Parasitism (social offense)

Social parasitism is a charge that is leveled against a group or class in society which is considered to be detrimental to the whole by analogy with biologic parasitism .

General concept

In various countries at various times, especially during periods of social unrest, such as the French Revolution or Russian Revolution, whole social classes, such as the aristocracy, bourgeoisie and particularly rentiers were accused of living off unearned income, and hence declared parasitic, as opposed to the working class. Jews have long been accused of parasitism, especially in both Nazi Germany and the USSR.

In her screenplay The Fountainhead, philosophical writer Ayn Rand contrasts the creators and parasites of a society through the protagonist Howard Roark:

The creator stands on his own judgment. The parasite follows the opinions of others. The creator thinks, the parasite copies. The creator produces, the parasite loots. The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's concern is the conquest of Man. The creator requires independence - he neither serves nor rules. He deals with men by free exchange and voluntary choice. The parasite seeks power. He wants to bind all men together in common action and common slavery.

The text of The Internationale, the famous socialist song, later adopted as the hymn of the Soviet Union (from 1917 to 1941), in a number of languages contains lines that refer to parasites. For example, the Russian text reads:

Лишь мы, работники всемирной Великой армии труда! Владеть землёй имеем право, Но паразиты - никогда!

Only we, the workers of the all-world Great army of labor, Have the right to own the land, But parasites — never!

While the political Left sees various kinds of elites who derive wealth through unearned means, such as the capital ownership class, as parasitic, the theories of various libertarian philosophers and free market economists from the political Right, such as Milton Friedman, have accused certain categories of non-working poor ("free riders" or "freeloaders") of being social parasites; likewise, since the creation of welfare states in the mid-20th century, some free market advocates have accused welfare recipients of being parasites^{[citation needed]}.

Japan

Parasite singles (パラサイトシングル, parasaito shinguru) is a Japanese expression for people who live with their parents until their late 20s or early 30s in order to enjoy a carefree and comfortable life.

Nazi Germany

"60,000 Reichsmark is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community during his lifetime. Fellow Germans, that is your money, too. Read 'New People', the monthly magazine of the Bureau for Race Politics of the Nazi Party."

In Nazi Germany, a propaganda campaign was launched to portray the mentally ill and disabled as parasites on society, as a part of the racial hygiene doctrine. (See the article on the T-4 Euthanasia Program for more.)

The Nazis also viewed, with but a few exceptions, persons of non-Western European ethnicity as subhuman or untermensch, often describing them as, or comparing them to, parasites, rats, or other vermin. These ethnicities and nationalities included Eastern Europeans, Gypsies (Roma), and almost all non-whites, with the probably politically motivated exceptions of their Japanese allies, as well as Arabs and certain Turkic peoples, at one point considered prospective allies. The large Jewish minority in Germany and occupied Europe was but the most prominent target of persecutions.

Soviet Union

In the Soviet Union, which declared to be a workers' state, every adult able-bodied person was expected to work until official retirement. Thus unemployment was officially and theoretically eliminated; those who refused to work or otherwise did not work, study or serve, risked being criminally charged with social parasitism (Russian: тунея́дство).

Charges of parasitism were frequently applied to dissidents and refuseniks, many of whom were intellectuals. Since their writings were considered against the regime, the state prevented them from obtaining employment. To avoid trials for parasitism, many of them took unskilled (but not especially time-consuming) jobs (street sweepers, fire-keepers, etc.) which allowed them to continue their literary or research work.

The list of those arrested and charged with the crime of social parasitism contains notable names, such as the poet Joseph Brodsky, who was sentenced in 1964 to five years of banishment from Leningrad into Arkhangelsk Oblast. In 1987 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

See also

• Enemy of the people
• Free rider problem
• Refusal of work
• Gulag
• Lurker
• The Ant and the Grasshopper
• Untermensch