Yu. G. ALEKSANDROV. CAN RUSSIA BECOME A "EURO-ASIAN TIGER", MOSCOW: INT VOSTOKOVEDENIYA RAS, 2007, 480 p. *

The discussion materials published in the journal in connection with my book are not reviews, but a discussion of the issues considered in it. This created a good basis for discussion and an incentive to re - think the problems of Russia's economic development against the background of the impressive success of its Asian neighbors-the newly industrialized countries of East and South-East Asia (NIS, also known as "Asian tigers"). and China (aka "dragon"). Thus, the usefulness of the participation of Orientalists in understanding the contemporary problems of Russia**has once again been confirmed.

DIFFERENT START TIMES WITH DIFFERENT TASKS

The very title of the book prompted the discussion participants to ask: what kind of phenomenon is "Asian tigers", and is Russia capable of following their example? At the same time, they calmly accepted a certain convention of the title, in which East Asian NIS and China are summed up under a single ranking. This is because the book actually takes into account the differences within this group of countries and, in addition, the debaters saw something unified behind them. A. I. Salitsky, for example, refers to the "Asian economic community". Russia itself is currently temporarily classified by me as an "octopus". But, most importantly, everyone accepted the challenge contained in the title. First, it is necessary to better understand the meaning of the concepts of "tigers"and " dragon". Secondly, it is necessary to analyze the mechanism of the "Asian miracle" in more depth. Third, we need to discuss whether Russia is capable of achieving something similar, and to what extent it can use the experience of these countries. In general, everyone agreed that the main thing in this phenomenon is an "economic miracle", i.e. long-term maintenance of high rates of economic growth based on industrialization with the capture of important segments in foreign markets of manufacturing products. This provided them with a rapid breakthrough on the path of economic and social modernization compared to other developing countries.

At the same time, when starting to search for answers to these questions, we should, in my opinion, take into account that even outwardly there are not so many similarities between the "Asian tigers" (NIS), China and Russia that we can talk about our country's direct borrowing of the basic principles of their modernization strategies. Indeed, the " Asian tigers "were the earliest to perform their industrial" miracle " in overcoming the economic underdevelopment and social archaism typical of all developing countries at the beginning of the post-colonial era.

* Ending. For the beginning, see: Vostok (Oriens) N 5. pp. 156-177; N 6, pp. 150-159.

** The author is grateful to the participants of the discussion A.V. Akimov, L. Z. Zevin, V. A. Melyantsev, P. M. Mozias, A. I. Salitsky for reading his book and expressing their opinions on the problems considered in it.

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epochs. China has passed through its own stage of forced socialist industrialization with national characteristics. Then it was the first among communist states to be drawn into a period of deep market reforms, building a capitalist economy in free economic zones-next to the slowly reformed socialist industrial sector and the decollectivized peasant economy. Finally, Russia was the last country to embark on market reforms. Its version of the transition from a centralized economy to a market economy, in complete contrast to the NIS and in a significantly different way from China, is a capitalist restructuring of the socialist industrial system that has long been established and covers the entire economy of the country in all its elements and relationships.

So the "Asian tigers", China and Russia started a new life from different platforms (starting conditions), at different times, with different tasks and goals. Therefore, in my opinion, the ability to imitate them immediately raises great doubts. The conversation is more likely to be about certain elements of specific strategies. But this, of course, does not detract from the importance of a deep understanding of the phenomenon of the "economic miracle", in order to then, by comparing with Russia, other (such as Kazakhstan) variants of transition economies and examples of various (starting with India) developing countries, contribute to the progress of modernization theory in relation to the era of a globalizing economy. Accordingly, the structure of the text is built around the main problems of this topic that were in the center of attention of the participants of the discussion.

THE "ASIAN TIGER"PHENOMENON

How did the Asian NIS manage to achieve the well-known success on the path of modernization?

Economic component. In my opinion, the main economic prerequisite for the breakthrough was a strategy based on the mobilization of abundant domestic economic resources and the realization of comparative advantages in the external economic space in the context of the globalization of the world economy. The most abundant and easily reproducible economic resource in them was rural labor resources. Agrarian reforms, together with the intensification of agriculture on the basis of the "green revolution", prepared the conditions for their mass movement to the cities. TNCs with new technologies that correspond, on the one hand, to the opportunities of scientific and technological development and globalization, and, on the other hand, to the local conditions of the host countries, rushed to meet them from abroad. Their essence was to save capital resources through the use of cheap labor using methods of organizing production in the era of scientific and technological progress.

This technological mode of production has become an important tool for economic development in many developing countries. But things took a different turn at the Tigers. As A. I. Salitsky rightly pointed out, Asian NIS (especially the Republic of Korea) did not seek to rely primarily on TNCs, preferring national capital and technologies borrowed from them. In addition to the availability of cheap labor, they were helped in this by the active adaptability of a large number of small and medium-sized national enterprises to new opportunities and ways of organizing production, as well as by the historically accumulated experience of foreign economic activity. Ultimately, to date, NIS has taken a different path from the classical industrialization of today's advanced countries. This is (noted by P. M. Mozias) a gradual increase in the technological level of export industries, shifts in the commodity structure of exports from textiles and clothing to consumer electronics and electrical engineering, to more complex products of mechanical engineering and information technology.

