The article examines characteristics of digitalization in the Russian economy in its connection with the semi-peripheral position of Russia. The reasons for the lack of efficiency of Russian ...digitalization and its uneven development in various economy sectors are explained. According to the authors, the root causes of this state of affairs can be seen even in the patterns of the degeneration and disintegration of the Soviet Union, when the features of rent-seeking behavior of the ruling elite were first identified. The article presents the results of a study into the needs for information resources in the sectors of the Russian economy (in comparison with the group of reference countries), which reflect the decline in those in industry and, on the contrary, the concentration in the research and development sector. The authors believe that these data confirm the conclusion about the selective and generally insufficient character of digitalization.
Despite the prolonged economic recovery in 1999–2008, investment by Russian corporations in productive capacity was low and deficient in quality. Eichner's model of megacorp gives an insight into ...investment behaviour of Russian corporations due to its emphasis on indivisibility of investment decision, pricing and distribution of income between profits and wages. The typical Russian corporation is characterised by inseparability of ownership and management due to largely informal control of big insiders over enterprises. The groups, dominating over Russian corporations, seek to maximise the short-term rent. Along with a number of intra-firm conflicts this undermines both the supply of and the demand for investment funds.
The Ukraine crisis is usually treated either as Russia's return to the old-style empire-building (the right) or as a clash of two imperialisms (the left). However, the essence of this crisis can be ...understood only from the dual perspective of the consequences of the Stalinist degeneration of the Russian Revolution and the fate of the modern global capitalism. The most rotten sections of the Soviet bureaucracy moved the society to capitalism. However, this effort could secure only a peripheral (Ukraine) or at best semi-peripheral (Russia) position in the capitalist world-system as a provider of cheap raw materials. Meanwhile, modern capitalism led to world economic crisis. In these conditions, the capital of the core capitalist countries obviously decided to strengthen its control over the periphery, and Russia's aspirations to secure its domination over the former Soviet space were in the way. To thwart them, Western powers decided to provoke a Ukraine crisis, exploiting Ukrainians' justified indignation at the backwardness and corruption inherent in their own peripheral capitalism. Hence, a study of the properties of the post-Soviet societies and their place in the world hierarchy is the key to understanding the Ukraine crisis.
The present chapter is focused on the impact of the global crisis on the process of Eurasian integration. Its main idea is that the Eurasian integration is the response of the former Soviet societies ...to the crisis of the current capitalist world-system. The paper defines the nature of the current world-system as based on global 'value chains'. The new Post-Soviet states are seen through the lens of the world-system approach, and treated as a form of peripheral or semi-peripheral societies. Their essence is understood as transferring a part of the incomes created by their populations to the core countries. Neoliberal ideology substantiates this. The world economic crisis revealed the vulnerability of such societies which are especially sensitive to global turbulence. The turmoil generated in Post-Soviet states by the world crisis demonstrated to the public and the elites of Post-Soviet states the failure of the neoliberal agenda. The Eurasian integration of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus is their response to the global crisis of the current capitalist world-system.
The nature of Russia's nascent capitalism defines its Russian foreign policy and particularly its involvement in the Ukraine crisis. The author rejects the "two imperialisms" thesis concerning ...East-West confrontation. He departs from the world-system approach and defines Russian capitalism as a semi-periphery of the world system. This means that Russia is half-dependent on the West. On the other hand, it is able to challenge Western hegemony on certain issues. The nature of the country's big business is seen as short-term, rent-seeking behaviour, inconsistent with sound investment and long-term development. Atomisation of the ruling class creates preconditions for a strong authoritative state. However, the Russian ruling elite is deeply split into two factions: one oriented to integration with the West (comprador elite) and the other favouring the strengthening of independent Russian capitalism. Russian foreign policy is shaped by the opposition and compromises between these two groups. That is the reason why it is so inconsistent and contradictory. Particularly in Ukraine, Russia tries to withstand Western challenge, but leaves open options for accommodation. The Russian attempt to make the West regard its national interests within the framework of the current world order, according to the present paper, is doomed to failure.
The paper provides a rejoinder to Simon Pirani's critique of the insider rent model of the modern Russian capitalism. It is argued that the notion of insider rent as a concrete form of surplus value ...allows one to grasp the historical dynamics of the Russian society in the 1990s-2000s. The author makes a point that under the favorable conditions of the last decade the strategies of Russian big business largely moved from short-term to medium-term time horizon. However, the system is still based on insider rent extraction. As a result, state functionaries often became large insiders themselves, intra-firm conflicts continue, the country's semi-peripheral status is entrenched, and authoritarianism strengthens. The paper concludes that analysis of the modern Russian society in insider rent perspective demonstrates continuity, rather than disruption, in development of the country s nascent capitalism in the 1990s and the 2000s.
Modern Russian capitalism has dual origins, in the decay of the Soviet system and in the impact on Russia of world capitalism. An important transformation of the Soviet society, with private ...appropriation growing up on the basis of state property, became incarnate in today s private property when decisive support was provided by the West for Russia's market reforms. Modern-day private property in Russia bears the birthmark of Stalinism in the violent reality that lies behind the facade of joint-stock companies, and it is because of this reality that the Russian bourgeoisie focuses on the extraction of short-term income in the form of insider rent. The latter is in fact a specific form of surplus value that distinguishes modern Russian capitalism and defines its fundamental character. The business culture that has arisen on this basis is not conducive to long-term investment or to the efficient management of production, while the predatory methods of labour exploitation that are employed serve to ensure that Russian society is characterised by mass poverty and profound social conflict. With private property resting on violence, there is no possibility of creating a real democracy.
The economy of imposed underdevelopment Dzarasov, Ruslan Soltanovich
Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
2014/3, Letnik:
84, Številka:
2
Journal Article
The accelerated adoption of a draft law underpinning the reorganization of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and the disregard for the demands of the scientific community to perform an expert ...analysis of the draft law, organize a broad public debate, and introduce significant amendments to the text have spurred the debate about the possible causes of such a tough, if not aggressive, attitude of the Russian authorities to the Academy in particular and to research in general. Personal ambitions and a new stage of wealth redistribution, as well as the reluctance of the state to maintain such a large scientific structure, have been cited among the possible causes of such an attitude. The author of this paper attempts to look beyond these issues. Specifically, he perceives the RAS reform as part of the establishment and development of peripheral capitalism in Russian society.
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