New Rich, New Poor, New Russia

Bertram Silverman, Murray Yanowitch

Now expanded to cover Russia's 1998 financial collapse, New Rich, New Poor, New Russia focuses on the social consequences of this modern-day Great Depression. The authors draw on abundant statistical material and survey research data to present a carefully assembled portrait of the life circumstances of contemporary Russians. They document the unequal distribution of the costs and benefits of reform in Russia, its impact on the socioeconomic structure of the population, and the ways in which these changes have violated social perceptions of equity and fairness. Among the major issues examined in this context are: -- the emergence of the "new poor"; -- the changing economic and social status of women; -- the highly differentiated impact of marketization on various sectors of the workforce; -- the social sources of recruitment of Russia's new entrepreneurial class and business elite; -- the causes and consequences of the August 1998 financial crisis.

Chapter 1 Free Market Ideology and the Specter of Inequality; Chapter 2 Critical Responses to Radical Reform; Chapter 3 The Rise of Mass Poverty; Chapter 4 A Question of Difference: Women as Losers; Chapter 5 Wage-Earners: Winners and Losers; Chapter 6 A New Capitalist Class: Entrepreneurs and the Economic Elite; Chapter 7 Why No Social Democracy in Russia?; Chapter 8 Epilogue;