In institutional theory, there is a term that in English is called path dependence, and in Russian I propose to translate it as “rut effect.” Essentially, it is institutional inertia that keeps a country on a certain trajectory.

The very idea of ​​such trajectories along which countries move was developed thanks to the work of statistician Angus Madison. He implemented a very simple thing. In many countries, statistics have existed for quite a long time: in England - more than 200 years, in France - a little less than 200 years, in Germany and Russia - more than 150 years. Madison took the main indicators - gross product, population and, accordingly, the level of gross product per capita - and brought all this data into a single table.

When economists saw the Madison table. It has become obvious that most countries in the world are divided into groups, and this division is very clear. The first group is on a high trajectory and consistently shows good economic results. The second group just as steadily follows a low trajectory: it often includes traditional countries that simply do not set the goal of having high economic results, but focus on other values ​​- family, religious, etc. It turns out that there is a kind of first cosmic a speed that allows you to stay in orbit, but nothing more, and a second escape speed that allows you to go into outer space. But there is also a third, most volatile group of countries that are constantly trying to move from the second group to the first. Examples of successful transitions are extremely rare; most often, countries jump up, but then hit the ceiling and slide down again. This is exactly what the “rut effect” is. And Russia belongs to precisely this type of country.

Theories explaining the nature of the rut effect.

Name of theory Path Dependence It is customary in Russian literature to translate it as “dependence on previous development” or “rut effect.” She pays attention to institutional change and the role of institutions in technical change.

History of the theory Path Dependence began in 1985, when P. David published a short article devoted to such a seemingly minor issue as the formation of a standard for typing device keyboards (QWERTY keyboard). QWERTY effects in modern scientific literature refer to all sorts of relatively ineffective but persistent standards that demonstrate that “history matters.” These effects can be detected in two ways:

1) or compare technical standards that actually coexist in the modern world;

2)or compare implemented technical innovations with potentially possible, but not implemented ones.

Although the modern economy has long been globalizing and unifying, different countries around the world continue to maintain different technical standards that are incompatible with each other. Some examples are well known - for example, the differences between left-hand (in the former British Empire) and right-hand traffic on the roads of different countries, differences in railway gauge or in electrical transmission standards.

The theory of dependence on previous development and related scientific research on alternative history are based not on neoclassical “economics” (like “Vogel’s” new economic history), but on the metascientific paradigm of synergetics associated with the ideas of the famous Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine (also a Nobel laureate) , creator of the theory of self-organization of order from chaos3. According to the synergetic approach he developed, the development of society is not strictly predetermined (according to the principle “nothing else is given”). In fact, there is an alternation of periods of evolution, when the vector of development cannot be changed (movement along an attractor), and bifurcation points at which the possibility of choice arises. When “QWERTY economists” talk about the historical randomness of the initial choice, they consider precisely the bifurcation points of history - those moments when any one possibility is selected from a fan of various alternatives. The choice in such situations almost always occurs under conditions of uncertainty and instability of the balance of social forces. Therefore, during bifurcation, even very minor subjective circumstances can turn out to be fateful - according to the “Bradbury butterfly” principle.

So, after numerous studies of QWERTY effects, historians and economists were amazed to discover that many of the symbols of technological progress around us acquired a familiar appearance as a result of, in general, largely random circumstances and that we do not live in the best of worlds.

Modernization theory.

Modernization theories - theories that consider modernization as a complex global process:

· occurring in all key spheres of society;

· and characterized by structural and functional differentiation and the formation of appropriate forms of integration.

There are:

· technological, functional and global modernization according to K. Levi-Strauss, N. Smelser and P. Wiener, respectively;

· different interpretations of the stages of modernization in individual countries.

The theories of modernization, neo-modernization and convergence use the term “modernization” (from the French moderne - modern, newest), describing the efforts of underdeveloped societies aimed at catching up with the leading, most developed countries that coexist with them in the same historical time, within a single global society.

