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

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СКАЧАТЬ for the extension of the lifestyle of highly developed countries to all the inhabitants of the Planet is constantly hidden behind other problems that periodically come to the surface, although it is precisely this problem that is a concentrated expression of the content of the dead-end path imposed on humanity by the inertia of the experience once formed in a group of countries that have hitherto had the opportunity to grind down the overwhelming majority in production and consumption. part of the world’s total resources.

      For many years, the 80-to-20 ratio has characterized the distribution of total resources between the rich and the poor (between the highly developed countries and the rest of the world), while the proportion between them is the opposite and looks like 20 to 80% in terms of population. This correlation seems to be known to everyone, but it is not considered to be the fundamental cause of the impasse to which the world has come.

      With the exhaustion of extensive growth opportunities within the socialist countries, the problems that aggravated the socio-political situation in them in the 1980s were perceived by the masses and interpreted by the advanced politicians exclusively in terms of the vices inherent in the economic and political system of socialism. These vices did exist and irritated society. They had to be overcome. But the big look at the situation turned out to be superficial. Under the influence of this circumstance, the beginning of the restructuring of the economic and political system followed a simplified, although seemingly logical path – the path of copying the order that had developed in the developed countries, and in fact it was reduced to an adaptation to the system of capitalism surrounding the socialist countries.

      In Russia, the problems and contradictions of the external environment immediately overwhelmed domestic needs. In this context, it is no coincidence that Russia’s transformations resulted in the accelerated entry into the world market of only one sector of the Soviet economy, the oil and gas industry, which was further aggravated in post-reform Russia. In 2002, the share of export supplies in oil production in Russia reached 47% and gas – 31%, while in 1990 19% of oil and 13% of gas were exported from the USSR. The rapid inclusion of Russia’s energy resources in the balance of global deficits was a direct response to the key needs of the external environment. But this also contributed to the import of a heavy bouquet of deep contradictions of the world economy into the country. And they became an invisible companion of the motivations that guided the transformation processes.

      Unbeknownst to many inside the country, these processes have become dominated by more powerful economic interests. Outwardly, these interests appeared to be equilibrium market interests, but in fact they reflected the hidden balance of power in the new configuration of the global world. There was an increase in the subordination of energy flows to the needs of highly developed countries. At the global level, this trend reveals a quite understandable motivation for the behavior of the key actors in highly developed countries, which is conditioned by hopes for continuation of the usual evolutionary development of the world (Western) economy through the implementation of transformations similar to a systemic revolution in a number of “insufficiently market” countries.

      Considering the awareness of all these latent mechanisms within the transition countries, and in Russia in particular, there is a desire to single out in the adopted programs of systemic transformations those components that are not directly related to the service of national interests. Of course, before they are rejected, they must be analyzed from the standpoint of compliance with global interests, because Russia is a significant part of the world’s potential. But in the current conditions of Russia, when correcting programs, priority cannot but belong to the goals and objectives that correspond to national interests.

      With all the innovations of globalization, international economic relations are still based on competition, including inter-country competition. And although the above-mentioned growing contradictions in the economic structure of the world objectively require new turns in the relations of all agents so that they are based more on constructive cooperation and even altruism, in reality, the success of countries in the field of economics can now be ensured only by a rigid attitude to their competitiveness and a consistent struggle for their national interests. Altruism in economic relations cannot be implemented in any one economic platform of the world, its development requires a difficult rethinking of worldview approaches in the entire world community.

      At this stage, Russia’s contribution to the establishment of new economic relations in the world cannot but be based on a more aggressive national economic strategy. Therefore, Russia’s economic policy can no longer be passive and imitative. Objectively, it should include the motivations of our society to an increasing degree, determined by our own vision of the future of the country and the world.

      First, it is necessary to strengthen the conceptual influence on the world’s ideas about the future, contributing to the assertion of the still veiled truth that it is not only the countries with “transition economies” and developing countries that will have to transform their economies and lifestyles, but also the current space of the “countries of the golden billion”. And to have such a conceptual impact, we need a groundwork of research based on creative practice.

      Secondly, during the transformation of Russia’s own economy, it is extremely important to strengthen the component of real success that extends to the entire Russian society. In this regard, the policy outlined today by President Putin to accelerate the pace of economic growth can act as a powerful catalyst for moving forward. And here a very important point is the overdue transition to a new quality of economic growth based on scientific and innovative factors.

      In fact, humanity has no other reliable resource than science and knowledge that can be counted on as a life-saving component in the policy of sustainable socio-economic development. Only the aggregate knowledge that summarizes the experience of all earthlings can ensure the finding of satisfactory answers to the aggravating problems of the universe, suggest acceptable ways to transform the economy of both individual countries and the world.

      “Radical innovations are the main lever for the transformation of society,” say Boris N. Kuzyk and Yuri V. Yakovets in a recently published multifaceted book on the problems of Russia’s long-term strategy9.

      All experience shows that our country developed most dynamically when integration tendencies were strong on its vast territory and creativity in human activity was encouraged. Therefore, science and scientists have traditionally been in a high place in our society. And today, despite the colossal losses in scientific and technical potential in Russia during the first years of reforms, there are still all the prerequisites for the development of the economy along a science-intensive path. For example, in terms of the number of scientists and engineers in the field of R&D per million inhabitants, Russia is on a par with the United States and is ahead of Germany, France and the United Kingdom, not to mention a huge gap with Poland, China, and India.

      Development, based on the priority of innovative approaches, is the main way for Russia’s self-assertion in the world, which is necessary today. But it is also a way of correcting dead-end branches of development, into which, under the influence of the trends of the past, significant parts of human society are ready to stray.

      Thus, much will depend on how the transformation processes initiated in the post-socialist countries develop further. This is important not only for the large number of people living in their territories. The experience of these transformations should also clarify the attitude towards the trajectories of changes in the economic systems of the global world. The events of 9/11 gave an impressive signal that history will not be able to follow the traditional milestones that are derived from the evolutionary prolongation of the economic paths СКАЧАТЬ