Global problems of the modern world. Without borders: why modern culture strives for framelessness In the modern world, large and even global

Problems that do not concern any particular continent or state, but the entire planet, are called global. As civilization develops, it accumulates more and more of them. Today there are eight main problems. Consider the global problems of mankind and ways to solve them.

Ecological problem

Today it is considered the main one. For a long time, people used the resources given to them by nature irrationally, polluted the environment around them, poisoned the Earth with a variety of waste - from solid to radioactive. The result was not long in coming - according to most competent researchers, environmental problems in the next hundred years will lead to irreversible consequences for the planet, and hence for humanity.

Already now there are countries where this issue has reached a very high level, giving rise to the concept of a crisis ecological region. But the threat looms over the whole world: ozone layer, protecting the planet from radiation, is destroyed, the climate of the earth is changing - and man is unable to control these changes.

Even the most developed country cannot solve the problem alone, so the states unite to solve important environmental problems together. The main solution is considered to be reasonable use of natural resources and the reorganization of everyday life and industrial production so that the ecosystem develops naturally.

Rice. 1. Threatening scale of the environmental problem.

demographic problem

In the 20th century, when the world's population passed the six billion mark, everyone heard about it. However, in the 21st century, the vector has shifted. In short, now the essence of the problem is this: there are fewer and fewer people. A competent family planning policy and improvement of the living conditions of each individual will help to solve this issue.

food problem

This problem is closely related to demographic and consists in the fact that more than half of humanity is experiencing acute food shortages. To solve it, it is necessary to use the available resources more rationally for food production. Experts see two ways of development - intensive, when the biological productivity of existing fields and other lands increases, and extensive - when their number increases.

All global problems of mankind must be solved together, and this one is no exception. The food issue arose because most of people live in unsuitable areas. Combining the efforts of scientists from different countries significantly speed up the decision process.

Energy and raw materials problem

The uncontrolled use of raw materials has led to the depletion of mineral reserves that have accumulated for hundreds of millions of years. Very soon, fuel and other resources may disappear altogether, so scientific and technical progress is being introduced at all stages of production.

The issue of peace and disarmament

Some scientists believe that in the very near future it may happen that it will not be necessary to look for possible ways to solve the global problems of mankind: people produce such an amount of offensive weapons (including nuclear) that at some point they can destroy themselves. To prevent this from happening, world treaties on the reduction of armaments and the demilitarization of economies are being developed.

The problem of people's health

Humanity continues to suffer from deadly diseases. The advances of science are great, but untreatable diseases still exist. The only solution is to continue Scientific research in search of drugs.

The problem of using the oceans

The depletion of land resources has led to an increase in interest in the oceans - all countries that have access to it use it not only as biological resource. Both the mining and chemical sectors are actively developing. This gives rise to two problems at once: pollution and uneven development. But how are these issues resolved? At the moment, scientists from all over the world are engaged in them, who are developing the principles of rational oceanic nature management.

Rice. 2. Industrial station in the ocean.

The problem of space exploration

To master outer space, it is important to unite efforts on a global scale. Recent studies are the result of the consolidation of the work of many countries. This is the basis for solving the problem.

Scientists have already developed a mock-up of the first station for settlers on the moon, and Elon Musk says that the day is not far off when people will go to explore Mars.

Rice. 3. Model of the lunar base.

What have we learned?

Humanity has many global problems that can ultimately lead to its death. These problems can be solved only if efforts are consolidated, otherwise the efforts of one or several countries will be reduced to zero. Thus, civilizational development and the solution of problems of a universal scale are possible only if the survival of man as a species becomes higher than economic and state interests.

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Geopolitical rivalry, economic inequality, climate change and the rollback of democracy - these problems, despite their heterogeneity, will be the main ones for humanity next year, more than 1.5 thousand experts of the World Economic Forum came to this conclusion. Their analysis is presented in the annual Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015 report.