The theories of modernization and convergence are a product of the post-World War II era. They reflected the current division of human society into three “worlds”:

· the “first world” of developed industrial societies, including Western Europe and the USA, which were soon joined by Japan and the “industrialized countries” of the Far East;

· “third world” post-colonial societies of the South and East, many of which were delayed in their development at the pre-industrial stage.

Classical theories of modernization focused on the contrast between the “first” and “third” worlds, and convergence theory, like more recently emerging theories of post-communist transition, chose the gap between the “first” and “second” worlds as the main theme of analysis.

Modernization means the conscious copying of Western societies, acting as “model countries”, “countries to which reference is made” and which “set the speed of movement”.

The problem of sustainable existence of insufficiently efficient or suboptimal technical standards and economic institutions has become one of the central problems in institutional economics over the past 20 years.

Two main reasons can be identified that stimulate interest in these problems. Firstly, these are practical tasks, among which the analysis of technical standards, often based on not the most effective solutions, and, most importantly, the problems of establishing market (and semi-market) economies in developing and former socialist countries stand out. A typical example is the title of De Soto’s famous book “The Mystery of Capital. Why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails throughout the rest of the world.” Secondly, the very long existence of ineffective standards and institutions contradicts the optional, but nevertheless almost generally accepted position of neoclassical economics about the ability of a competitive market to “choose” the optimal solution. These problems are posed most acutely and clearly by the concepts of QWERTY effects and path dependence (see below). The reasons most often cited for long-term deviations from the optimum are random factors and stochastic processes, routines and habits of people, incomplete rationality of actors, primarily the limited rationality of G. Simon, and general laws of development of complex systems. The article, within the framework of system analysis, examines the processes of formation and destruction of standards and institutions. The main idea of ​​the first part of the article is the similarity of the concepts listed in the first part of the title; on its basis, the second part of the article evaluates the prospects for growing sustainable institutions in Russia.

I. The concepts of QWERTY effects and path dependence belong to the field of institutional economics and characterize the dependence of technical standards and institutions on the path (trajectory)

Tsirel Sergey Vadimovich, Doctor of Technical Sciences, senior researcher at the Institute of Mining Geomechanics and Mine Surveying, JSC "VNIMI", St. Petersburg, Russia.

development. In 1985, P. David proved that the generally accepted keyboard layout of "QWERTY" printing devices was the result of the victory of a less effective standard over more effective ones, and the choice was determined primarily by specific, rather random, circumstances at the moment of choice, and subsequently changing the standard became impossible due to -at very high costs. Further study of QWERTY effects showed their widespread use in all branches of technology (video recording standard, choice of railway gauge, etc.). Many economists have taken the presence of QWERTY effects as a refutation of the assertion of classical economics about the mandatory selection of the most efficient option during competition, and even as an argument in favor of a centralized state economy.

The concept of "path dependence" extends path dependence to a wider class of phenomena - economic institutions, understood as "the rules of the game in society, the restrictive framework that organizes relationships between people." Both concepts (often viewed as two manifestations of the same effect) emphasize the persistence of ineffective standards and institutions and the difficulty (sometimes impossibility) of changing them. The significance of path dependence effects for later development is the subject of heated debate, but the prevailing view is that these effects are widespread.

At the same time, works devoted to standards (QWERTY effects) emphasize the randomness of a one-time choice and the high cost of changing it; In works devoted to institutions, the attention of researchers is focused on the connection of a new choice with history, national identity, and the interdependence of institutions (path dependency and path determinacy). In terms of random processes, this difference can be formulated as follows: the choice of standards has the features of a non-stationary Markov process - the point at which the choice is made is determined by the entire previous trajectory, but the choice itself depends less on previous states than on the incidental circumstances of the moment of choice; the choice of institutions is understood rather as a process with long-term memory - the previous history of institutional changes not only determines the situation at a given moment, but it also has a significant impact on each subsequent

Sedov's law or the law of hierarchical compensation does not relate to economics, but to cybernetics and general systems theory, which played a significant role in the formation of the concept of "path dependence". This law, proposed by the Russian cyberneticist and philosopher E.A. Sedov, develops and refines Ashby's well-known cybernetic law on necessary diversity (economic applications of Ashby's law are developed in the works of S. Beer and S. Hodgson). Ideas E.A. Sedova actively promotes and develops A.P. Nazaretyan, therefore we will use the formulation of Sedov’s law given in Nazaretyan’s book:

In a complex hierarchical system, the growth of diversity at the top level is ensured by limiting diversity at previous levels, and, conversely, the growth of diversity at the lower level [of the hierarchy] destroys the top level of the organization.

