Неэргодическая экономика

Авторский аналитический Интернет-журнал

Изучение широкого спектра проблем экономики

На английском языке
The article considers the current state of economic science and the methodological contradictions accumulated in its depths. The central thesis is the paradox of science, according to which meeting all the strict criteria of scientificity does not allow the current economic knowledge to give an effective response to the challenges of modernity. In order to substantiate this paradox, four attributes of the scientific nature of economics have been considered: theoretical, observational, inductive (historical) and experimental. Seven groups of objective causes provoking the decline in the practical relevance of economics were investigated in parallel. The emergence of the paradox of science against the background of long–term failures of economic science in explaining and predicting the key events of modernity indicates that for over 30 years it has been in a global methodological deadlock, in which one can stay indefinitely, rather than in a crisis that is resolved sooner or later. Therefore, a new social science – socionomics – needs to be created. Such attempts have been repeatedly made, but failed. Consideration of the methodological features of tectology, cybernetics, general systems theory and synergetics allows us to understand the reasons for these failures: identifying systems of different nature and assuming the universality of the laws to which they obey. The article shows new attempts of interdisciplinary research in Russia aimed at revealing deep analogies between structural patterns in physics, chemistry, biology and informatics and spatio–temporal archetypes (hexagrams) in the Chinese “Book of Changes” (“I Ching”). The author has revealed the reasons why these studies do not lead to final success in spite of their obvious fruitfulness: “The Book of Changes” operates with content and form of the phenomenon, but not with its scale, which gives the illusion of accuracy, but does not allow to make practically significant calculations. The contours of a new science – socionomics – are outlined.
The article discusses mechanisms that are put into action during the hybrid war of civilizations that has unfolded at the present time. For this purpose, the concepts of two antagonistic megacivilizations – the West and the Non–West – have been introduced. We reveal the essence and genesis of the First and Second civilizational failures within Western civilization, reconstruct the anatomy of destruction of the national model of Russia’s social development after 1991 under the influence of the neocolonial governance system. We uncover and interpret the paradox of the lag in the development of the two megacivilizations, look into the genesis of the passionarity of the ethnos, and substantiate the primacy of geopolitical logic over economic logic. We provide an outlook of the current hybrid war between the West and the Non–West. The novelty of our approach consists in combining the knowledge of different sciences to explain social processes during the period of geopolitical turbulence. We look into philosophical phenomena (opposite dynamics of the material and spiritual spheres), cybernetic (full and partial cybernetic inversions), historical (birth of ethnic passionarity), political (hybrid wars), biological (neuroplasticity of the brain), cultural (cultural plasticity of civilization), economic (world currency, phenomenon of superprofits) factors. This made it possible to correlate objective and subjective factors in the confrontation between the two megacivilizations. The main conclusion of the study is that neither the West (USA) nor the Non–West (Russia) has clear advantages in the unfolding hybrid war of civilizations. The tactical superiority of the West is opposed to the strategic superiority of the Non–West; this situation does not allow us to make unambiguous predictions about the future winner.
The article deals with the problem of identifying world–class universities (WCU) on the basis of information provided by various ranking systems. The relevance of the problem is due to the fact that in 2022 Russia was “cut off” from the world community, including the interruption of cooperation with leading international ranking universities, so the country risks losing the opportunity to self–check its successes and failures by generally recognized criteria. In this regard, the purpose of this article is hypothesis verification that the “friendly” ranking of ARWU base can serve as an effective substitute for the “unfriendly” OS ranking base. To test the formulated hypothesis, we used the previously developed algorithm for identifying WCU using statistical data from the five Global University Rankings – Ouacquarelli Symonds (OS), Times Higher Education (THE), Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) and National Taiwan University Ranking (NTU) – and two University Rankings by subject – OS and ARWU. Conducted calculations disproved the general hypothesis and revealed a fundamental inconsistency of results obtained on the basis of different rankings. In addition, by the example of the ARWU, a profound contradiction in the logic of compiling the GUR and the SRU was uncovered. That raises a broader question about adequacy of the concept of the WCU itself. To answer this question, we conducted a “humanitarian test” for the validity of modern WCU, which showed the presence of elementary illiteracy and lack of culture among graduates of advanced universities. Collected stylized examples allowed to establish that modern world market leaders’ universities do not pass the “humanitarian test”, and therefore the entire rating system cannot be considered a reliable basis for conclusions about the activities of universities. The question of replacing the term WCU with a less pretentious “product” category – practice–oriented universities – is being discussed.