Social component. One of the facets of the "Asian miracle", according to P. M. Mozias, is that the rapid economic growth during industrialization in the Asian NIS did not lead to a sharp deepening of the social polarization of their societies. This is a very valuable observation, which allows us to better understand the mechanism of creating a "miracle" in the countries of East (the Republic of Korea, Taiwan) and South-East (the ASEAN states) Asia, i.e. in densely populated countries that, as previously thought, were hopelessly bogged down in overpopulation, inexorably bringing them closer to social and environmental catastrophe.

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This disastrous conclusion follows from the radical theories of dependent capitalism, which explicitly or implicitly assume that in developing countries, industrialization can only be achieved on the basis of capital-intensive and labor-saving technologies borrowed from the industrial West. This, according to this logic, inevitably leads to the preservation of the dual social structure of their society. Social groups associated with modern economic activities form the so-called modern sector. They are confronted by an eroding "traditional" sector with marginal employment and income, overpopulation and poverty - sources of social and political antagonism. This trend has somehow manifested itself in Asia, but especially in Latin American countries, which have been drawn into the process of modernization in the era of global domination of capital-intensive and labor-saving industrial technologies.

Unlike them, however, the "Asian tigers", as already mentioned, entered the industrial path in the context of the globalization of the world economy, when new labor-intensive and capital-saving technologies of TNCs appeared. Borrowing them has made it possible to make an active economic resource and a comparative advantage of the very abundance of labor resources that were previously considered the curse of developing countries-absolute overpopulation. Consequently, a more even distribution of income in society was maintained along the entire path of development than in other developing countries.

Political support. No less interesting is the question of the political conditions of the reforms. Here we often see a tendency to view centralized (including military) political regimes in the " tigers "and China, as well as in General Pinochet's Chile, as their advantage over Russia in the 1990s" dashing " years. For example, L. Z. Zevin mentioned "the paradoxical combination of undemocratic and even authoritarian regimes with a relatively high level of economic freedom", apparently seeing a positive connection in this. He contrasted the" calm step "of the tigers' reforms with the "shock therapy" in Russia "with its ruthlessness, unjustified references to the emergency situation", which "led to conflicts, delayed the economic recovery for many years, caused nostalgia for the Soviet period and increased anti-Western sentiments in society" (5, p. 157).*.

Generally speaking, reliable political support is a necessary condition for the success of reforms. However, let us ask ourselves: is the combination of undemocratic methods of government with a high level of economic freedom in the "tiger" states a real paradox of their life or an imaginary one? Without explaining exactly how economic and social reforms are linked to political conditions, it is impossible to understand the logic of the development of events in our country in the 1990s, and then in the last decade. So, is it good for Russia that, as almost everyone believes, it turned out to be good for the "Asian tigers", China, Chile? Is the combination of undemocratic regimes with varying degrees of economic freedom really paradoxical, or does it follow logically from their living conditions?

According to the political scientist V. A. Fedorov, in the Eastern countries, the centralization of state government was especially necessary at the initial stages of modernization due to the social fragmentation and weakness of the civil society infrastructure. The gradual democratization of society from above has been and is most successful in those countries where economic modernization has helped to restructure the entire social structure, taking full advantage of peripheral areas and rural areas, but in most developing countries modernization has affected mainly large cities and to a much lesser extent rural regions. In such countries, "pseudo-democratic procedures cannot replace the authoritarian practice established in society" (Fedorov V. A. Army and modernization in the countries of the East, Moscow, IV RAS, 1999, pp. 3, 159, 160-161).

But why? For the reason that the main thing here is not the fact of a dramatic gap in the property and social status of mutually antagonistic groups in the dual structure of their society, but the mechanism of its regular reproduction. The fact is that the modern sector is not completely self-contained, but enters into an asymmetry with the traditional sector.

* Hereafter, links to the speeches of the panelists are given directly in the text, indicating the issue of the journal and the corresponding pages.

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river connections. By mobilizing the limited economic resources it needs, it also protects itself from pressure from the overpopulated traditional sector. So, it is authoritarian state regimes that ensure the functioning of such an economic mechanism by political means. And in general, any dictatorship everywhere and always, no matter what intentions it may initially be guided by, ultimately turns against the poor and indigent population.

This was the case in the first stages of modernization (and partly continues now) in the"tiger" countries, as it once happened in the Stalinist USSR, then in China, North Korea, and Cuba. In China, despite all the successes of its leadership's economic policies, including agrarian policy, the countryside remains a shock absorber for the contradictions of modernization, a "sump" for those who are not accepted by the modern sector. And it (especially in free zones) has its own economic rules and social orders. Only the organized urban economy sector, in particular, is covered by State pension provision.

The example of General Pinochet's liberal reforms in Chile is also very popular among us. But it does not say who paid for the progress in the first place and continues to pay for it. The reforms in this country were designed for those who were able to join the modern economy. As in China, the pension system covers only those employed in the organized economy. All the others remained in the sphere of the "bazaar" and semi-natural economy with low-income occupations, irregular earnings, mass poverty in the absence of social guarantees, and most of them accepted the social hopelessness of their lives.