It seems to us that the very formulation of Sedov’s law clearly indicates its closeness to the concepts of “QWERTY effects” and “path dependence”. Of course, we are talking about proximity, not identity, “QWERTY effects” and “path dependence” are not special cases of Sedov’s law, and Sedov’s law itself covers a wider range of phenomena than the concepts of institutional economics. However, the area of ​​their intersection, in our opinion, is so large that a meaningful interpretation of “QWERTY effects” and “path dependence” in the concepts used in Sedov’s law is possible. From this interpretation of the considered concepts of institutional economics, two important consequences can be drawn.

1. Unification of standards or institutions occurs when the total diversity at the levels where competition occurs and at higher levels based on these standards (or institutions) becomes excessive.

2. The destruction of a single standard (institution), the growth of diversity at the lower levels occurs when the diversity of the upper level turns out to be insufficient (in accordance with Ashby's law) for the functioning of the system.

Now let's look at both consequences in more detail. It follows from the first corollary that standardization becomes necessary when a high level of diversity of products, standards or institutions using a given standard is achieved (P. David’s story about the victory of the QWERTY layout over alternative ones can be read from this point of view). At the same time, a standard on top of which is built the maximum variety of standards and products that use it has a great chance of displacing the rest. Of course, there is no reason to believe that this advantage will necessarily be given to the standard with the best consumer properties. A significant role is also played by the willingness of the authors and supporters of this standard to take commercial risks (the release of goods based on a standard that has not become generally accepted), the success of an advertising campaign, the use of dumping, and, finally, simply a coincidence of circumstances.

One of the main reasons for the low probability of choosing a standard close to the optimal one is the small number of attempts. The establishment of an equilibrium price in the market occurs by trial and error during the execution of a very large (in the limit of infinite) number of transactions. A single transaction, both due to various situational and subjective circumstances, and the limited rationality of the participants in the transaction, cannot lead to an equilibrium price. Therefore, if there are only a few transactions with a certain product, then no one will insist that the price has reached an equilibrium state; It is obvious that, as a rule, there will be significant deviations from the equilibrium price.

The number of completed attempts to establish a new standard is obviously limited. Often the picture for choosing a new standard looks like this. First, several attempts are made to establish completely ineffective standards, then a fairly effective standard is established, which is either not adjusted at all or is adjusted a small number of times. Another, no less common case is the automatic transfer of an old standard to a new, sometimes fundamentally different, class of goods, i.e. choice as a comparison of options is not made at all. Therefore, achieving an optimal standard is not the rule, but the exception. In rapidly growing fields (such as personal computer software), where diversity at the top levels increases rapidly, the choice of standard occurs more quickly, reducing the number of attempts and increasing the role of additional factors. Naturally, along with this, the likelihood of choosing a standard that is not the most effective even in the short term increases.

It is quite possible that a situation will initially occur where two (or, less commonly, several) standards will be selected at once. However, again due to Sedov’s law, this leads to excessive diversity, and such a state turns out to be unstable. There are two most likely ways out of this situation. The first, described in the works of P. David and other researchers of QWERTY effects, is the victory of one of the standards and the marginalization or complete disappearance of the rest. The second way out is the attenuation (in the limit - complete cessation) of competition between standards, the collapse of the single market into two, and the formation of two separate technological niches. (but the third standard - airships - remained to exist only in the form of projects and prototypes). It can also be assumed that the increase in the total number of hierarchical levels and technological niches, as well as the speed of their addition, gradually leads to a decrease in diversity at the very top levels of the hierarchy, as indicated by the wave of mergers of large corporations in the most modern branches of technology.

The second corollary describes the situation of destruction of the standard. Let's look at several aspects of this process.

