Civilization Systems and Models of Social and Economic Development of Russia and Other European Post-Communist Countries

Abstract

Ovsey Shkaratan — Tenured Professor, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”. Address: 20, Myasnitskaya St., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation. E-mail: ovsey.shkaratan@gmail.com

The discussion of transformation outcomes has become increasingly tense in the recent years and is now challenging contemporary social sciences. Two major approaches can be distinguished today. According to one of them, transformation is a linear process and it refers to а logical transition from non-market to market economy. Such an understanding of social development constitutes the classic theory of modernization (W. Rostow, T. Parsons). Similar lack of alternativeness is also a characteristic of the increasingly popular world-system analysis (I. Wallerstain). Yet it can be argued that institutional structure and value systems, which determine the inner logics of social development, are not so universal in nature. The end of 1990s saw the rise of new theories of non-European modernity, the variety of capitalisms and the trend towards distinguishing modernization from Westernization. These ideas have received much support in developing countries. We too argue that the difference in transformation outcomes in European and Eurasian areas cannot be adequately explained in terms of a single-vector deterministic model. The reason for the emerging variety of socio-economic developments may very well lie in the inner-civilization differences between countries.

We argue that both, Marxist and liberal unitarisms, with their optionless evolutionary approaches to certain socio-historic organisms, ignore the interconnection of common and particular human history, and thus become a subject to discussion. Along with the unitarian approach, according to which the development processes within particular socio-historic organisms follow a single logic in human history, there also exists a pluralist multilinear approach. It implies, that humanity is represented by a set of relatively autonomous historic entities, each of which has a certain life cycle with its own stages of birth, development and decease.

The concept of monolinearity was criticized as far back as the late 19th century by a Russian historian N. Danilevsky, whose notion of civilization concurrency (‘ryadopolozhennost’ tsivilizatsiy’) [Danilevsky 2003] suggests that along with some

universal essentials, civilizations may have very specific goals of development and their own criteria of civilization’s successful reproduction. Danilevsky is also the author of the idea that among the factors which stipulate multilinearity of the historical process and the variety of options of social development, a special role belongs to the type of civilization we choose. He also produced his own theory of cultural-historical types: ‘... civilization is a notion far more extensive than science, art, religion, political, economic or social development taken alone. Civilization includes it all. I am saying that even religion itself is a notion inferior to that of civilization’ [Danilevsky 2003, p. 129]. He reckoned that such analysis of history-dependent types of civilization help to explain many phenomena of the past, present and future of different peoples, especially since he had learned about the particularities of Russian culture and history. Although he never criticized the Romano-Germanic culture, Danilevsky completely denied its universality and perceived his native Russian civilization as its equal, but essentially a different counterpart.

In 20th century, advocates of historical pluralism such as O. Spengler, A.J. Toynbee, L. Gumilyov, S. Huntington and others became popular. By accepting the possibility of concurrent development for countries which belong to different civilizations, one does not have to deny the universality of technologies of existence in the very broad sense of its meaning. Although, what we must consider is that institutional structure and value systems, which regulate development processes within certain social organisms, may not be, and usually are not, universal in nature. Thus it makes sense that different civilizations and, consequently, nation states which fall under these civilizations, are very likely to develop along different vectors.

Institutional theory has also produced a hypothesis, according to which there exist different institutional matrices that can be regarded as latent mechanisms of the functioning and reproduction of socio-historic organisms. The matrix acts as a stable and historically dependent set of interacting institutions that are specific for particular civilizations. By applying this logic in a comparative analysis of Eastern and Western macrocivilizations, some Russian economists argue that in a historical perspective the Eastern matrix persistently features non-market mechanisms of distribution, a centralized state and the priority of collective values over individual ones.