The WEF conducted the first such study in 2008. In 2015, the impact will be somewhat reduced economic consequences global financial crisis, which for several years have remained key for many countries, notes the founder of the Davos Forum, Klaus Schwab. Now stability is threatened by political challenges - the growth of the terrorist threat and the aggravation of geopolitical conflicts, and this, in turn, prevents countries from jointly solving pressing problems.

Growing inequality

The problem of income inequality in 2015 will come out on top (a year ago, the WEF put it in second position). At the moment, the less wealthy half of the population owns no more than 10% of the total wealth, and this problem extends to both developed and developing countries, the authors of the report note. According to a WEF survey, the situation is most likely to worsen over the next year in Asia, as well as in North and Latin America.

In order to effectively combat economic inequality, countries must approach this problem in a comprehensive manner - to increase the availability of education, health care and other resources. Most people assume that the main responsibility in this regard lies with the state, but corporations can also share it, since business itself benefits from income growth for the poor. So the number of consumers and the market for goods and services is growing.

Unceasing rise in unemployment

Economic growth without employment growth (jobless growth) - a phenomenon in which the level of employment does not change (and even decreases) in combination with GDP growth. The main reason for this problem, the authors call too rapid transformation of the labor market due to the development of technology.

The problem is familiar even to China: the country has experienced unprecedented growth in production and exports and has increased the competitiveness of its products, but the number of industrial workers has declined significantly over the past 20 years due to high rates of industrialization and automation. This is a long-term trend that will be observed worldwide, the WEF points out.

Lack of Leaders

According to the WEF survey, 86% of respondents believe that the modern world lacks leaders, 58% do not trust political leaders, and almost the same number (56%) are distrustful of religious leaders.

Corruption, the banal dishonesty of power and the inability to cope with contemporary issues are the main reasons for this distrust, according to Pew Research Center surveys conducted in China, Brazil and India. On the other hand, society is increasingly inclined to trust non-governmental organizations and, oddly enough, business leaders who have succeeded due to their ability, education and the desire to innovate.

AT modern world leaders can grow out of "ordinary people," said Yusufzai Shiza Shaheed, one of the co-founders of the Malala Foundation, referring to her friend Malala, who was awarded this year Nobel Prize world for educational and human rights activities. "We must promote the development of a society where honesty and empathy will be considered key features, where talents will have the opportunity to develop Shahid explains. - This will give strength to the most ordinary people."

Growing geopolitical competition

After graduation cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world temporarily came to a liberal consensus, but today geopolitics is again coming to the fore, the WEF notes. The growth of geopolitical competition is not limited to the events in Ukraine; similar processes are unfolding in Asia and the Middle East.

As a result of the Ukrainian crisis, the West may be economically and politically moving away from Russia, which until recently was considered the guarantor of regional stability and peace, the authors of the report point out. And the situation in the Asian region - the growth of China's influence and its territorial claims - could potentially have more serious global consequences, writes the WEF. About a third of the participants in the Pew Research Center survey believe that in the foreseeable future, China will seize the palm of the world's leading power from the United States.

In addition to the threat of geopolitical conflicts, the weakening of established ties between states will prevent them from jointly solving global problems, such as climate change or infectious epidemics. The rise of nationalist sentiments and the destruction of the system of multilateral relations between countries should be one of the most important lessons of 2014, WEF experts believe.

Weakening of representative democracy

Faith in democratic institutions has been declining since 2008: economic crisis undermined confidence in both business and governments, which failed to prevent it. This provoked popular unrest, for example, in Greece and Spain, and political protests for last years firmly on the global agenda. "Arab spring" affected almost all countries North Africa and the Middle East, dissatisfaction with political regimes has exacerbated the situation in Ukraine and Hong Kong, in Brazil, protests over excessive government spending have accompanied preparations for this year's FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games which will take place in 2016.

Although the development information technologies allows to significantly improve democratic procedures, discord is observed throughout the world between citizens and their elected officials. Governments are still 19th century institutions with a 20th century mindset that can't keep up with needs civil society. To change the current situation, officials should use modern means of communication to include wider segments of the population in the decision-making process, according to WEF experts.

