Why is Putin not implementing the ideas of Academician Sergei Glazyev?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Can nationally oriented elites seize power from global commodity producers and financiers?

In the article “On a deep conflict in the Russian economy”, recently published on the REGNUM IA website, written by my respected expert Alexander Aivazov, our polemics on a whole range of macroeconomic problems in Russia were continued, where very interesting layers were revealed themes of conflict of interests of production and raw materials sectors of the national economy.

It so happens that sometimes controversy unfolds because of an inconsistent understanding of terms, and not because of ideological disagreements between the authors, which happened in our dialogue. Alexander Aivazov started from a series of my previous articles, where I reproached the presidential aide Sergei Glazyev for neglecting the political factor in his economic theory, as well as the article "The Deep Conflict of the Russian Economy", where the aforementioned conflict of interests of raw materials and production workers.

In his article A. Aivazov considered the issues of rent and quite convincingly proved that monopoly appropriated profit of raw materials producers is not an economic problem, but a political one … I completely agree with him. The fact that I did not focus on this in my article, for which I received a reproach for misunderstanding political economy, is due to the fact that I wrote on a different topic - about conflictologists. The topic of rent is a topic of a completely different study, which is exactly what the respected author did. It is impossible, speaking about one thing, to say about everything. I did not mention liberalism, not because I support it, but because it became commonplace and did not add anything to what was said, being, in fact, a sign of "friend or foe" for the audience.

But I cannot agree with the author in his interpretation of the monopoly issue. If you look at the issue from the standpoint of macroeconomics, then there is no monopoly in the raw material sector - with the exception of Gazprom. The Gazprom monopoly is a natural monopoly, just like the monopoly of heating systems, metro and Vodokanal. Gas production is an explosive technology and it is logical that there is no competition here. There are no two competing state-owned gas companies anywhere in the world. And two are not competition. In the oil industry, we have competition. But which one?

There we have limited competition, which is not a monopoly, but an oligopoly. Oligopoly is a form of limited competition in which the appearance or departure from the market of one of the players immediately affects the prices of all the others. That is, a cartel agreement is possible, which we observe. For the sake of fairness, it must be said that such oligopoly cartels exist in our network retail and in other industries. Oligopoly is a breeding ground for corruption, and so this is already a political problem, a problem of power.

In the world, large-scale mechanical engineering, automobile manufacturing and chemistry are a state between oligopoly and competition. In some industries, 6 large concerns are enough for an oligopoly, in others - 12. One way or another, we have full competition so far only in handicraft services, small retail and agriculture - there are so many players that collusion is physically impossible. And then agricultural holdings and resellers influence prices, that is, there are processes of restricting competition. Do we have that many players in the oil industry? No. Even OPEC itself is a cartel … So oil is an oligopoly, and the methods of managing it are different from managing a monopoly.

A. Aivazov gave a very interesting calculation of the profit rate of oil workers, showing that there is a private appropriation of national or national rent. “In the US, profitability in the extractive industry is only 10% (and not 40%, as we have), in the manufacturing industry - 12%. The profit of Russian oil workers is a monopoly high profit, a large part of which is natural resource rent, which should have been appropriated by the state. Therefore, if we consider the rate of profit on the basis of just the same from the world and market experience, then with an average rate of profit in the country of 10%, the profit of oil workers in a liter of A-92 gasoline should not exceed 1.5 rubles, and 4.5 rubles in the price of 92 gasoline is surplus profit (raw material rent), directly stolen by oilmen from the population of Russia”.

However, everywhere the determining factor is the presence of the political will of the country's leadership to influence the resource aristocracy in such a way that it does not turn into a cancerous tumor on the body of society and the economy. For example, in China, local capitalists have no problems and taxes set by the state to pay and join the party. And if they tried to blackmail the CCP by not paying taxes, the business would be instantly taken away and given to another “communist capitalist”.