The existing variety of development paths can generally be reduced to the differences that arise between two dominating types of civilization, which contingently can be referred to as European and Asiatic. The first one emerged from ancient polices and, basically, represents a chain of societies with private property; the balance between civil society and civil institutions; advanced personality and the priority of individual values. The Asiatic type is historically connected to Asian despotisms; the domination of state property; all-powerful government institutional structures; the lack of civil society and so forth. We rely on the explanatory concept of basic institutional structures, which distinguishes Eastern civilizations from Western ones — the so-called relations of power-property. This concept was developed by an outstanding Russian Orientalist, L. Vasiliev, in his works from the 1960s — 1990s. It is peculiar that in the course of human history this type of civilization has dominated geographically, as well as historically. And it also explains why in the 20th century etacratism (in other terms, etatism or statism) has developed in the countries under the Asiatic civilization area.

Yet it should be underlined that there is no such necessity as to draw the dividing line between monolinear and multilinear approaches. We cannot, as well, ignore the experience of the previous centuries, institutionalized in verifiable sources. This experience provides evidence of completely different options of social development not only for the organisms that have literally become history, but for those which have survived until today. Some of them progressed from savagery, feudalism and then onto capitalism; some initially turned to the Asian mode of production and have only recently developed the advanced forms of capitalism (post-industrialism); others got ‘stuck’ in a non-market phase of development and adapted it to the circumstances of the contemporary global system. Yet we are only able to speculate within a definite historical horizon that is measured by the life of most recent generations. The point is: there is no sense in crossing swords over the future of humanity beyond the 21st century.

At the end of the 1990s, Western literature started to increase their publishing efforts supporting theories of non-European modernity and the variability of development and attempt to separate the modernization concept from Westernization. These ideas have gained a lot of support in developing countries, where authors draw attention to the lack of explanatory power of existing social theories, incompatible with non-Western forms of contemporary society. According to the multilinear approach, several main civilizations exist in the modern world with distinct institutional, axiological and behavioral characteristics. These civilizations are connected with dominating religious systems. As applied to Central European, Southern European and Eurasian areas (post-communist countries, which are in the process of transformation) — these religious systems are Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodoxy, and Islam. The social, economic and political situation in the corresponding countries is different in a number of aspects. Moreover, it explains the variation of development paths and the outcomes of liberal reforms in many post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Consequently we argue that these civilization particularities must be closely studied. Even today, many European researchers and analysts are still convinced that the social and economic order of contemporary Russia is not essentially different from that of developed European countries — a further type of capitalism.

One of the most popular approaches is the so-called variety of capitalisms approach [Drahokoupil 2009]. According to this approach the variety of social and economic systems which exist in contemporary Europe may be reduced to several fundamental forms (e.g. ‘liberal market economies’, ‘controlled market economies’ or even ‘dependent market economies’). So it, basically, reduces the problem of determining the outcomes of various policies, to the problem of diagnosing various states of capitalism in different countries depending on the structure of their economic institutions and the presence of foreign capital. Yet it is never discussed how or why Russia and its predominantly ‘Orthodox’ post-socialist neighbors deviate from any of these classifications.

Etacratism in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe was enforced from the USSR. Most of the ones that resisted were the countries which already had a lot of experience with a market economy, some forms of civil society and the rule of law in the course of their history. Over the 45 years of Soviet domination, these countries were always the most unreliable periphery of the ‘true socialism’. All of them belonged to Catholic and Protestant Christian cultures. At the same time, etacratism voluntarily and rather autonomously developed in countries which had never known capitalist relations and had a different history — China, Vietnam and Mongolia.

The contemporary societal system formed in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) was a result of a single anti-communist revolution from 1989 —1991, which according to V. Ilin had a systematic nature. These revolutions were encouraged by the idea of catch-up modernization. In CEE and the Baltic states, the original goal of transformation — higher standards of mass consumption, social state and technological modernization — was rather quickly reduced to two basics which represented the idea of progress — market economy and competitive democracy (political pluralism along with democratic freedom) [Ilin 2006, pp. 262–266].

The development in Russia, as well as some other countries of the former USSR, went in a different manner. The achievements of the market economy and liberal democracy were far more modest than in the CEE neighborhood. We hold the following conceptual viewpoint on Russia’s development. Contemporary Russian society, as well as Soviet society, belongs to a particular civilization (Eurasian), which is essentially different from European (Atlantic) in relation to its institutional structure and system of values. Thus, in the social space of Europe there actually exist at least two substantially distinct ‘Europes’.