The attitude of the Ural workers to theft and deception in the reform era (for example, proverbs and sayings)

Based on the analysis of Proverbs and sayings and their comparison with the sources that characterize the daily production of the mining and metallurgical Urals, this article discusses the moral basis of the attitude of the Ural workers to theft and deception in the post-reform period. In the course of the study, we came to the conclusion about the contradictory and ambiguous attitude of workers to these phenomena. It lies in the fact that the negative attitude to them, laid down in the Christian doctrine, was corrected by the social and economic conditions of the existence of the Ural workers, the peculiarities of the mining organization of the local industry, which, ultimately, became the main factors of the formation of the Ural workers ‘ tolerant attitude to theft and its mass character at the enterprises of the region. In addition, it was mediated by the socio-psychological phenomenon of in-group favoritism. As a result, in the minds of workers theft received moral and legal legitimacy, which was one of the main reasons for its timeless stability and mass character.