, socialism. The perfect form of this system, which in Marxist theory would come after a long time of dictatorship of the proletariat, would be the communism, in which private property would no longer exist and social classes would be extinguished.
For Marx, the end of social classes and the exploitation of the proletariat would only come about through the revolution of the proletariat.*
How to end social inequality?
The revolutionary Marxist perspective composes a radical vision that would try to put an end to inequality once and for all. Today there are other less revolutionary and less radical views that seek to reduce social inequalities to improve people's living conditions, however, without imploding the capitalism.
One of these aspects is the social democracy, which deviates from scientific socialism by, precisely, maintaining a democratic republican political system and a certain level of economic freedom. This current also evades theliberalism, as it intervenes, to some extent, in economic and proposes policies to guarantee social welfare.
Measures to enhance social welfare include:
access to quality health and education for all;
employment and momentary assistance for those outside the labor market;
guarantee of social security and labor rights.
You Nordic countriess are a reference in contemporary social democracy, as they develop a type of capitalism aimed at the well-being of the population. In these countries, capitalism continues to function and private property continues to exist. However, there is a very similar average income among all professions, and few are paid more or less than the average group. Technical training, being as important as it is, is as encouraged as higher education. These countries are the ones that carry the highest HDIs in the world.
THE education it is also a priority in the Nordic social democratic model, as it is a sign of poverty reduction and social inequality. At Finland, a reference country in education for the world, all primary and secondary schools are state and free, since the 1990s, the opening and maintenance of basic education establishments has been vetoed private individuals.
In these institutions, children and adolescents have access to a education offull-time, but with a diverse and comprehensive curriculum that takes into account the importance of approaches that consider not only the teaching of various sciences and areas of knowledge, but also aspects of practical and everyday life.
Read too: Slums and Urban Segregation
Data on social inequality in Brazil
On the left side, there is part of the Paraisópolis favela; on the right side, there is one of the luxury condominiums in the Morumbi region, in São Paulo.
The image above is an icon of social inequality in Brazil. Here, as in many other developing countries around the world, there is a huge gulf between extreme social classes.
On the left side of the image, we see Paraisópolis, a slum neighborhood in São Paulo. Paraisópolis has a total of 50% of illegal dwellings, of every ten inhabitants of the place, only 2.3 occupy formal jobs. The place occupies the 79th position in the São Paulo ranking of neighborhoods with cultural spaces and has a teenage pregnancy rate of 11.45 per 100,000 inhabitants. The average life expectancy in the district of Vila Andrade, the region in which the neighborhood is located, is 65.56 years.
The Morumbi region maintains data similar to that of other upscale neighborhoods in the capital of São Paulo: high rate of formal employment and high family income; life expectancy beyond 80 years of age; the rate of early pregnancy is below 2 per 100,000 inhabitants; and, outside the residential areas, there are several cultural spaces, or people who live there move to the central regions to access cinemas, theaters and museums, for examplei.
This socioeconomic and spatial configuration is a striking factor in Brazilian cities. In all cities, some more and others less, there is social inequality. A survey by IPEA shows that Brazil has a total income inequality of 51.5%, ahead of countries like the United States, Germany and Great Britainii. In our country, more than 27% of the income is in the hands of just 1% of the population.
According to French economist Thomas Piketty, in a survey that collected socioeconomic data from several countries, Brazil has more income concentrated in the hands of fewer people than the large Arab countries, where the richest 1% of billionaires represent only 26% of income localiii. In 2015, the Brazilian Gini coefficient was marked at 0.515, leaving our country in 10th place in the ranking of the most unequal in the worldiv, with the 1st place being occupied by South Africa.
Grades
iSource of data presented: ALESSI, G.; BETIN, F. The abyss within São Paulo that separates Kimberly and Mariana. In: El País, 11/29/2018. Available in: https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2018/11/27/politica/1543348031_337221.html. Accessed on: 03/14/2019.
iiSource of data presented: MENDONÇA, H. The richest 10% contribute to more than half of inequality in Brazil. In: El País, 09/19/2018. Available in: https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2018/09/17/economia/1537197185_613692.html. Accessed on 03/14/2019.
iiiSource of data presented: BORGES, R. Brazil has the highest concentration of income among the richest 1%. In: El País, 12/14/2017. Available in: https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/12/13/internacional/1513193348_895757.html. Accessed on: 03/14/2019.
ivSource of data presented: CORRÊA, M. Brazil is the 10th most unequal country in the world. In: O Globo, 03/21/2017. Available in: https://oglobo.globo.com/economia/brasil-o-10-pais-mais-desigual-do-mundo-21094828. Accessed on: 03/14/2019.
*Image credits: Andrey Lobachev | Shutterstock
by Francisco Porfirio
Sociology Professor
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/sociologia/desigualdade-social.htm