A crisis of a standard (institution) can take two forms. First, at a certain stage (for example, due to changing consumer preferences or a sharp increase in the price of a necessary resource), it turns out that the established standard does not provide the necessary diversity at the top (upper) level of the hierarchy. The solution may be to increase diversity at lower levels; one possibility (though not the most common) is to resuscitate discarded marginalized standards. Another, less revolutionary option is to extend (if possible) the standard itself - for example, introducing new structures into existing programming languages. Note that in rapidly developing areas of technology, along with the increasing likelihood of the adoption of suboptimal standards, the likelihood of their adjustment also increases.

The second, more catastrophic, form of crisis lies in the loss of effectiveness of all levels built above the established

current standard. As with the first form (if it is impossible to expand the standard), the solution is to transfer diversity to the lower level. However, here we are no longer talking about adding diversity, but about restructuring the entire system.

It is quite obvious that there are powerful obstacles to restructuring the system, related both to the customs and habits of people, and to high costs (one of the main theses of the concepts of QWERTY effects and path dependence). As a rule, system restructuring occurs only when critical situations are reached (a good example is the behavior of people during environmental crises). The introduced analogy with Sedov’s law clarifies that the force of resistance increases when diversity disappears at the lower level and great diversity reaches the upper levels, and, conversely, decreases when alternative standards are still preserved at the lower level, and diversity at the upper levels has not received much development. An example very close to ours is the relative ease of exiting such an institutional trap as the “barterization” of commodity exchange; in Russia, along with barter, monetary forms of trade (in national and American currencies) were preserved, and barter itself had little to do with the formation of stable and diverse institutions of upper-level commodity exchange.

A very interesting question is at what level of the hierarchy, near or far, the growth of diversity will occur and where a way out of the created conflict will be found. The most obvious answer would be to state that the optimal exit option should be at the level where the choice error was made (or which of the previously made choices turned out to be erroneous in the changed situation). However, in most cases, no one knows this for certain, and the only effective output (we are talking about the effective, not the optimal) is the exception rather than the rule. Therefore, in our opinion, the choice of level is primarily influenced by two circumstances. Firstly, both due to the conservatism inherent in people and based on minimizing costs, the level closest to the very top receives advantages. Secondly, naturally, the greatest chances are those solutions that are most ready for use at a critical moment. The final result depends on all factors and a number of incidental circumstances (as is known, at critical moments, the role of chance is especially great) and can differ fundamentally in different situations.

Although up to this point the word “institutions” was in brackets after the word “standards,” the presentation was primarily concerned with standards. We will try to show that the formulated consequences of the analogy with Sedov’s law have no less to do with path dependence than with QWERTY effects. As examples, let us consider the most general case of competition between centralized and democratic forms of social organization and, naturally, the experience of Russia.

Before considering such general examples, it is necessary to dwell on one more difference between the transformation of standards and institutions. Standards at higher hierarchical levels mainly develop and specify the basic standard; in contrast, following the approval of a new institution at the upper (and even the same) level of the hierarchy, not only institutions are formed that develop the basic one, but also anti-institutions that to one degree or another restore the status quo or, at least, limit the scope of the new Institute. The emergence of anti-institutions, “orthogonal to the meaning of the game,” which do not develop, but destroy it, is most likely during an “institutional revolution,” when formal institutions are massively introduced that are incongruent with the rules and stereotypes of behavior familiar to a given society." Anti-institutions (primarily associated with corruption, patron-client relationships, etc.) prevent the formation of a rigid hierarchical structure; at the same time, on the one hand, they soften or even neutralize alien institutional innovations, and, on the other hand, they do not allow “congruent” institutions to take extreme forms and slow down the divergence of institutional systems. When the basic institution that gave rise to the emergence of anti-institutions is destroyed, the destruction of anti-institutions is delayed and/or does not occur fully; in the future, in different situations, anti-institutions can either collapse after the basic institution, or become the basis of a new choice.