Increasing natural disasters

extreme weather are a direct consequence of climate change, WEF experts say, and in recent times they appear more and more often and more intensely and are more and more destructive. Floods in the UK, Brazil and Indonesia, droughts in the US and Australia, heavy rains in Pakistan and snowstorms in Japan are all changing public perceptions of climate change.

Ironically, the poorest countries suffer the most destruction, and the world community, as a rule, tries to help them eliminate the consequences of disasters that have already occurred, instead of investing in preventing damage from future cataclysms. These are significant expenses, the effect of which will be noticeable only in the long term. However, they will benefit both the economies of countries and businesses, and, undoubtedly, the poorest and most vulnerable nations, the authors of the report explain.

Escalation of nationalism

Since the Industrial Revolution, people have turned to political nationalism to protect traditional values and identities. Catalonia in Spain, Belgium, Lombardy, Scotland in the UK - everywhere people demand protection from economic shocks and social conflicts and globalization, which threaten to disrupt established traditions, values and ways of life.

Nevertheless, the Scots voted to remain part of the United Kingdom. Perhaps this rejection of separatism will demonstrate that in the new global world nations can combine strong and vibrant personality traits with a desire for closer cooperation with the rest of the world, WEF experts hope, because it is no longer just about the coexistence of nations within one state, but also about functioning as part of an integrated global economy.

Deterioration of access to drinking water

Difficulties with access to drinking water in various countries may be the result of both financial and resource factors, says one of the WEF experts, actor Matt Damon, who is one of the founders of the charity Water.org. In India, millions of people are separated from clean drinking water only a few dollars, the actor explains, while in Africa and Asia it simply does not exist. For more than 750 million people in the world, the lack of drinking water is a pressing problem today, complains Damon, and, according to experts from the OECD, by 2030 almost 1.5 billion people will experience "water stress".

Meanwhile, according to the report World Bank, about 50% of the current gap between economic growth rates in developing and developed countries ah is made up of health problems and low life expectancy. States should spend more on maintaining the health of their citizens, and subsequently this will certainly affect the economic well-being of the country, WEF experts point out. As an example, they cite the ever-increasing spending on health care in China, including biomedical research, which is increasing by 20-25% annually. Pretty soon, China will spend more than the US (in absolute terms) on this direction. The Chinese believe that these investments contribute to the construction of the country's economy, and the WEF agrees with this.

Environmental pollution in developing countries

Industrialization developing world remains a source of uncontrolled pollution environment WEF experts say. If on a global scale this problem is in sixth place in terms of importance, then for Asia this challenge is one of the three most serious. China has become the main source greenhouse gas in 2005 and continues to be so, followed by the United States and the European Union, according to data from the World Resources Institute. Brazil and India are next on the list of the biggest polluters.

While the primary responsibility for reducing emissions lies with the developing countries themselves, developed economies must also bear the responsibility for overcoming this problem. On the one hand, they must invest in the creation of new technologies with low level use of hydrocarbons, on the other hand, to provide developing countries financing that will ensure the transition to cleaner energy sources.

The word "creative" used to be synonymous with "disorganized." Today we want to see a person creative and free-thinking, we admire when a non-standard approach is found to a task.

There are two methods for solving problems:

Analytical- you select solutions, and then determine which one is correct.
Intuitive (Insight method)- the solution comes to your mind ready-made.

It's hard to go beyond when trying to solve a problem analytically, but insight is the best way to do it.

Scientists have checked Insight solutions are correct more often than analytic solutions both methods and found that the insight method gave more correct answers than analysis. Brain scan showed The Origins of Insight in Resting-State Brain Activity: in people, problem solving thus, the anterior cingulate gyrus is activated. This area monitors conflicts between brain regions and allows you to identify opposing strategies. With its help, a person can see non-obvious ways to solve a problem and direct attention to them.

In addition, during epiphanies, people noted more scattered attention. It allows you to see the whole without focusing on the specific.

