Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 27 – A market
economy won’t save Russia from falling apart; indeed, it may even accelerate
that process, according to a Moscow commentator, not only by concentrating
development in some regions at the expense of others but also by leading to
expanded ties between the periphery of the country and foreign states.
Where national identity is strong
and where people value the existing borders of the state, those consequences of
a market economy may not matter; but where they are not, this particular impact
of markets may be fatal for national development or even the maintenance of the
territorial integrity of the country.
And such risks or even the fears
that they will prove true help to explain why many in Moscow are afraid of a genuine,
that is, free market economy and prefer instead one in which the state plays a
far larger role in directing capital and labor flows and thus in maintaining
national integration.
In an essay on KM.ru, Sergey
Chernyakhovsky argues bluntly that “a market economy will not save Russia from
disintegration” and that “’thanks’ to the reforms” Russia has undergone, the
country has shifted “from socialism to feudalism and continues to degrade” (km.ru/v-rossii/2014/01/15/ottok-i-pritok-kapitala-v-rossiyu/729862-rynochnaya-ekonomika-ne-spaset-rossiyu-#.UtfFej_Phds.livejournal).
What
Chernyakhovsky calls “industrial socialism” did relatively well in the
competition with industrial capitalism, but it “lost the competition with
post-industrial capitalism” and thus the Soviet Union collapsed. But instead of
pursuing the development of post-industrial capitalism after 1991, Moscow has
tried to establish industrial capitalism even though most of the rest of the
world has moved on.
That mistaken attempt to set up a
form of social-economic relations which had already been superceded elsewhere led
to the destruction of post-industrial
spheres like science and education in Russia and reduced it to being a country
that had to pay for goods by exporting raw materials and thus one that cannot
compete.
Russia’s failure to make the
transition to post-industrial capitalism or even to fully realize industrial
capitalism, Chernyakhovsky argues, “led to a situation in which capitalist
relations were not supported”and in which “political instability, the ineffectiveness
of state administration, and the degradation of production” fed on one another.
Investing capital was “risky and
ineffective” and so it was exported, and with its continuing export, Russia
lost the capacity to move toward a post-industrial capitalism that would allow
it to compete with the major countries of the world. Worse, becaue there was little
private industrial production, there was no real private property in the
classical sense.
Instead, what was created as a
system of early feudalism, one in which “the powers transferred certain economic
objects to their supporters” and allowed them to enrich themselves as long as
they did not pose a political challenge.
That meant the latter had little incentive to develop their sectors and
great incentive to export their earliers.
It also meant,Chernyakhovsky
continues, that these feudal owners hadlittle incentive to pay their workers an
adequate wage and that in turn meant that capitalism could not be developed
because it “cannot exist [at least for very long] without a more or less
adequate payment of the work force.”
And those factors together led to “a
regression of the forms of social life, de-industrialization and
de-urbanization of the country,” to a system “lower than capitalism” and
incapable of competition.
But more disturbing for many, the
new arrangements threaten the territorial integrity of the country because
those who “own” the resources have an incentive to sell them to foreigners and
to export capital rather than develop them and integrate the nation and the
state. And that puts the country’s current borders at risk.
The only way out, according to
Chernyakhovsky, is to cut Russia off, at least for a time, from the world
economy and expand the role of the state in order to engage in nation
building. But” the contemporary Russian
state does not have the means to limit these processes” because of its own shortcomings and lack of legitimacy
among the population.
Instead, the state consists of
groups “who are interested in the export of capital and resosurces” and thus “cannot
end this export because that would lead to a conflict with those who guarantee
its power.”
“The preservation of the state
integrity of Russia,” he continues, will require “a limitation of the rights of
economic groups to the maximum export of regional resources.” But that will
create new tensions between the center and the forces on the periphery on which
it currently relies.
“Without the support of these
groups,” Moscow “cannot maintain its power in the regions, that is, guarantee
the territorial integrity o the country, but it can pay these groups only by a
genuine reection of this integrity,” something it is unwilling to acknowledge
even as it is doing it.
Chernyakhovsky argues that “Russia
cannot get out of its crisis” by market mechanisms alone because”market logic
presupposes the continuing export of resources in exchange for product of
current consumption,” something that will lead to the further degradation and
falling behind of the country.
If it is to move forward, it needs a
domestic “Marshal Plan,” something that is “theoretically possible” but would
cost “several trillion dollars.” That
would allow Russia to become a post-industrial capitalist country with growing
rather than declining intellectual and scientific capacities.
But at present, Chernyakhovsky
concludes, Moscow does not have either the resources or the understanding for
such a project, although fears of disintegration may lead it to choose “a
course of [state-organized] mobilization in which all internal resources are
subordinated to the resolution of this task.”
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