Marx’s ‘omnipotent teachings’ and modernization of the Russian economy
The current global economic crisis has obviously raised a new interest among public readers in Karl Marx’s economic doctrine. Meanwhile, the official policymakers in the Kremlin have once again deemed it necessary to warn citizens against their ‘old habits’ of relying on any form of ‘omnipotent doctrine’ or on ‘foreign aid’ when solving their problems. Today, Marx’s teachings have been rejected. Can it be true that we now need to turn away from such ‘powerful doctrine’ as ‘Economics,’ and in addition to it, from the services of foreign advisers?
In their appeal to rely only on themselves, and consequently, only on the authorities’ actions and policies, Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, and his team have set ‘modernization of the economy’ as a top priority policy on their agenda. But an economy comprises two inherently interconnected and interdependent parts. These are the production forces and economic structure, or the real basis of a society, which, in turn, is inherently connected with juridical and political superstructures. Not knowing this fact today is as uncivilized and uneducated as being ignorant of the fact that the Earth rotates round the Sun. It would seem more natural to simultaneously modernize both parts of the economy. But so far, this has not been the case.
Lots of official statements have been made about the need for diversification of the local economy away from its lopsided dependence on raw-material resources, implementation of high technologies and innovations in the real economy sector, in other words, about the pressing necessity to modernize the forces of production. But nobody is talking about really modernizing the nation’s economic system. Consequently, the proposed reform measures are mainly being focused on modernizing the production forces and the social superstructures – the political system, laws, the courts, education, etc., whilst leaving aside the institutions that ought to be reformed in the first place. Today, this is the main problem blocking growth and development in Russia that has become a very fertile soil for breeding all forms of lawlessness and evil in the country and the whole world.
“This current global economic crisis has obviously raised the reading public’s interest in Karl Marx’s economic teachings.”
The global economic crisis has revealed – and this is its main benefit – that today’s economic system in general, and its nucleus, the banking sector, in particular, are the weakest links in global and national economies. This in reality means that Russians are being offered a ‘one-sided’ modernization of their country and its economy. Indeed, implementation of these types of ‘modernizations’ is very typical of our ‘old habits’ It was because of such policy that tsarist Russia was stuck in a serfdom-based economic system, the Soviet Union got stuck halfway in its transition to socialism and the reason why contemporary Russia has yet to make any significant progress after almost 20 years of following monetary-market capitalism, albeit a 19th century model.
Dangers inherent in one-sided modernization of society and economy
A policy that envisages the modernization of one component of an economy without simultaneously modernizing the other that is inherently connected with it can only lead to the intensification of the traditional contradictions between the two integral parts. Such an approach will lead to exacerbation of the existing social conflicts in the country, and consequently, encourage a chaotic rejection of the nation’s hopelessly outdated economic system, and with the whole social law and order in the society. We know very well from our own ugly historical experiences how social upheavals can be in Russia and also how foreign countries can help inflame, spread and use such worsening situations to their own advantages.
Such old way of modernization is what is being proposed to the nation today by the president and his team, supported by the other branches of government, the ruling party and a whole army of ‘vulgar’ doctorate degree holders in social sciences as well as majority of print and electronic mass-media representatives that are on the Kremlin’s becks and calls. Of course, nobody had wanted to propose or execute a ‘one-sided modernization’ of the economy. As usual, this has happened accidentally and against the authors’ will.
This why after the implementation of such policies, as is the usual practice among us Russians, we will have to solve the problems that we had caused for ourselves, leading to our traditional questions of “who is to blame?,” and “what to do?” And, as answers to these questions we shall certainly cite the well known-phrase of Viktor Chernomyrdin. It is these “old habits” and Soviet-era practices of setting noble targets and trying to achieve them via crude techniques that we really need to get rid off today. “An economy should be economical,” Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev once said. Until now we had always remembered this saying with a smile. “An economy should be clever,” says Medvedev. Has the president really invented this phrase by himself? If so, then who specifically among those running the Russian economy today ought to become more intelligent, the producers? Any rational person would agree with this. But what about the economists controlling these producers?
One thing that is true is that a national economy should be cleverly organized and run. But such an economy can only be created with the help of an effective economic science. And where is such science today? It is lying wasted on the fringes of global history, the place, where it has been condemned to by poor Marxists of Soviet-era, where, as a result, one can find all that they had built, written and invented over 60 years.
Consequently, the ‘true’ and, therefore, ‘powerful doctrine’ of Marx was initially thrown to the fringes of world history and later completely buried under the wreckages of ‘vulgar’ socialism. And who is to blame for this? Contemporary economists would, of course, rather blame Marx than the inventors and builders of this ‘vulgar’ type of socialism. Most of the latter have long transformed themselves into ‘democrats and free-market-economy advocates.’ It is the same people, who after setting up ‘vulgar’ socialism in Russia that have now created ‘vulgar democracy’ and ‘vulgar’ free-market economy.
Shifting the blames for economic failures to classical economists
It is interesting to know whom these people will blame for their next economic failure, which is already looming in the horizon. Could the ‘scapegoat’ this time be the ‘vulgar’ economist Jean-Baptist Say or customs official Adam Smith? The answer is well-known: these people will put the blame on anyone, but not on themselves. One can only envy such ‘ingenuity,’ which enables them to create enormous problems in the country instead of solving them, and to virtuously shift the blames for their failures from their own ‘sick heads’ to the healthy heads of classical economists, and also to parasitize initially in one economic school and later parasitize in another that is fundametally different. And at the same time, make lots of money; build successful scientific and political careers in the process. It really takes some ingenuity to be able to do all these things.
As soon as the world economy got into this current trouble, the rationally thinking part of humanity instinctively turned to Das Kapital, the epitome of Marx’s economic doctrine. The spirit of this ‘omnipotent teaching,’ thanks to its methods, will never become outdated. But its body, buried alive under the wreckages of ‘vulgar’ socialism, has now lain so long on the fringes of contemporary world history that the teaching itself is now in need of modernization. Is this not the same thing that happened to the ‘body’ of tsarist, Soviet, and contemporary Russia? And has Russia, when passing through periods of mortal dangers, not distinguished itself by its youthfulness, sobriety of mind and spiritual strength?
This is why today it is high time for Russians to stop living in captivity of disappointing illusions and fatal mistakes from the Soviet era. This is why the main theoretical and practical problems, whose solutions, in my humble opinion, are urgently waiting for by the overwhelming majority of Russians today, include the following: 1) financial capital: theory and practice in the 20th century, 2) a principally new model of socialist economy, and 3) transitional economic models from the contemporary era of global financial capital to socialism (see an article on the latter by this author in the September 2009 edition of this journal). If we can successfully solve all these tasks, then we will be able to exhume from its grave and modernize not only Marx’s ‘powerful doctrine,’ but also our long-suffering Russia, and indeed, the whole of the oppressed world.
*The author of this article is an independent economist.
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