The paper investigates a set of factors contributing to Russia’s transformation into a new world capital accumulation center in the next two to three decades. The novelty of our approach lies in the fact that we consider the current phase of global geopolitical turbulence through the prism of the capital accumulation cycles theory in order to determine the vector of future development of the world economic system. We dig into the topic by forming a comprehensive picture of Russia’s potential advantages that are quite versatile. Thus, we look into the following phenomena: geographical (ice decline in the Russian Arctic; Russia evolving from a land power into a sea power; natural resources endowment), philosophical (dialectical confrontation of homogeneity and heterogeneity of the world system), historical (syndrome of false contender for the role of a world capital accumulation center; passionarity of the ethnos), political (parade of sovereignties and imperial revanchists, diffusion of the nuclear syndrome, legitimization of the struggle against political and managerial opposition), political economy (cycles of capital accumulation; world capital accumulation center; Russia’s economy joining the world system of capitalism), economic (effectiveness of international economic sanctions; general–purpose technologies; industry cycles; regulatory and technology triads), demographic (demographic curse), cultural (openness of the Russian Civilization to immigrants, its civilizing experience in relation to other peoples, high civilizational absorption), military (latent and active phases of hybrid warfare; hybrid warfare paradox), factors and management effects (autonomous and authoritarian management, hegemon and leader models). This helped us to reconstruct the system of checks and balances formed around the Russian Federation in the hybrid warfare between the West and the Non–West. We deepen the analysis by providing our own interpretation of sea states and land states. The main conclusion of the research is that Russia possesses unique geopolitical advantages that allow it to successfully counteract the Collective West and eventually become a new leader of the world economic system.
The article is devoted to the disclosure of the concept of the global university market and the rationale for the need to abandon the idea of a world–class university (WCU) the concept is based on. The authors have shown that in 2022, due to increased global geopolitical turbulence, the global university market began to split into local (regional) segments, and the consensus reached in the previous two decades on the criteria for leading universities was finally broken. The paper notes that the confrontation between the West and the East, which worsened in 2022, led to the destruction of the US monopoly in the higher education market and the transformation of a homogeneous university market into a heterogeneous one, for which the WCU concept loses its former meaning. This is largely due to the denial of the former role of global university rankings, which have become completely irrelevant under international sanctions with the accompanying phenomenon of scientific ostracism of individual countries. The authors prove that the system of international university rankings leads to the formation of the effect of false prestige, when the scientific achievements of the United States and Europe are unduly exaggerated, including by imposing false ideologemes and mythologemes regarding progressive organizational models of universities. As an alternative to the WCU, the authors propose a concept of Higher Class University (HCU), which is based on the closest connection of the university with the high–tech sectors of the national economy through its participation in research and production and experimental projects of the country’s leading companies. The article shows that the new concept and the adoption of the construction of a HCU set as the goal of modernizing the system of higher education in Russia leads to revolutionary changes in the organizational model of domestic universities. The authors have considered the most important aspects in the field of personnel policy during the HCUs creation.
The geopolitical turbulence dictates the need to transform the science and education sphere and reconsider the role of universities in today’s world. The article deals with the issue of defining and identifying world–class universities (WCU) and their connection with the technological development of the countries, where they are located. In particular, the research considers the problem of the validity (adequacy) of the WCU rankings. Methodologically, the study relies on the global and subject rankings of universities compiled by leading rating agencies. The paper proposes a modified algorithm to increase the accuracy of the WCU identification. For the applied calculations, the paper uses data from five ranking products: Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education (THE), Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) and National Taiwan University Ranking (NTU). According to the results, Russia has only one WCU, which is at the stage of losing this status. In order to check the validity of the list of WCU, the research suggests the validity index that takes into account the completeness of the representation of universities of the Nuclear Club countries in the above list. Calculations demonstrate that this index amounts to 43.3 %, which indicates that modern rating sources of information perform extremely poorly for Russia and Asian countries. The research concludes that the existing ideas about WCU, as well as the methods for their identification, no longer correspond to the new realities, and insists that the central property of WCU should be direct participation in real high–tech projects of the highest (world) level and a significant contribution made due to this to the development of the national economy.