Scattered attention is typical for a person in a relaxed state and high spirits. You are not fully focused on the task, but you are not in the clouds either. Perhaps that is why most insights come to people in, for example, in the bathroom. If you have such an insight, with it will come the confidence that the decision is correct. And, judging by the scientific data, he should be trusted.

No matter what method of problem solving you use, you do it better than your not-so-distant ancestors.

We are smarter than people who lived 100 years ago

Since 1930, IQ test scores have been on the rise. The Flynn Effect: A Meta-analysis by three points every decade. This trend is called the Flynn effect, after the professor who discovered it, James Flynn.

This pattern has several reasons:

The quality of life has increased. The nutrition of pregnant women and babies has improved, the number of children in the family has decreased. Now people are investing in the development and education of their children until they graduate from the university.
Education has improved.
The nature of work has changed. Mental labor, as a rule, is valued and paid more than physical labor.
The cultural environment has changed. In today's world, people get much more incentives for brain development: books, the Internet, a variety of communication, not limited to where they live.
People are used to questions from IQ tests. Since childhood, we have been able to solve such problems and use abstract thinking so we do it better.

We are much more fortunate than our grandparents, but our children will not necessarily be smarter. Already in developed European countries an anti-effect was discovered The negative Flynn Effect: A systematic literature review Flynn: after the 2000s, the growth of intelligence stopped and even began to decline.

Scientists suggest that the impact of the environment has reached its peak: there is simply nowhere better. People already eat well, have one or two children, and go to school until the age of 16-23. They cannot have fewer children or study longer, so it is not surprising that intelligence has stopped growing.

We have become better at solving problems on paper, but does this affect real life? After all, a person is not a machine, and mistakes often come from an incorrect assessment of information and the characteristics of our perception.

We lack critical thinking

People tend to make mistakes and see only one side of the problem. One example of this kind of thinking is the availability heuristic, where a person evaluates the frequency and possibility of an event by the ease with which examples come to mind.

Using this method, we rely on our memory and do not take into account real statistics. For example, a person is afraid to die from a terrorist attack or a tornado, but does not even think about a heart attack or. Just because TV shows more high-profile cases.

Anchor effect can be attributed to such errors. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases when people's decisions are influenced by arbitrary data obtained from the environment. This effect is well demonstrated by the experiment of psychologist Daniel Kahneman. The subjects were asked to spin a wheel of fortune, which randomly dropped the number 10 or 65. After that, the participants had to estimate the percentage of African countries in the UN. People who saw 10 on the wheel always said a lower number than those who got 65, even though they knew it was completely unrelated.

The likes follow us everywhere. Learning to notice them is very important, especially in today's world, where fake news and myths are pouring in from all sides.

To avoid falling victim to illusions, learn to question all information, choose reliable sources, and evaluate your beliefs from time to time, even if they seem to be the only true ones.

Also for development critical thinking useful to communicate with a wide range of people. Usually we are drawn to those who share our views. But to develop the habit of critical thinking, we need people we know who disagree with us. They will throw up a lot of topics for reflection and, perhaps, make us reconsider our beliefs.

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No Borders: Why modern culture striving for innocence

Frameless windows, TVs, smartphones and even paintings. Why the modern world no longer wants to keep itself within the boundaries of reason - in a review prepared jointly with the Honor brand.

Gone are the days when we limited ourselves to one function. We are constantly learning, expanding our boundaries, striving for multitasking, trying on different roles. And the culture has become the same. The genres of cinema, theater, music are boldly mixed with each other, so it becomes almost impossible to determine where one ends and the other begins. The frames are also disappearing at the everyday level: we like to watch movies on a borderless screen with the effect total immersion, equip apartments with floor-to-ceiling windows and watch videos on modern frameless smartphones.