Returning to our example, we can draw a very bold, although quite obvious, analogy between the dichotomy of centralized and democratic forms of organization in traditional and modern societies and the dichotomy of “tribe vs. chiefdom” in archaic pre-state societies. As many historical and anthropological studies show, in primitive societies there were repeated transitions from less egalitarian to more egalitarian forms of organization and back, depending on changes in living conditions (for example, climate change) or on the individual properties of leaders. One of the reasons for such ease of transitions, in our opinion, is the small number and vagueness of institutional superstructures (the next hierarchical levels) above tribal or chieftaincy institutions. On the contrary, with the emergence of states and numerous institutions of traditional societies, such a transition becomes increasingly difficult. If in Ancient Sumer (according to some data and in the Old Kingdom in Egypt) large fluctuations in one direction or another were possible, then in the future transitions become increasingly rare. With the exception of the Osternization of Byzantium and the Maghreb countries, we do not know of a single indisputable case of transition. Even the processes of Westernization of Japan, Turkey or Taiwan that are taking place before our eyes cannot be considered complete, and sociological and political scientific assessments of the political and economic institutions of these countries differ significantly from each other. Some exceptions are countries with a poorly formed and unstable system of institutions (otherwise, countries and regions with a sparse institutional environment or border civilizations with the dominance of chaos over order), primarily Russia, in which cyclical variations of the institutional system are possible.

The ability of this mechanism to generate cycles relates not only to the evil infinity of failed Russian reforms and counter-reforms, but also to a wider range of phenomena. It seems to us that the generation of cycles is most characteristic of those areas where there is least reason to talk about development, understood in this case as the building of new hierarchical levels. An important example is the Chinese dynastic cycles. During the cycle, changing circumstances - population growth, decline in the authority of the ruling dynasty, divergence of social practice and previously chosen institutions, etc. - led to the ineffectiveness of the main institutional system, an increase in the diversity of institutional systems at the lower level (semi-legitimate and completely illegitimate alternative systems and anti-institutions were often implemented in illegal and corrupt forms) and the destruction of the empire.

Similar, although less pronounced, cycles are characteristic of other agricultural empires. The second example is the change of artistic styles, for example, in European art, periodic variations (with a period of about half a century) of styles in music and painting.

These two examples represent two different types of loops. In Chinese dynastic cycles, the predominant form is the destruction, during a short period of turmoil, of the conditions that prevent the effective functioning of the previously chosen institutional system, the destruction of anti-institutions and alternative institutional systems, and the repetition of the previous choice. The repetition of the previous choice cannot be fully explained by the restoration of the conditions under which the choice occurs (for the choice at the point of bifurcation may depend on negligible factors that are not repeated exactly from cycle to cycle), and even by the richness and diversity of the institutions of the upper world that survived during periods of decline and turmoil. level; An important role is played by the non-Markovian aspect of path dependence - the dependence of choice on previous states and cultural traditions. When artistic styles change, at the beginning of each cycle a new choice occurs, usually different from the previous one - anti-institutions and repulsion from cultural traditions take precedence over attraction.

In this case, in both types of cycles, although for different reasons, changes in most cases affect little or do not affect the lower levels of the hierarchy at all. However, we should talk about obstacles, and not about completely blocking the opportunity »_/ »_/ / 1 *_/

restructuring the entire system. On the one hand, changes in external conditions and the depth of the crisis can be so great that changes in only the upper levels of the hierarchy do not generate effective exit strategies; the alternative to deep changes is not evolution, but decay. On the other hand, institutions (largely due to the softening effect of anti-institutions) do not have such rigidity as technical standards and, especially, the genetic mechanism of inheritance in biology. Changes at the upper levels, to one degree or another, are transmitted down and transform the institutions of the lower levels of the hierarchy; and the structure of the hierarchy of institutions itself is not so obvious - we can talk about a consensus among various researchers regarding the existence of a hierarchy of institutions, but not in

w ____ Ґ~Л w ___

regarding its specific structure. With a certain degree of idealization of the real historical process, the Osternization of Byzantium can be cited as an example of perestroika through gradual shifts transmitted from upper to lower levels; in other cases of radical transformation (for example, during European modernization or the Osternization of North African countries), catastrophic periods of crises or violent destruction of the upper levels of the hierarchy of institutions are more noticeable.