Keeping the social base within strict limits and resolutely suppressing the democratic and radical left forces that reflect their sentiments is everywhere justified by the fact that the development of the modern sector will eventually bring more benefits to the poor and involve them in the course of modernization. It all depends on what trend time is working on: spreading the results of progress in breadth or deepening property differentiation and exacerbating social contradictions. Thus, in developing countries, State violence plays a certain functional role in the course of market reforms, and if they fail to spread their fruits to the whole society, authoritarian power turns into an anti-people dictatorship that hinders social progress.

RUSSIA AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF THE "ASIAN TIGERS"

Historical excursion. Let's start with the "platform" from which liberal reforms were launched in Russia. In the Stalinist USSR, the main means of forced industrialization with a focus on the military - industrial complex was the forced mobilization of an abundant economic resource at that time-cheap labor, combined with total state control over the fund of living resources. Capital-intensive technologies were used only where they could not be replaced by manual labor (including slave labor). (Later, Mao Zedong undertook a similar but absurd program of smelting "people's" steel.) Contacts with the world economy were mainly limited to the exchange of grain for industrial technologies and machinery. The USSR did not become a full-fledged member of the world economy either then or later, until its very end, but only replaced the export of grain with the export of oil.

The Soviet economic system was quite homogeneous technologically and, in the absence of a mechanism for free flow of resources, could not allocate at least one sector of self-sustaining technological progress and economic growth. So, while in many developing countries the industrial sector operates in isolation from excess labor resources, in the USSR, on the contrary, it constantly needed an influx of labor in the process of extensive growth. And the further, the more, until its deficit has not exceeded the critical level. As a result, what remained an efficient and abundant resource for the Tigers - cheap labor-became scarce in Soviet Russia.

Social specifics: L. Z. Zevin is partly right when he believes that with regard to the" Asian tigers "I am interested in"a change in the social system rather than the effect of the chosen economic policy". I am interested in both, but the social side of the matter is probably more interesting than other researchers who compare developing and transitional societies. By-

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However, in the case of Russia, we cannot limit ourselves to raising the question of moving from the "poor billion" to the "golden billion", as L. Z. Zevin suggests. The fact is that the movement towards the" golden billion " of pre-capitalist societies through capitalism and from socialism through transitional systems may ultimately follow general laws, but with important features.

The path of the "tigers"to progress went and in most of them (the" second echelon") continues to go through overcoming economic and social dualism. Russia is another matter. Its condition is still more correctly described as "post-Soviet". This is an unprecedented and unique phenomenon in the modern world, including other "post-socialist" states. The people turned into proletarians dependent on the state, who lived and live from payday to payday, and in everything else are tied to the "sobiesom". This is a country where almost everyone works in an industrial economy, and older people receive either labor or social pensions from the state. Nevertheless, in the mass, they represent the poor poor-the socialist proletariat and the marginals, suspended on the " hook "of the state"curtain".

Therefore, the book puts the question of the social perspective of Russian society in the following way: from socialism as an expression of universal, close to equalizing, social poverty (but, nevertheless, not being on the social bottom) to the "golden billion", i.e. to a society of mass prosperity and social peace with moderate property differentiation and a large segment of the population a person who has the material affluence and social psychology of the middle class. Now the majority of Russian citizens feel themselves living in a socially polarized society, in which the mass of the poor is opposed by officials bound by mutual responsibility and "new Russians". To carry out radical reforms in such an environment, you need a very large resource of mass support for the government, as in the very beginning of the 1990s under Boris Yeltsin, or state violence - as in Chile under Pinochet.

But why did Russia need market reforms in the first half of the 1990s? About the first reforms. Without answering this question, you can't evaluate everything that follows. Was the first decade of independence, as many people believe, lost for the Russian economy? Moreover, perhaps the country was pushed back far during this time and only in the next decade began to "rise from its knees"? Criticism of the reforms of that time is based on the fact that the "shock" price liberalization was not justified by necessity, and instead of privatizing "national" state property, it was predatory "grabbing"it.

Let's start with the first one. It is important to understand why a large part of the scientific community (not to mention ordinary citizens) it refused to recognize the circumstances referred to by the reformers as extraordinary. Without paying attention to the fact that by the beginning of the 1990s, all the signs of a loss of control by the state over the centralized economy were evident, and an irreparable loss of balance occurred in the economic system. Nevertheless, the conviction prevailed that the decisions taken were the result of liberal theoretical delusions, or even criminal will. But almost none of the critics even thought to explain how it would be possible to restore control over the money circulation and distribution system, and then smoothly direct the economy towards the market-as in China. When attempts are made to indicate alternative options, everything is limited either to good wishes or exotic near-scientific fiction.

There are two different reasons behind all this. The first is the tendency of the conservative part of the scientific community to cling to their worldview, political and personal preferences. The second is a deep-seated belief in the unlimited power and organizational capabilities of the state. Hence the tendency to think of solving any social problem as a simple organizational task. This is clearly seen in the evaluation of state property privatization in the 1990s.