Here I would like to quote George Friedman, head of the Stratfor think tank: “Politicians rarely have free rein. Their actions are predetermined by circumstances, and state policy is a response to the actual situation … Even the most ingenious politician at the head of Iceland will never make it a superpower … Geopolitics does not deal with the issues of good and evil, the virtues or vices of politicians and discourses on foreign policy. The subject of attention of geopolitics is a variety of impersonal forces that restrict the freedom of both entire peoples and individuals, and force them to act in a certain way."

At this point, I completely agree with Friedman. Such an assessment is professional, while moral assessments such as "harmonizers" - "destructors" and "liberal globalists" - "economic nationalists" translate professional analysis into emotional criteria and do little to clarify the essence of the issue.

A. Aivazova's assessment is different: “If the national Leader waits for the majority to realize the need for changes in society, then he will lag behind events. A real national Leader must foresee the development of events, get ahead of them, as, for example, Peter I or Joseph Stalin did. It sins with economic romanticism when the political conditions of imminent economic changes are not taken into account. If a leader does not do something, then he has much more weighty reasons for this than the philosophy of a “destructor” or “liberal globalist”.

The leader should not wait for the majority to mature, this is true, for the majority is profane and never matures. But the leader must identify the key part of the society and wait for its readiness. Without this, the leader will fall into the void and receive what Julius Caesar received from Brutus.

As A. Aivazov writes, Trump is an “economic nationalist”. But even Trump is bound hand and foot by political circumstances and essentially has little to do. Both Peter and Stalin began their transformations only when "various impersonal forces" allowed them to do so. In other words, when the balance of forces had already been objectively changed and only a subjective factor had to be applied to this. But has it changed solely as a result of the Leaders' initiative? Of course not.

As soon as the Eurasian Development Bank spoke about settlements in national currencies, immediately Kudrin came to the podium and declared a categorical protest against the decoupling of the ruble from the dollar, demanding that the authorities give in to the West for the sake of easing sanctions. It must be understood that the mouth of Kudrin is being spoken by a huge political class that has a colossal resource of power, and this resource limits the president's power to fire Kudrin or ignore his words. And the fact that Putin in some areas finds ways to ignore them is an exceptional event. But is it only because of his desire that he does this? Are the conflicts of elite groups reducible to the conflicts of their representatives?

"The opponents of liberal globalism, according to A. Khaldei, are" supporters of autarky "who pull in the other direction: with" closing markets, protectionism and self-reliance (the ideology of the North Korean Juche). " Here A. Khaldei uses the usual trick used by our liberals to intimidate the townsfolk, that if we do not submit to the interests of the world financial oligarchy, then we will face the "North Korean Juche" - writes A. Aivazov.

There is informational distortion here - A. Aivazov for some reason referred me to the supporters of liberalism and opponents of the Juche ideas. This is completely in vain. First, the supporters of autarchy are indeed pulling towards closing markets and towards protectionism. Otherwise they would be globalists. And the Korean version of this trend of supporters of autarchy is the Juche doctrine - self-reliance in order to preserve sovereignty.

Secondly, I am not at all a liberal and do not frighten me with the Juche ideas, because I am a supporter of these ideas, maybe not in such a radical form as in the DPRK, since this is the idea of self-reliance and the ability to limit needs, if their satisfaction leads to dependence on external enemies.

A. Aivazov makes me an example of Trump. “But D. Trump does not at all profess the ideology of autarky and the“North Korean Juche”, he calls his ideology“economic nationalism,”and this ideology is gaining more and more popularity in the world. The same ideology is shared by the leader of China Xi Jinping, the leader of India Narendra Modi and many other political figures of the modern world, but not the Russian government,”A. Aivazov asserts.

This is a question of terms. If Juche is understood as the Korean version of the general theory of economic nationalism, then Trump, without calling it the word "Juche", is also striving for protectionism and self-reliance, but in the American version. There are only two concepts in the world - to open up to the world and close from it. Anything beyond that is from the evil one. Of course, each country selects mixed options, based on its strengths and capabilities. Trump and Kim Jong-un are anti-globalists, and this is what they have in common. I fully share the concept of anti-globalization, whatever it is called.