II. In light of these considerations, the series of failed Russian reforms and counter-reforms can be understood in two complementary ways. On the one hand, one can assume that the cycles of Russian history occupy an intermediate position - periods of strict centralization and authoritarian power are replaced by periods of relative democracy, but the former clearly dominate and at the same time demonstrate a diversity more characteristic of artistic styles than Chinese dynasties.

Another interpretation, in our opinion, more adequate, connects the instability of Russian institutions and institutions with the preservation of diversity at the lowest levels of the hierarchy. The themes of the duality of Russian culture and the Russian split, the confrontation between Westerners and Slavophiles, localism and authoritarianism, the high value of collectivism (community, conciliarity) and the atomization of society, etc., from Chaadaev to the present day, occupy the minds of Russian social scientists and publicists. The many forms of schism and opposition can be interpreted as excessive diversity at the lower levels of the hierarchy preventing diversity at the upper levels of the hierarchy and the formation of effective institutions.

Thus, countries with unstable institutions at the lowest hierarchical levels, on the one hand, include countries in the early stages of civilization development (primarily sub-Saharan Africa), and, on the other hand, developed border civilizations (primarily countries Latin America and Russia). To denote the opposition of countries with established and unsettled institutions at lower levels of the hierarchy, we propose to introduce the concepts of “cold” and “warm” societies.

Cold societies (Western countries and Southeast Asian countries are closest to this definition) are those societies where they have agreed on the general rules of the game (no matter what they are called - laws, customs, traditions, sacred commandments, etc.) and no longer need in establishing personal relationships to resolve standard situations. Warm societies are those where people, on the contrary, were unable to agree on general rules and are forced to compensate for the lack of general rules with personal relationships (including those of a corrupt nature) or temporary draconian rules and a virtual mystical connection between everyone and the leader. The lack of effective law forces one to permanently turn to its primary sources, including ideas about justice, therefore justice, often understood as universal equality of income and even equal lack of rights, occupies a high place in the scale of values. And at the same time, the absence of a regulator of justice (law, custom, etc.) very often leads to greater injustice and greater wealth stratification than in warm societies. Currently, it is even possible to specify a formal economic criterion for identifying warm societies - a Gini coefficient value > 0.45 (the only exception to this rule is Hong Kong with its specific economy). If we try to compare this opposition with the classical opposition West vs East, it is easy to notice that the opposition West vs East characterizes primarily the type of institutions, and the opposition “cold societies” vs “warm societies” rather characterizes the number of institutions and their stability.

From these considerations it follows that the economic and political institutions of Russian society are fluid, unstable, and subject to numerous restructurings. However, such a thesis contradicts the thesis expressed by many researchers about the existence of rigid basic structures of Russian society (for example, the “Russian system”, the institutional matrix X, etc.). Most often, these basic structures include an authoritarian system of government, a centralized redistributive economy, collectivist traditions, etc. To understand the meaning of the contradiction that has arisen, let us consider each of these structures in more detail.

1. Authoritarian or totalitarian paternalistic power as the core structure of not only the state, but also the entire life of the country is most often called the main invariant of the Russian institutional system. It's hard to argue with this statement. And yet we will try.

Firstly, it is easy to notice that all the historical examples on which this thesis is based relate to rural and illiterate Russia. In urban Russia (conventionally, starting from the 50s-60s of the twentieth century), there was first a significant softening of Soviet power and subsequently its collapse. The formed (or emerging) post-Soviet government can hardly be called liberal-democratic, but it is also very far from Soviet totalitarianism and even the authoritarianism of the autocratic monarchy. Thus, this thesis has both civilizational and stage components, which are currently very difficult to separate.