One of the main reasons for privatizing State property was that the Soviet bureaucracy lost its most important lever of government - centralized control over the distribution function of the state. This happened as a result of the de facto privatization of it by various groups of bureaucracy in the center and in the field, which began in the Brezhnev era. This, in turn, undermined the foundation and

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an already inefficient central planning and management system. The failure of the GKChP coup to restore control over the country is at least an indication of the impossibility. But it was also impossible to prolong for a long time the process of transformation of the "nomenclature", which privatized the distribution function of the state in its favor, into effective owners. Before getting into the "capitalist hell", they, and all of us together with them, had to go through the "purgatory" of post-socialist initial capitalist accumulation, which is unprecedented anywhere else on such a scale, i.e., simply put, the plundering of state resources and assets as property, and not their rational restructuring as factors of production. Therefore, the establishment of at least some rules for the privatization of state assets, combined with the liberalization of pricing, has become an imperative. It created the initial prerequisites for the emergence of a layer of effective owners-capitalists in the country.

These are the realities. But they were generally perceived and evaluated differently. Apparently, a lot of things in this case rested on underestimating the economic, social and cultural specifics of Russia. After all, nowhere else in the countries of the former socialist camp was there such a strong dependence of the stability of the economic system on state support and such a massive social dependency of the population, such a tenacious communist archaism in the public consciousness and such influential conservative political elites against the background of weak support for market reforms by citizens. Therefore, the problem of Russian reforms was not at all what would be good to have for their successful start, but what and how to do it in real conditions.

But critics have contrasted the practice of the 1990s reforms with their ideal variants - different, but having a common basis. First, the already mentioned unaccountable faith in the State. Secondly, there are not quite correct ideas about the nature of property under socialism - as about the same property as under capitalism, but only owned by the state. Therefore, it is widely believed that privatization should have been preceded by large-scale institution-building - first of all, the formation of market economy institutions and the de-monopolization of production. All such activities were actually considered as an organizational task that did not require fundamental changes in ownership relations to begin with. Therefore, many still believe that the institutional vacuum was created as a result of hasty privatization. Prior to that, there was allegedly a certain order in the form of state ownership in the system of state economic institutions, too. E. Gaidar, on the contrary, proceeded from the fact that the state in the early 1990s. it no longer controlled the processes in the economy and politics, and therefore it was urgently necessary to introduce new organizing rules of the game.

RUSSIA AND THE ASIAN TIGERS

So, it is unlikely that the Asian NIS is an example for Russia in terms of the sequence of market reforms. The same can be said about the role of the state in the modernization process. Many analysts tend to emphasize its guiding role in creating their economic miracle. P. M. Mozias, for example, pays special attention to the "rather conservative" macroeconomic policy of NIS, including "fiscal and monetary restraint", indicative planning, close contacts of the ruling bureaucracy with large private corporations, the state's influence on the distribution of credit resources through the banking system tax incentives and financing of priority projects, starting with the export economy.

If we apply all this to Russia, we can talk about two stages of its history after the collapse of the USSR. The first is the time when the state formed the primary prerequisites for transferring the disintegrating centralized economy to the stabilization mode and transformation into a market economy. The second is the beginning of growth with the growing influence on all processes, on the one hand, of market criteria, mechanisms, rules and institutions, and on the other - of state regulation and the newly expanded public sector.

It is quite clear that it was impossible to use planning tools at the first of these stages - that is, in conditions when (in contrast to the NIS) the industrial economy did not have the necessary resources.

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It was created from the very beginning, but it was rebuilt, and it was unclear which of its existing elements would survive or, conversely, be rejected by the market. It became possible to think about planning only when the federal budget surplus was secured and the idea of public investment in the economy was implemented on this basis, combined with assigning strategic tasks to state corporations that private capital does not undertake. But even now, the government has not completely got rid of the need to "smear" budget funds to support "stuck" enterprises and the proletarian and marginal majority of the population, which is unable to survive without a state "sobes".

In the end, to date, NIS has passed a path somewhat similar to the classic historical path of industrialization of advanced countries. This is an increase in the technological level of export industries, shifts in the commodity structure of exports from textiles and clothing to consumer electronics and electrical engineering, to more complex products of mechanical engineering, information technology, etc. At the same time, the method of employment chosen by them from the very beginning does not encourage excessive polarization of income in society. In Russia, by contrast, the main export revenues are generated by the fuel and energy sector with limited employment potential. The bulk of the labor force is employed in the backward manufacturing industry and (which turned out to be a salvation) in the previously extremely poorly developed tertiary sector, which during the transition period showed independent growth.

