Trajectories of Economic Transformations. Lessons from 2004 for 2024 and Beyond. Valery Kushlin

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      To make the conclusion convincing, comparisons are made with the economic recession during the Great Depression of 1929—1933, which amounted to about 30% in the United States. Russia, according to the article, lost 40%: “more, but not fundamentally more.” On the other hand, according to the authors, the radicalism of economic freedom has brought thousands of super-qualified people to the capital and labor market, which “has not been seen in any country in the world.”24 Such assessments probably have the right to exist in the press. However, a comparison of the effectiveness of two processes: the Great Depression, this natural disaster in the eyes of the US government and public at that time, and a conscious policy of reform in our country, it still looks very extravagant. If one of the politicians of the United States had declared then that the Great Depression was a planned reformation action, it is unlikely that he would have been in good luck.

      Ideological Confusion: Goals without Clarity

      However, it would be unfair to attribute the unsatisfactory approach to launching market transformations to the government of young reformers alone. The general situation of the time in and around the country was based on a mixture of the reformist romanticism with the conservative pressure of what George Soros defined as ‘market fundamentalism.’ Blind faith in the miraculous efficacy of institutional market changes somehow dominated the worldview of many politicians who entered the arena of the country’s political life at the stage of Gorbachev’s perestroika. And it was this cohort of politicians, in alliance with superficial publicists, who laid down in our society unverified ideological imperatives, which largely determined the course of reforms for a long time. The criterion of transformation has moved from the field of economic performance to the realm of slogans and ideological clichés. For example, the statement of one of the politicians of that time (E. J. Vilkas, Chairman of the Commission on Social and Economic Development of the Union and Autonomous Republics, Autonomous Regions of the Council of Nationalities of the USSR Supreme Soviet) during the discussion of the draft plan and budget for 1990 is very typical: “The progressiveness of any economic measures today is assessed by one criterion: to what extent it helps the market to establish itself.”

      As a result of a multifaceted analysis of the initial stages of economic transformations in the country, Academician Nikolay Fedorenko rightly noted: “The main root of the failure of Russian reforms is buried in the fact that Russia entered the crucial stage of the transition period without a targeted program for this transition!”25

      The absence of a public program for the transformation of the economic system with clearly defined goals at the very beginning of the reforms can be explained by the lack of time of those who took up the transformations, and the sharp political struggle between supporters and opponents of changing the economic system. However, all subsequent (after 1991) reformation steps took place under conditions of almost complete monopoly on the conceptual content of the transformations. This monopoly belonged to those in power. This means that it was the government of those years and the forces behind it that should be considered fully responsible for both the development of goals and the implementation of economic reforms. In the end, the responsibility should be shared equally by Russian society as a whole, which allowed the uncontrolled development of events.

      The Human Factor in Economic Transformations

      Let us draw attention to two fundamentally important conclusions made by international experts based on the analysis of the practice of market transformations in a large group of countries. Both observations relate to the human factor of transformation, or more precisely, to the socio-psychological side of managing major changes in society26.

      First, the beneficiaries of reforms must set the goal of compensating the losers as much as possible. Without such motivation of the initiators of reforms, the transformations do not turn out to be attractive to society and will eventually either stall or lead to violent social conflicts.

      Secondly, the leaders of the reforms in the country become such and gain authority only since they give their people a sense of ownership of the reforms, instilling confidence that the reforms were not imposed from the outside. They should take care to maintain a feedback mechanism that allows for timely adjustments to the content of reforms. To this end, broad discussions on key policy areas and priorities are usually ensured. Every effort should be made to create an atmosphere where people can be heard.

      We must admit that both conditions were not even minimally met in the course of reforms in Russia. And if we talk about the first of these points, then we must admit that the task of social guarantees for the weak and “losers” was not only not put at the forefront but was simply ridiculed by many ideological leaders of reforms. As a result of this attitude, СКАЧАТЬ