Architecture: frameless windows and glass houses

A window that is not cut by cross beams creates a feeling of free movement of light and air, and if such a window is opened completely, the boundaries between the outside world and the house are completely erased. By the way, frameless glass is made of much more durable glass: it is no coincidence that not only windows, but also walls are often made of them. The quintessence of the trend is the world's most transparent building of the Institute of Technology in Tokyo. The rectangular box house is located in the middle of the park, and due to the transparent walls, a complete illusion of being in the forest is created. A more avant-garde version is the iceberg-like headquarters of the Baccaland Health Department in Bilbao. On the contrary, it is sandwiched between classical buildings, which further emphasizes its unusual appearance.

Painting: baguette, goodbye

The trend to hang frameless paintings on the walls appeared about three years ago, but in fact, we all encountered it much earlier. Remember, as a child, my mother fastened our first works with a button on the wall? A picture without a frame a priori looks a little homemade, a little more comfortable and as if unfinished, and designers actively use this. In the new season, they not only do not “dress” works of art, but do not even always hang them on the wall. Large meter paintings can be seen standing on the floor behind a sofa or bed, against the backdrop of plain walls. As if this is not a house at all, but a workshop of a modern artist. Incidentally, mirrors modern interior also increasingly "undress". This is especially true for apartments made in a minimalist style.

Hi-tech: TVs without frames

Frameless 360° design is extremely popular with TV manufacturers: devices fit into the interior, becoming part, or rather, a continuation of the space. In the coming season, they are hung on the walls, installed on special easels instead of paintings, and even placed on the ceiling. The 3D screen (up to 200 inches or more), the absence of frames and the exotic location create a feeling of complete immersion and detachment from reality.

Interiors: no skirting boards and furniture without handles

Falling below the plinth will no longer work. Until recently, an interior detail that seemed indispensable is becoming a thing of the past. The junction of the wall and the floor now looks minimalistic, strict and graphic. No extra lines. One continuous geometry. Modern furniture is also becoming more and more concise. Handles are simplified and often go away altogether. The decor is reduced to a minimum, and the silhouettes of interior items themselves are becoming stricter: the less details will distract our attention, the better.

Poverty and poverty of billions of people remains one of the global problems of mankind in the 21st century. In 1992, according to the decision General Assembly The United Nations established the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, which has been regularly celebrated on October 17 since 1993. This date was not chosen by chance. Five years before the decision of the UN General Assembly, on October 17, 1987, in Paris, on Trocadero Square, a rally was held for the observance of human rights and the elimination of poverty, which gathered about 100 thousand people. Its participants linked human rights violations in the modern world to the fact that millions of people are still forced to live in poverty. First of all, this concerns the countries of the third and fourth world - the least developed countries in economic terms.

Despite the colossal scientific and technological progress that accompanied the world in the 20th century, social inequality in the modern world is only growing. Moreover, social differentiation is aggravated in all countries of the world, including developed countries. Speaking more plain language the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. So, according to research, by the beginning of 2016, the 62 richest people in the world had the same amount of assets as 3.6 billion people - representatives of the poorest half of the world's population. Over the past six years, since 2010, the wealth of the world's 3.6 billion poor has decreased by $1 trillion. At the same time, the assets of the 62 richest inhabitants of the planet doubled and amounted to 1.76 trillion. US dollars. While multibillionaires do not know where to invest extra money, billions of people on the planet live in poverty, hundreds of millions live in terrible poverty, on the verge of survival.

Until now, the food problem is very acute in the world. Hunger is not something from the distant past, but a terrible component of the present. About the scale of hunger in the modern world written a large number of both scientific and journalistic literature, but the persistence of this problem makes politicians public figures, sociologists and journalists return to it again and again. Even in our time, people continue to die of hunger, including small children - in Africa, some countries of Asia and Latin America.