P. M. Mozias agrees with me about the impossibility for Russia to borrow the experience of Asian NIS in its pure form. He draws attention to the fact that the foundations of their "economic miracle" were laid at the stage of primary industrialization, when the population was redistributed from the traditional sector to the modern one. This ensured low labor costs and, as a result, the price competitiveness of exporters. In contrast, Russia is undergoing a structural restructuring of an industry that is capital-intensive and labor-saving in its technologies, but which nevertheless paradoxically failed to ensure the transfer of labor to other sectors of the economy, since an intensive type of growth was not established in the Soviet economic system. Therefore, it is difficult to agree with P. M. Mozias when he sees one of the analogies between Asian NIS and Russia in the fact that "the logic of structural adjustment of the modern Russian economy in many ways resembles the logic of industrialization" (5, p. 172), that is, the "classical" sequence that Asian NIS repeated , but only in the specific conditions of a globalizing economy.

Russia started moving into the modern market economy, so to speak, from the other end. Such a task - to transform the long-established reproduction structure of the industrial economy into a market one by revaluing and readjusting all its elements and connections - has not been solved and is not being solved by anyone - neither in its time, nor by the Asian countries, nor by modern China. Especially in Russia, while preserving the foundations of the state's unique sphere of social responsibility in terms of population coverage. In the Asian NIS, market institutions were created as industrialization progressed; in our country, they were created as new conditions for the functioning of previously created complex economic structures. This is why transition economies differ from developing economies, especially in Russia. So it is difficult to draw such analogies that would give grounds to consider the experience of Asian NIS applicable to Russia in its important principles, and not in the form of individual elements.

The differences are all the greater if we take into account (L. Z. Zevin drew attention to this) that modernization and acceleration of economic growth are only part of the national strategic task of the Russian state, the goal of which is to ensure the stable prosperity of the Russian nation on the Euro - Asian territory within the historically established borders. Its solution implies an active influence on the structuring of the post-Soviet political and economic space, the desire to establish itself as a regional leader, improve its position in the world, and complete the nation's civilizational positioning. Russia (as L. Z. Zevin also drew attention to (5, p. 162), unlike the "Asian tigers" and to a greater extent than China, is burdened with problems and tasks arising from the fact of its succession in relation to the USSR as a military superpower with reasonable claims to a certain role in the world.

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RUSSIA AND CHINA

But it is particularly interesting to compare these two countries, since both of them are at the stage of transition from a centralized socialist economy to a market economy and (Russia directly, and China actually) have abandoned the ideology of socialism with a communist perspective. Therefore, A. I. Salitsky "fundamentally disagrees" with my conclusion that China is not the best role model for Russia because of its uniqueness. (6, p. 150). But I still believe that this is the case.

China came to the beginning of reforms as an agrarian-industrial country with a huge rural population that has not lost its peasant ideology and skills, and Russia - as an industrial giant with a hyper-developed military-industrial complex and other deep imbalances. The problem of market transformation of the state-owned industrial sector brings both countries closer together, but only the scale and conditions of its solution are not comparable. After all, in China, socialist industry is adjacent to the dynamic economy of free economic zones built next to it and the huge peasant sector of agriculture. The reforms began with the restoration of the peasant economy, which created important prerequisites for the development of labor-intensive export industries based on the private sector with the active participation of foreign Chinese capital and, unlike Russia, allowed us to take the time to privatize and reorganize the socialist state industry on market principles. Russia, having entered a period of market reforms without such shock absorbers, inevitably went further than China in the privatization of the socialist sector of the economy. This made it possible to define more and more precisely the boundaries and methods of state support for the economy over time. But there is no reason to believe that the negative events of the first half of the 1990s were a consequence of the reforms, and not their background. So it is impossible to say whose experience - China or Russia-is better "in general". It's just different.

There are other differences. Industrialization has greatly changed the face of China, and Russia has not remained the same. So what? In China, the urban population slightly exceeds 40% (in Russia-more than 70%), the share of industry and agriculture in GDP and employment is significantly higher than in Russia, the share of trade and services, on the contrary, is lower, i.e. China continues to industrialize, and Russia is restructuring the industrial economy. Chinese agriculture contributes much more to the country's economic "piggy bank" than in Russia, and at the same time provides a livelihood for a much larger part of the population. But this also suggests that in China, the problem of economic and social dualism is more acute than in Russia, since large masses of the relatively surplus and poor population settle in the countryside. Russia's economic structure is increasingly similar to that of advanced countries, and the increase in the share of the tertiary sector reflects a high level of urbanization and, consequently, a greater development of all elements of the social sphere than in China.

Many analysts recommend Russia's experience of Chinese reforms in the form of an active industrial policy. But it requires certain conditions for maneuvering investments, financial and labor resources. In the Asian NIS, for example, its directions and goals were clear from the very beginning, since the new economy was built, as they say, "from scratch". In China, its focus was also quite clear, as the shock absorbers of the negative side effects of reforms made it possible to reorganize the public sector gradually. In Russia, the conditions for the transition to an industrial policy emerged only when the decline in the economy stopped, and the raw material orientation of exports turned into an influx of petrodollars. And the strategic turn (Chapter 8 of the book) included, among other things, previously absent elements of such a policy.