Kim Jong-un is a conservative leftist, while Trump is a rightist. Moving towards conservatism on the left and right, they meet at one common point. By the way, the closest concept for Russia - left conservatism - is Soviet socialism. And we are historically moving in this direction, and someday we will come to this point. Russia can be neither left- or right-liberal, nor right-conservative. We can say that left-wing conservatism is our national idea.

The means of implementing the theory of antiglobalism for Russia is the theory of academician Sergei Glazyev, who rightly reproaches the government for illiteracy. He argues that modern economics long ago determined that monetarism in its liberal form - as a theory of limiting the amount of money in circulation in order to fight inflation - is a one-sided and stupid view.

Modern data show that both the excess and the lack of money in the economy lead to an increase in prices and a decline in production. If there is a lot of money, then prices rise, but production also grows, until the rise in prices kills the incentives for production, and then it falls. This is an inflationary shock. A deflationary shock, at the other extreme, is when money is withdrawn from the economy in order to drive down prices. But it is not prices that go astray, but money becomes cheaper, and therefore, against the background of rising prices, production falls, because it is experiencing an artificially created financial hunger.

This trap can be avoided only by determining the required amount of monetization of the economy, says Glazyev. And he is absolutely right. But the whole question is - who needs it and why? To issue emission is to release power. In order to build such an economic model, in Russia it is necessary to make revolutionary changes in power. To take control of emission means to overthrow the class of agents of the world's financiers. The state of Russia at the moment does not allow her such a frontal confrontation with the entire West.

The current structure of the ruling class and its support groups in society will not allow any reasonable suggestions of Glazyev to be implemented. The will of the leader alone is not enough for the transition to Glazyev's methods. In Russia, the ruling class, apart from officials, consists of exporters of raw materials and financiers serving them, who have taken over the production workers. And this class does not allow any control over its super profits.

He is associated with the West, with their banks and ruling families. Their conflict is not essential, like that of the USSR with the United States, but technical - they want us one place, and we want another. As two different systems, we do not seek each other's death. It's only about the redistribution of spheres of influence. And that's why all conflicts between the West and our elites are largely bluff in nature, no matter how hard they pressed each other.

The peculiarity of the current social conflict in Russia is the overlap of two conflicts and their possible resonance. The first conflict is a conflict within the ruling class of the big bourgeoisie for the profit pie. This is a conflict between raw materials and production workers. With the participation of financiers on the side of the raw materials industry. The second conflict is the interclass conflict between Labor and Capital in its Marxist formulation. He returned to our lives with the return of capitalism, which our society is now increasingly aware of.

These two conflicts run simultaneously, overlapping and accelerating each other. The crisis only intensifies the severity of confrontation and deprivation of society.

The task of the leader of the political system is not to let these two energies get into resonance, so as not to smash this system to smithereens. Therefore, the issue of control over commodity corporations in Russia and the model of financing production is a political task of changing the method of distribution. And this is not a question of a dispute between conventional liberals and nationalists, but a question of the political tactics of the Center as the only bearer of the interests of the Whole in the battle between parts, each of which pursues only its own private interests. Here we must rise above economic theory and work at the level of the theory of diamat or the theory of Conceptual Power.

For now, I will emphasize - I state this with regret, for the concept of Sergei Glazyev there is no entry point into the system of power. Let him be a thousand times right, but when he says: “We need sovereign emission”, and Putin understands this as “Take a cudgel and go soak the raw materials and banking elite in the outhouse,” they will not find mutual understanding. This is how to theoretically convince Lenin of the advantages of communism, with which Ilyich agrees a thousand times, while he faces only one very narrow, concrete and practical task - how to overthrow the Provisional Government.