High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Social parasite is a derogatory term denoting a group or class in society which is considered to be detrimental to others, by taking advantage of them in some way. 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. In her "The Objectivist Ethics," modern philosopher Ayn Rand defines a social parasite as a person who not only doesn't contribute to society but also weighs it down by breaking the rules of that society; for example, by stealing money you detract from the working majority of that society. 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.