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

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СКАЧАТЬ transformation processes that unfolded in the second half of the 1980s in the USSR and in the countries of the Soviet bloc are considered and comprehended in the literature in their various manifestations and in various contexts. Great interest was aroused by critical and at the same time constructive reviews of trends in the Soviet and post-Soviet economies in large monographs, which were prepared by prominent Russian economists whose authority was established in Soviet times and who continued to lead an active research life in the new conditions10. Valuable information is drawn from works containing a view of the transformation processes in Russia on the part of well-known and experienced foreign scientists11.

      Does the existence of such authoritative sources mean that there is no need to stir up the past? Of course not. The longer the path traveled, the higher the price of appeals to various events that become the property of history, if they are covered by witnesses of time. The process of “cleansing” events of layers caused by political biases and limited information is very complicated. After all, the interpretation of the essence of events is always subjective and strongly depends on the needs of the moment of analysis. One of the most difficult issues in this case is the arrangement of representations made from diametrically different points of observation: representations based on comprehension of the internal logic of events, and representations containing the logic of the external contour of transformation processes.

      Two Key Drivers of Economic Transformations

      The transformations in Russia and other post-socialist countries have been caused, as already noted, for a variety of reasons. However, in my opinion, the analysis somewhat underestimates the division of the causes and factors of transformations into two large groups, related, on the one hand, to internal (intra-country) circumstances and contradictions, and, on the other hand, to the conditions and factors of an external order.

      The internal reasons that necessitated the transformation of Russia’s economic system were determined by the accumulated contradictions in the country itself, contradictions that began to hinder the development of productive forces on an intensive basis and clearly limited the growth of the nation’s well-being in accordance with new conditions and socially justified criteria.

      Here it is necessary to emphasize the socio-economic factors and contradictions that have developed in connection with the stable isolationism of the development of the country (Soviet Union) in relation to the world community. This state hindered the free exchange of ideas, seriously impoverished the motivation of citizens and business entities, excluding long-term entrepreneurial interest from it, and ideologized the criteria for economic development. The lack of competition, the tendency to stagnate, the costly nature of the economy, the dominance of extensive reference points of reproduction, the inhibition of incentives (motivations) for scientific and technological innovations, the substitution of real business in the economy with the imitation of results adjusted to the reporting and planned indicators, the cumbersomeness of the system of administrative and ideological management, and others – all this generated and strung together numerous contradictions that needed to be resolved radical changes in the system.

      The external causes of economic transformations, in turn, can be divided into two large groups.

      In the first group, we include those drivers of change that are determined by a country’s competitive position relative to the economies of other countries in the world. The comparison of trends in the external (seemingly prosperous) world with stagnant trends within the country was a significant source of motivation for changes in the economic system. Such aspirations in Soviet society became especially strong after the removal of political barriers to various contacts with the outside world, including mass tourism and official trips of our citizens to capitalist countries. In the practice of subsequent reforms, however, these motivations were reduced to imitations of the outside world and meant mainly the desire to adapt to it, and to a lesser extent the desire to compete with dynamic countries.

      The second group of external driving forces of institutional transformations consists of the special economic and political interests of other (primarily highly developed) countries and transnational economic entities in relation to Russia and entities on its territory. In our society, they did not timely assess the existence of such external interests that oppose national interests and failed to neutralize their negative impact on their development, at least by clear statements about their strategic intentions, not to mention clearer actions in practical policy in accordance with the strategy put forward.

      Setting Criteria for Economic Reform

      The internal need to ensure a more efficient management and transfer the economy to a comprehensively intensive, innovative type of development has in fact been and remains the main impetus for the transformation of the economic and socio-political system of Russia. Therefore, it is quite justified to continue to focus on domestic problems during reforms, on overcoming the negative legacy of the stagnant past, and on the formation of a new level of institutional base. The fundamental question on which the attitude of society to the ongoing reforms depends in this approach is the question of the compliance of the reform actions with the basic criterion that would meet the long-term interests of the country as an integral community of people.

      This basic criterion is extremely difficult to quantify unambiguously in one or more indicators. In addition, in dynamic terms, it changes from period to period, is supplemented with new parameters or, on the contrary, is characterized by a decrease in the weight of some controllable quantities. But that doesn’t mean it’s elusive or completely subjective. The criterion of socio-economic progress is inevitably felt and controlled by society. as well as its individual individuals, regardless of what analytical summaries the official authorities prefer to publish and control. In the final analysis, this criterion is always based on society’s assessment of the dynamics of the country’s productive forces as a factor and condition for a stable positive change in the level of the nation’s well-being.

      If this conclusion is recognized as valid and fundamental for the formation of the country’s strategic policy, then a sufficiently stable, clear, and consistent methodological basis for analysis in unity of goals, factors and conditions for effective socio-economic development, for a correct understanding of the driving forces and tasks of economic transformations appears.

      With the passage of time since the start of reforms in Russia, it has become more obvious that when choosing the ways of transformation, the elite of our society has not been able to show independence and has succumbed to assessments that do not quite correspond to an objective approach.

      First, the state of the economy and society was overly dramatized. In fact, at the time of the start of the reforms, Russia was far from being in the last echelon of the world economy, although it lagged the United States, Germany, and similar countries in most of the parameters accepted in the traditional analysis. As of 1987, Russia’s GDP per capita (in purchasing power parity prices) was 30.9% relative to that of the United States, while similar figures were in South Africa (22.4%), Brazil (24.2%), Turkey (20.4%), South Korea (27.3%), Malaysia (22.9%), and Egypt (14.3%). And in the lowest echelon – the low-income countries, in the terminology of the World Bank (for example, in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Chad) – per capita GDP relative to the United States was only about 3%. In other words, Russia did not need to be tempted to start from scratch.

      Secondly, the emphasis was not placed on the most important problems that determined the unsatisfactory trends in the USSR (Russia) in the pre-reform period. The focus was on the problems of the СКАЧАТЬ