According to a general social development theory postulate called the consistency principle, the economic growth rate depends not only upon technological, institutional, and cultural progress, but also upon the degree of consistency between these factor groups. The paper formalizes and verifies this hypothesis by applying econometric models to a sample of 154 countries. GDP growth rate was used as the output variable, and technologies, institutions, and culture quantified via proxy variables of labor productivity, Doing Business, and Corruption Perception Indices, respectively, as input ones. A fixed effect model was built on this basis, with explanatory variables’ coefficients adjusted by means of covariance–dispersion matrices. The empirical calculations confirmed the validity of the consistency principle for a group of rich countries (with above the average per capita income), but not for a group of poor countries with per capita income below the average. The obtained results were interpreted in terms of Acemoglu–Robinson’s “narrow corridor” and the structural competition concepts and the self–organization theory. It is shown that in the scope of the Acemoglu–Robinson concept, the consistency principle becomes a necessary condition for the occurrence of the Red Queen effect.
The article examines the situation of Russia falling into the epicenter of geopolitical shifts in 2022, when the country found itself involved in the hybrid warfare with the Collective West. The novelty of our approach consists in reconstructing key events of the geopolitical competition of the last 15–20 years with the use of an extensive range of related concepts from various fields: economics (Trout’s mistake, neocolonialism), cybernetics (Ashby’s Law and Sedov’s Law), management (external management, hybrid warfare), synergetics (synergetic effect, system complexity), political science (security, freedom, power structure), political economy (Arrighi’s cycles of capital accumulation, global capital center, rate of return), institutionalism (shifting risks from the physical world to the social world), geography (horizontal diffusion of innovations), psychology (war of meanings, war of nerves). This made it possible to bring together many poorly compatible phenomena of different nature, synthesize the concepts used and reveal the logic behind the struggle of geopolitical players for world hegemony. To deepen the analysis, we provide our own typology of world wars and their characteristics. We prove that the special military operation in Ukraine exposed the impasse of Russia’s economic policy and consolidated other countries in a hybrid war against the United States, thereby becoming a key event in history and giving rise to a global geopolitical confrontation between the West and the Non–West. Our main conclusion is that Russia has objectively found itself in the epicenter of geopolitical turbulence, and, consequently, cannot avoid a direct collision with the Collective West; therefore, over the next 15–20 years the country will have to go through all the stages of a new hybrid world war.
The article puts forward a polycausal concept of social evolution (PCSE) based on taking into consideration the structure of the competition mechanism. The novelty of the PCSE lies in the simultaneous consideration of a set of interrelated variables of the competition mechanism that exclude the establishment of simple cause–and–effect relationships typical ofmonocausal theoretical constructions. A structural scheme of the PCSE includes the subject, object, environment and the process of competition; all of them are directly associated with such civilizational phenomena as technology, institutions, culture and ecosystem; together, these variables determine the nature of economic growth and the type of capitalist (market) relations. This approach can be called a method of structural (organizational) competition. To illustrate the PCSE and test its explanatory capabilities, we look for answers to the following classic questions: Why has human civilization matured in Eurasia rather than in other continents? How did humanity manage to break out of the Malthusian trap? How can we explain the Needham Puzzle? Why are some countries and peoples rich, while others are poor? Why do some poor countries and peoples manage to catch up with rich ones, while others do not? How can we explain the “case of the USSR”? The proposed PCSE is used to reconstruct key events in the history of human civilization. For this purpose, we put forward a structural outline of social evolution, which includes basic principles and mechanisms that determine certain results of the development of human societies. In conclusion, we make an attempt to use the PCSE to designate reference points of a modern civilizational crisis.
The transition to the post–industrial society is linked with the fundamental restructuring of the national economy, large–scale lay–offs and altering requirements to occupational qualification. The paper aims to determine the main thrusts of the upcoming changes. Methodologically, the research relies on the theories of vital resources and technological change. The author applies an interdisciplinary approach based on the findings from ethology, medicine, sociology, psychology, political science and economics, and methods of system analysis. In particular, he projects the theory of vital resources onto the economic development of the civilisation to elaborate on the character of the fourth vital mega–wave connected with the emergence of the industry of leisure as a dominant economic sector. The author demonstrates that such a course of events brings the managerial problem of interaction between the ruling elites and the masses to a new level. Having considered Calhoun’s law, Maslow’s pyramid of needs and Bauman’s rule, the researcher reveals social ambivalence of the economy of leisure, which has the potential for both the evolution and degradation of humankind. He discusses the initiative of the Russian government bodies to introduce a four–day working week, and points to the necessity and feasibility of this measure. The researcher suggests abandoning ambitious global projects in favour of regionalisation of the labour market when managing the economy and the higher education system. Taking into account the results of the projection of the Guex – Crevoisier matrix on the university sector, he argues that Russian universities should switch to stronger orientation towards the economic needs of the territories where they are located.
Яндекс.Метрика



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