The example of China, in general, is very useful for comparison with Russia. Thus, A. I. Salitsky rightly drew attention to the fact that the Chinese leadership approached the problem of "combining the market and socialism"in a different way than the Russian one. Indeed, the leaders of the People's Republic of China have never declared their rejection of socialism as a goal, unlike our state - " democratic "and" social " under the Constitution. But what brings China closer to Russia is that its leaders, in their interpretation of the relationship between capitalism and socialism in the period of economic modernization, follow the opposite path to V. Lenin's understanding of this problem. He proceeded from the idea of only a temporary assumption of the elements of a market economy

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during the construction of the foundations of socialism. The Chinese leadership, in fact, treats this ratio in the same way as the Russian one as the use of a whole range of administrative levers in the transition to a regulated market economy and a social state.

So there is still nothing for Russia to borrow from China on a large scale. You can hardly say: "We didn't act like them, and therefore things are worse for us." Ideas about the anarchy of unrestrained "shock" therapy and privatization in Russia are more a tribute to dissatisfaction with the severe consequences of the collapse of the communist experiment, rather than an analysis of the policy of the 1990s, its objective prerequisites and the real possibilities of the state to influence spontaneous economic and social processes in the country.

GIVE GOOD ADVICE TO YOURSELF

Regionalism. When the Soviet Union collapsed, few people in our country were not convinced that the new states could not exist outside the former inter-republican division of labor with the center in Russia. Recently, however, the tendency to reason in this way has noticeably weakened, but the prospect is still far from clear. It is clear that there is a certain potential for interaction. But is it sufficient to form a cohesive regional grouping that multiplies the strength of its members and acts in solidarity in the face of the rest of the world? It is difficult to give a definite answer to this question, if only because the restructuring of the post-Union space has not yet ended. The picture is very colorful and mobile.

L. Z. Zevin believes that I have adopted a simplified approach to the problem of Russia's place in the global world. It is considered in the narrow context of "globalization-Russia", while modern international economic relations should be described by the scheme "globalism-regionalism-national economy-local entities" (5, p. 158). In my book, the question of the optimal structure of the economic space for Russia is not reflected: the country develops "by itself". A serious remark that requires a clear statement of the author's vision of Russia's place in the world around us.

Indeed, the question of the optimal structure of the economic space for Russia is not clearly formulated in the book, although it discusses both globalization and local interactions in sections 3, 4, and especially 5. Nevertheless, I believe that our differences relate mainly to the assessment of the prospects for regional integration based on the CIS (Chapter 8 of the book, pp. 306-318). L. Z. Zevin believes that my skeptical position is determined by my lack of faith in such a possibility in an environment of fierce global competition. In his opinion, in the long run, Russia has every chance to bring the structure of the economy and the quality of governance closer to the level of highly developed countries, thereby significantly increasing the opportunities to consolidate the post-Soviet economic space. The Organization of the CIS Economic Space in its full format, in its turn, "could in principle create an economic structure that has sufficient resources to meet the needs of the world economy... resources to create a viable economic structure." Therefore, such consolidation should remain a "priority of Russia's economic policy" within the framework of a" combined " scenario for developing ties with the Euro-Atlantic region, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America and Africa.

The importance of the issue of prospects for regional integration of Russia is reinforced by A. I. Salitsky with examples of cooperation between Asian countries. According to him, since the turn of the century, advanced Asian countries are moving from continuous liberalization of foreign economic policy within the WTO to selective, focusing on strengthening regional ties and bilateral preferential agreements. The ASEAN countries and China are making a significant contribution to this process, and an agreement on the establishment of the China - ASEAN CAFTA free Trade Zone has also been concluded. But here it should be borne in mind that the regional integration of these countries has intensified on the basis of their achievements, and not preceded them. Initially, cooperation within the framework of the ASEAN regional organization established in 1967 was hindered by political differences, and most importantly, the low level of economic development of the member countries and the similarity of their economic structures focused on the export of agricultural and mineral raw materials. They were mainly united by their interest in improving their positions in export trade through a coordinated policy towards the member states.-

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consumers of their products. The progress of integration, which A. I. Salitsky drew attention to, was outlined as a result of the accumulation of a critical mass of changes in the economy of the organization's members. The size of GDP has significantly increased, its sectoral structure has diversified, the domestic market has expanded, and the export and import potential has grown. This also gave an impetus to the international division of labor.

But in the case of post-Soviet integration, something else is expected. It is believed that the restoration of the former lines of division of labor will allow all participants to use their comparative advantages in a conveniently organized economic space. Russia - to expand the market for industry, technology and capital, to accept labor, to receive raw materials. Other CIS countries - to receive energy resources and technologies, unhindered access to the regional market of raw materials and labor. Using the synergy of adding forces, proponents of this idea believe, both Russia and these countries could gradually open up to the globalizing economy. In fact, just as in ASEAN, for example, the progress of regional integration in the post - Soviet space can only be achieved in conjunction with progressive changes in the economies of all countries - changes that create new incentives for mutual cooperation instead of the former Soviet forced division of labor.