Total population The number of regularly malnourished people in the world today is estimated at nearly a billion. According to a UN report, at least 852 million people suffer from hunger. In today's world, over 1.2 billion people, about one-fifth of the world's population, live on less than one US dollar a day. Malnutrition is to blame for 54% of child deaths in the world today. Such conclusions were drawn by experts World Organization healthcare. main reason hunger - not only in the fact that in the countries of the third and fourth world people do not receive the proper amount of money to eat at a normal level, but also in natural conditions that do not allow them to effectively farm and provide themselves with food due to constant droughts, the onset sands on the savannah. are playing big role and numerous military-political conflicts that contribute to the destruction of a normal economy, even an underdeveloped one.

Most of the undernourished and hungry are in Tropical Africa. It is this region that is considered the epicenter of hunger in the modern world. Moreover, the number of hungry people in Africa has a pronounced tendency to increase, which is directly related to the growth in the birth rate. The highest birth rate in the world is in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Democratic Republic Congo and a number of other African states. It is clear that all these countries do not even belong to the third, but to the fourth world, in which researchers include the least economically developed and the poorest states. The food problem is very serious in Northeast Africa, primarily in Somalia. Here, constant droughts put millions of people on the brink of survival.

But not only Africa can be seen as a “hungry continent”. Millions of people are regularly malnourished and starving in the countries of South and Southeast Asia - in Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan. Here, too, there is a very high level fertility coupled with increasing poverty and deepening social polarization. The same India, despite what is considered regional power and a relatively developed economically country, the problem of the hungry is not able to solve. The reasons for this are a very high population, high unemployment, combined with the presence of hundreds of millions of people who do not have education and any professional qualifications.

Somewhat less total undernourished in Latin America. Here, the “hunger belt” passes, first of all, through the Andean countries, primarily Bolivia and Peru, as well as through the countries of the “isthmus”, primarily Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala. In the Caribbean, the "island of hunger" is Haiti. As for the countries of Europe and North America, then the problem of hunger is relevant for them to the least extent, compared to the rest of the world. Here, chronic malnutrition is inherent only to representatives of certain social groups that have "dropped out" of society - the homeless, street children. In the post-Soviet space, the problem of malnutrition is acute in countries Central Asia- in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. However, even in Russia, many citizens belonging to low-income segments of the population are chronically malnourished. In the least advantageous position are single disabled people and pensioners with low pensions, large families with a low income of spouses, as well as citizens leading an asocial lifestyle - the homeless, vagrants, and chronic alcoholics.

The problem of malnutrition is closely related to the problem of low incomes of the population. In the countries of the third and fourth world, most people, even having found a job, are forced to exist on very little money, incomparable with the salaries of even unskilled workers in developed countries. In developed countries, the concept of poverty in recent decades is increasingly associated with the ability of citizens to realize access to the basic consumer basket, which includes not only food, but also, for example, medical services. In some countries of Western Europe, the criterion of poverty is already the absence of a bank account with savings. On the other hand, in the Russian Federation, the poor are understood as citizens with incomes on the verge of or below the subsistence minimum, which, by the way, is set by the state. Disputes continue in society about how much the established subsistence minimum corresponds to the real consumer basket required Russian citizen for a fulfilling life.

For modern Russia, low incomes of the population remain an acute problem. The first decade of the 21st century in the Russian Federation has seen a gradual decrease in the number of citizens of the country with incomes below the subsistence level. So, if in 2000 42.3 million people had incomes below the subsistence level, i.e. 29% of the population - in fact, every third Russian, then in 2012 it was possible to reach the lowest figure - 15.4 million people, which at that time was 10.7% of the country's population. However, then the growth in the number of low-income citizens began again. Thus, in 2016, 21.4 million people, which accounted for 14.6% of the population, were classified as citizens with incomes below the subsistence level. It should also be noted that the share of social payments made by the state is growing in the incomes of Russians.

