Article
Статистический метод в анализе проблем социальной экономии в работах Н.Д. Кондратьева и Е.Е. Слуцкого
The article studies the important (for resurrection of Russian tradition of economic analysis) problem of relationship between the ideas of N.D. Kondratieff and E.E. Slutsky during the period 1910-1930s. The problem is considered in the frames of statistical method used by both scientists. The attention is focused on two features of method's application, namely the correlation theory and interpretations of the large numbers law. Instead of widely-known summative approach to the intellectual heritage of the scientists, genetic approach is used. Historical context related with A.A. Tchouprow and his adepts - N.S. Chetverikov and О.N. Anderson - is added. The article continues the series of research submitted in the previously published collections: Kondratieff 's Suzdal Letters, 1932-1938 (2004), Kondratieff 's Conjuncture Institute: Selected works (2010) and Slutsky's Selected economic and statistical works (2010).
The chapter explores the tradition of economic analysis that existed in Russia from 1890 to 1935, and provided the names of M.I. Tugan-Baranovsky, V.K. Dmitriev, G.A. Charasoff, E.E. Slutsky et al.
The peasant-entrepreneur Ivan Pososhkov (1652–1726) is considered the first Russian economist, as his «Book of Poverty and Wealth» is the earliest works of Russian social thought, especially on the integrated coverage of socio-economic problems – the role of the state in the economy, tax collection, trade, serfdom, regulation of monetary circulation, «rule of law», etc. Analysis of the «Book of Poverty and Wealth» displays on the general discussion of the Russian economic model, because the idea of IT Pososhkov reflects contradictions and problems not only the era of Peter’s reforms, but also throughout almost 400 years of tragic history of modernization of Russian society. The collective monograph presents the work of the conference participants «At the dawn of Russian economic thought», which took place February 27, 2014 at the Moscow Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation and was dedicated to the 290th anniversary of the «Book of Poverty and Wealth» IT Pososhkov. The first section of the book examines how the views of Pososhkov relate to the basic paradigm of economic thought of modern times. The second section is devoted to a comparison of views of Pososhkov with the views of other Russian philosophers – economists in XVII–XIX centuries. This publication is intended not only for specialists in economic history and the history of economic thought, but also for all those interested in the history of the national economy and economics..
Chapter 6, by Denis Melnik, reviews the three periods in the development of economic science in Russia during the last two centuries. As is shown, these periods, for different reasons, provided an unfavorable context for the reception of Ricardo’s economics. For about a half of the nineteenth century the name of Ricardo was not unknown but his theory did not attract attention (Sections 2). During the period that started at the 1860s and ended with the Russian Revolution the consensus towards Ricardo among the majority of Russian economists was based on a respectful distance. Still, there were the attempts to actualize Ricardo’s economics. Nikolai Ivanovich Sieber, the first translator of Ricardo into Russian, regarded his theory as a preceding stage to Marx’s, while Yuli Galaktionovich Zhukovsky, who rejected Marxism from the very beginning, made an attempt to reformulate the Ricardo’s theory in terms not dissimilar to the later neoclassical interpretation. The subsequent rise of marginalist theory and the heated debates among the Marxists at the turn of the twentieth century resulted in a strive to ‘synthesize’ classical and marginalist approaches to value and distribution characteristic for a part of Russian economists. It was a background for Vladimir Karpovich Dmitriev’s original interpretation (Section 3). During the Soviet period the canonical version of the history of economic thought placed Ricardo as an immediate predecessor to Marx. A comparison between the approaches to Ricardo’s economics proposed by Issak Illich Rubin and Piero Sraffa (Section 4) allows to outline the difference between two lines in development of the classical approach in the twentieth century.
Collection is based on the extraordinary Kondratieff Readings conducted under II Russian Economic Congress, with the addition of new archival data about N.D. Kondratieff' family.
The chapter presents an overview of the development of economics in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russia by focusing on the different interpretations of Ricardo’s theory prevailing over this period. The choice of the reference point will make the overview somewhat selective, but still it is not an arbitrary one. Ricardian theory entered Russia relatively late, in the 1870s. By that time it was considered already a part of the history of economics. However the debates between the different approaches in economics led to the confrontation of the corresponding versions of its history. Due to the rigorous style of Ricardo’s writings, their interpretation allowed less space for ideological or political connotations, comparing to the interpretations of Adam Smith or Karl Marx. Hence, the study of the different interpretations of Ricardian theory in the competing theoretical approaches allows to grasp the analytical difference between them.
The chapter is concentrated mainly on the history of pre-revolutionary Russian economics.
By February 1917, the handful of future Bolshevik leaders of Russia were scattered all over the globe. Among the few things they had in common was a peculiar vision of the Russian economy and of global economic trends. That vision guided their revolutionary activity. Whether it was “correct” or not, they succeeded. With their grip on power secured, however, their economic reasoning had to confront new challenges, which eventually reshaped the original approach. The article reconstructs the origins of the Bolshevik economics and traces its developments after 1917.
A creative heritage of the Russian economist S.A. Pervushin (1888-1966) is considered.
The article analyzes and classifies the major historical-economic works written by economists from St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, and shows their role for the development of the national economic doctrine.