A dispute about strategies in Russia. From the point of view of L. Z. Zevin, I too harshly opposed the points of view of supporters of the export orientation of the economy and the substitution of imports by the domestic manufacturing industry. I agree that there were other options from the very beginning, but in my opinion, such a dispute acquired a fundamental character not only in the economy, but also in politics in the early 1990s. And only recently, it led to the formulation of a new strategy by the state leadership. This is evidenced, in particular, by the skeptical assessment in the presidential address of May 10, 2006, of the prospects for the early revival of a "powerful industrial power" that focuses on its own domestic market and on countries that are more backward in industrial development. By the way, the same attitude was met by his hopes to accelerate economic growth by going after NIS.

For the first time, such ideas were opposed by relying on "high-tech areas", starting with "modern energy" and including communications, space, aircraft construction, and the export of intellectual services, a strategy that, according to its authors, allows the country to get off the "oil needle"in the future. The main route is drawn as follows: oil revenues - import of technologies - renewal of fixed capital - competitive industry - high technologies. But the start of this program should be provided by the export branches of the fuel and energy complex within the framework of the new strategy of national and international energy security, which is described in detail in the book.

"Raw materials curse". But depending on the export of hydrocarbons, symptoms of the "Dutch disease" appear. Does it impose strict restrictions on the oil and gas industry as a "locomotive of development"? In the book (Chapter 7), it is treated as a specific phenomenon, the symptoms of which are manifested in all countries that are major exporters of hydrocarbons, and most of all in countries with export - oriented manufacturing industries. The influx of petrodollars contributes to the strengthening of the national currency, thereby increasing production costs and reducing the competitiveness of exports. Unlike my interpretation, P. M. Mozias understands the "Dutch disease" as a special case of general patterns of capital transfer from one industry to another, in which a particular factor of production is used most intensively. This is accompanied by a decline in production and income in those industries where it is used less intensively. In the case of the" Dutch disease", resources from other sectors of the economy are drawn to the raw materials sector. In countries with "underdeveloped" and transition economies, this, according to P. M. Mozias, is particularly painful, hindering the diversification of the economy.

I believe, however, that the phenomenon of the" Dutch disease " can hardly be considered as a specific manifestation of the general patterns of capital movement in a market economy. Rather, it tends to focus on macroeconomic issues. After all, the flow of capital into the development of mineral resources is faced with difficulties in market, and even more so in developing and transitional economies. This is, firstly, the limited areas of subsurface resources and reserves, the development of

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which is appropriate under the existing technological and market conditions. Secondly, state ownership of mineral resources and enterprises, especially in the oil and gas industry (for example, in Norway, China, Kazakhstan), state distribution of licenses among mining companies. Third, in developing and transition systems, it is the heterogeneity of the economic space, which is only partially covered by market relations. Therefore, in my opinion, the causes and consequences in this case should be reversed. Commodity dependence occurs because the economy is either poorly diversified (developing countries) or diversified (Russia as a special case of an industrial transition economy), but it is characterized by low competitiveness. Accordingly, the national task is to get rid of these shortcomings.

There is hardly anything fatally bad about the raw material orientation of exports at all, even when it comes to oil and gas. The latter are characterized by low competition and growing global demand, the availability of energy resources in national economies, and the availability of valuable raw materials for industry (oil refining, petrochemicals, etc.). The situation is no less interesting with agricultural raw materials and food exports. Until recently, it was considered by left-wing economists and politicians to be a symbol of the backwardness and dependence of developing countries in the global capitalist economy. Let's take a look, however, at the current state of affairs. With the growing global demand for food and agricultural raw materials, it was the East Asian " tigers "who, starting in the 1970s, embarked on the path of the" green revolution " and the adoption of quality standards for the primary processing of their export agricultural products. This, together with other factors already mentioned, gave one of the initial shocks to the progressive development of the economy.

Things went differently in the USSR. The place of the oil and gas sector in it was determined by the subordination of the economy to politics. Therefore, their placement in their proper places after the collapse of the socialist system changed the role of the raw materials sector. The difference in domestic conditions in the 1990s and early 2000s becomes clearer as time goes on. At that time, the main concern of the state was to fill the country's budget in order to fulfill its current obligations to the population (salaries, pensions, etc.). Now, as budget revenues grow due to oil and gas exports, the state, in an effort to maintain macroeconomic the balance through anti-inflationary measures and sterilization of rental income of the oil and gas industry, is increasingly active in industrial policy.

Economic risks. To implement the new strategy, the government has strengthened the controlled energy companies Gazprom and Rosneft, and formed state-owned corporations in strategic industries: aircraft construction, shipbuilding, and the automotive industry. A multi-branch corporation "Russian Technologies"was established. It is interesting that in this respect, Russia has similarities with the Republic of Korea. But there is also a significant difference. In South Korea, the creation of large corporations ("chaebol") is a typical way of industrialization in an agrarian country, a way to give it a forced character by centralizing capital with state support. It was passed by all countries that started industrialization much later than the leaders. Russia, in contrast, inherited a ready-made structure of large-scale industry from the Soviet system. Naturally, its restructuring took place through acquisitions, mergers, and the creation of vertically integrated and diversified companies.