The housing problem is acute in Russia. The vast majority of citizens cannot afford to purchase housing, including mortgages. So, in 2012, even before the currency inflation, 81% of the Russian population did not have sufficient funds to purchase housing on a mortgage. The housing problem is closely connected with a number of negative phenomena for the country. For example, it directly affects the birth rate in the country, since young families who do not have their own housing or are cramped in housing conditions often for this reason refuse to have a child for a while or completely. A significant part of the country's population, unable to purchase modern housing that meets the necessary requirements, is forced to live in dilapidated and dilapidated housing, endangering their lives and health. Even in some major cities there are streets and areas deprived of basic amenities, for example, gas and central sewage, what to speak of countryside and small towns. The service life of the so-called. "Khrushchev", built for the rapid resettlement of people from the barracks. But so far, it has not been possible to renovate the housing stock in the proper amount, especially since the majority of citizens cannot afford to purchase new housing under construction.

The solution to the housing problem lies in the spectrum of revising the role Russian state in the construction and distribution of housing. In the 1990s, the state actually withdrew from housing construction, which led to the total commercialization of the housing market. The scale of construction and distribution of social housing cannot be called anything significant. In Russia, the system of non-commercial rental of residential premises is completely undeveloped, which could partially solve the housing problems not only of the poor, but also of prosperous citizens. The state could help solve the housing problem by regulating prices for economy-class housing, preventing speculative activity in this area. Finally, the state should also devote resources to creating a state (municipal) housing rental market, the prices on which would allow low-income groups of the population to rent housing for a long time.

The high level of poverty in Russia is associated with the colossal social polarization, which began to grow in the 1990s and has now reached such proportions that put Russia among the world leaders in terms of social inequality of the population. For more than twenty years of existence of the post-Soviet Russian statehood social inequality in Russia has quadrupled. According to the report of the Russian Academy of Sciences, published in 2013, edited by academicians S.Yu. Glazyev, V.V. Ivanter and A.D. Nekipelov, the level of social stratification between the richest and poorest Russians has reached 16:1, while the critical value of stratification is 10:1 and even 8:1. However, the solution of the problem of poverty and social inequality is impossible without appropriate regulatory measures from the state.

Academicians S.Yu. Glazyev, A.D. Nekipelov and V.V. Ivanter, in his report, proposes the introduction of a progressive taxation scale as one of the most important measures against social stratification. Progressive taxation exists in many developed countries of the world and provides impressive revenues to the state budget, which finance, among other things, the social sphere. In their report, the scientists note that it is possible to reduce the number of the poor in Russia and reduce social inequality if the subsistence minimum is raised to the level of the real cost of the basic consumer basket, which makes it possible to meet a person’s needs for food, clothing, medical care, etc.

Secondly, it is proposed to increase minimum size wages. In Russia, a situation unique for developed countries has developed, when working citizens, including specialists with higher education. It turns out that a citizen who honestly works and fulfills his professional duties, often requiring higher education and high qualifications, is not able to provide even the realization of his basic needs at the expense of his salary. The working poor in Russia still include many workers in the fields of education, culture, healthcare, housing and communal services. This is a paradoxical situation when a worker in culture, education or healthcare with a higher education and an impressive work experience in his specialty receives a salary that is below the subsistence level for working Russians.

Is the problem of poverty, poverty and inequality eradicated in the modern world and in Russia in particular? As for the modern world as a whole, one can immediately dismiss even the hopes for the elimination of poverty and poverty in the countries of the third and fourth world. economic underdevelopment, natural conditions, high birth rates, political instability - all these factors minimize hopes for solving the problem of social inequality in African countries, many countries of Asia and Latin America.

In the same time, modern Russia has the necessary political, economic, cultural potential to actively address the problems of poverty and inequality. However, this requires an appropriate policy of the Russian state in the economy and in social sphere. A lot of things in the country's economic and social policy should be revised. For now economic problems experienced by the country do not allow not only to increase the volume social assistance but keep them at the same level. Particularly in 2016 and 2017. will no longer be indexed maternal capital, which previously increased by 5.5% every year. But, at the same time, the state does not yet risk changing fiscal policy by introducing progressive taxation, diligently avoids raising the topic of revising the results of privatization, refuses to impose taxes on luxury, that is, it does not want to infringe on the interests of the richest Russians to the detriment of the interests of the many millions of people living in on the brink and below the poverty line.