At the same time, in Russia, the degree of state involvement in corporate business and interference in its affairs is higher than, say, in NIS. So the new strategy is not a panacea for all ills. Its implementation, accompanied by the centralization of State power, is fraught with many risks. First of all, this is the danger of neglecting the economic efficiency of the public sector in order to solve geopolitical and defense tasks. As Sergey Chemezov, General Director of Russian Technologies, has stated, " state corporations are a reliable bridle that restrains the market element, the pursuit of profit to the detriment of the country's strategic interests "(Expert, No. 29/2008, p. 20). It is also worth mentioning some projects that have a political background: the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean oil pipelines and the Baltic Pipeline System, gas pipelines from Western Siberia and the Far East to China, and the Olympic construction in Sochi. In the pursuit of new assets, state-owned companies are taking on large amounts of debt.-

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insurance obligations to foreign creditors. At the same time, there is a danger of reducing the effectiveness of their management due to the intertwining of personal interests of the top business and officials, as well as the lack of experienced management personnel. According to V. A. Melyantsev, the quality of Russian state institutions remains extremely low even in comparison with China and India, not to mention the group of "Asian tigers" (6, p. 158).

Analysts are also concerned about plans to shift the focus of economic development to high technologies (HT). Thus, A.V. Akimov considers the national project of innovative development based on nanotechnologies to be non-marketable in the current version: "There is no discussion," he writes, " the question of the products that will be produced and put on the market, goes out of sight, who will be the buyer and consumer." In his opinion, these will most likely be budget-funded areas. Therefore, according to A.V. Akimov, Russia "is unlikely to become the Eurasian tiger" in high technologies " (5, p. 164). Indeed, NIS, as well as China, entered the era of high technologies, so to speak, "from the back door". They started with "screwdrivers" and assembly plants based on new labor-intensive technologies, as well as buying up licenses for inventions. And only after creating a certain scientific, technical and industrial reserve, they moved on. I would like to add that the slogan of the "big technological leap" provides an ideological justification for the emphasis on large state-owned corporations - the material basis for the stability of the state vertical and the enrichment of officials through merging with state entrepreneurship, corruption and pressure on private business.

A.V. Akimov himself, agreeing with my assessment of the importance of the oil and gas complex as a "locomotive of development", pointed out another possible strategic direction - the development of agriculture. The topic is not new to him, and he is well aware of the skepticism it arouses. But the situation is changing under the influence of the steady increase in world food prices, and there is something to discuss specifically. This is the problem of import substitution for many types of food products and access to foreign grain markets, cultivation of land that has temporarily fallen out of economic use, and finally, ensuring the inflow of investment into the industry through the involvement of agricultural land, water resources, and minerals in the market turnover. There are other reserves of growth. This includes, for example, infrastructure development, deeper processing of raw materials, the transition to a global standardization system, and much more.

Indeed, have all the reserves of economic growth already been tapped? From this point of view, the conclusions of V. A. Melyantsev are interesting. First of all, he drew attention to the fact that, strictly speaking, it is not entirely clear to us exactly how fast the Russian economy is growing. It is possible that the official figures are too high (6, p. 000). However, due to rising prices of exported hydrocarbons and raw materials, the average annual growth rate of real disposable income of the Russian Federation significantly outstrips the GDP growth rate. He stressed that none of the "Asian tigers" had such an increase in the "increase"to their economic growth over any long period of time. But this growth is mainly due to extensive, rather than intensive factors. That is, as in China, but worse than in India and the main group of "Asian tigers". One of the reasons for this situation is the obsolescence of fixed capital due to the low rate of internal investment. It is significantly lower than in the main "tigers", China and India. In addition, unlike them, Russia has exhausted its labor reserves, and its population is decreasing. The advantage of Russia in the field of education is also questioned, and the return on science is unsatisfactory due to its inefficient organization, and not only insufficient funding.

Ultimately, therefore, the problem is to establish the right relationship between the elements of the modernization strategy. Maximize your comparative advantage in the form of a powerful fuel and energy complex, identify the list of industries and industries that are of strategic importance in the economy, bear the greatest social burden and at the same time are unaffordable for private capital, which means that they require state participation. Make a fundamental decision on how much investment in the high - tech sector, on the one hand, and in the technological reconstruction of industry and agricultural development, on the other, should contribute to the country's economic development.

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However, the choice is made more difficult by the trends of state-building. Mobilization of growth reserves requires continued market reforms and self-defense of private businesses against the state, as well as streamlining labor immigration. All the risks listed above are compounded by the dangers created by the desire of the leading political stratum to fully centralize public administration - the "power vertical". The specificity of the current situation is that the country has not yet ended the forceful redistribution of property and has not yet developed a homogeneous economic space, the level of monopolism and all kinds of oligopolistic collusion is high. The state is most likely to resort to forceful methods of influencing economic agents. This may bring some success, but it hinders the creation of a favorable investment climate in the country. Meanwhile, as the historical experience of European countries has shown, at the stage of industrial society, at which Russia is located, the best alternative to a centralized bureaucracy isa social democratic model with strong organizations of producers, wage workers, and consumers, with social movements and a state governed by the rule of law with highly developed social functions. So far, however, the evolution of the state is going in the opposite direction, and this can only increase the economic and political risks listed above.

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