Secondly, a combination of four closely related conditions:

The desire of any authorities to increase their powers;

The need for authorities to increase their powers when people are unable to independently agree among themselves (or, in any case, the greater ease of assigning these powers than attempts to develop civil structures);

The absence of institutionalized resistance to the appropriation by authorities of those functions and powers that could be handled by non-governmental structures if they existed and functioned effectively;

Latent or learned from personal experience people's knowledge of their inability to negotiate with each other without the help of authorities leads to the formation of authoritarian power, regardless of the existence of previous authoritarian regimes and their traditions. Thus, the sources of authoritarianism in Russia are not only (and perhaps not so much) dependence on the path traveled and cultural traditions, but to a large extent an independent mechanism that generates a new authoritarianism, more or less independent of the previous one. This is confirmed by the already mentioned diversity of forms of Russian authoritarian power, which fundamentally distinguishes Russia from the countries of the East (primarily China), which in each cycle reproduce similar or even

2. Non-market centralized economy. A general global trend in recent decades has been the transition from redistributive economies to market ones, or at least a sharp increase in the share of the market sector, even in countries with a long tradition of centralized economies. Russia is no exception to this rule; even the growth of government intervention observed in recent years is simultaneously accompanied by various economic innovations of the liberal direction.

In our opinion, the change from traditional types of consumption to modern ones plays an important role in this process. In the roughest approximation, the needs of traditional society were reduced to a limited set of similar goods for mass consumption of the lower classes and exclusive goods for prestigious consumption of the elite. The production and exchange of both goods in traditional societies could be ensured both in a market and in a centralized economy. The main limitation on the possibilities of centralized commodity exchange was not so much the expansion of the list of consumed goods or the number of ingredients and tools in their production, but the individualization of consumption of the general population and stochastic changes in their tastes - the influence of fashion. More precisely, it was the combination of these processes that became the critical limitation on the capabilities of the redistributive economy. Unpredictable, stochastically changing consumer tastes impede long-term planning of production and distribution of goods, but do not reduce the effectiveness of the adaptive mechanism of market competition. On the contrary, it is precisely when the individuality of choice and fashion are combined that the advantages of a market economy are most manifested. In fact, if all people blindly followed fashion, then the most powerful corporation (including the state one) with the greatest opportunities for advertising its products and shaping fashion would easily supplant its competitors. On the contrary, if the choice of each person were strictly individual, then there would be a fundamental possibility of assessing the distribution of people according to types of preferences and planning the release of goods in accordance with this distribution. Thus, the continued commitment of a significant part of the Russian population to a centralized state economy is countered by its non-

efficiency in the modern world.

3. As has been repeatedly noted, the current atomization of Russian society, the complete absence of neighboring communities, calls into question the tradition of considering Russian society to be collectivist, conciliar and communal. It seems to us that there is no deep contradiction between the communalism or collectivism attributed to the people (and its high place in the hierarchy of values) and the current atomization. When compared with Western societies today, we quite clearly see three components of the structure of Russian society: the first component is personal relationships instead of formal ones in standard situations, the second component is the inability to negotiate among themselves to solve more complex problems, the absence of civil society and the third component is lack of independence, habit obey and rely on authority. Previously, in the era of strict authoritarian regimes, there was simply no place for the second component, in which society’s inability to self-organize could manifest itself; the first and third directly connected, not even in a joint, but in an overlap, which created the illusion of special collectivism. It seems to me that legal collectivism and the oppositional, illegal collectivism opposing it, both together, were largely the product of complete lack of freedom, a consequence of the intersection of the fields of the first and third components. When a gap formed between them, a void was exposed, and in it the disunity of Russian society, hitherto masked both by total control itself and by specific forms of counteraction to it, became clearly visible. At the same time, the lack of both state support and civil structures forces people to try to overcome dependent stereotypes; people's ability to act independently (often illegally) turned out to be much higher than apologists for the collectivist nature of Russian society believed. It is very characteristic that in various surveys people choose to characterize themselves either as dependent paternalists, in need of care, or, on the contrary, they strive to appear as Henry Fords.

Therefore, if we look for the most stable invariants of the institutional system of Russian society, which remain valid to this day, then, in our opinion, we should first of all pay attention to other features associated with its rarefaction and

instability, and also repeatedly described in the literature:

Replacing the general rules of the game with personal relationships;

Massive failure to comply with laws, both by subjects and authorities (including disrespect for the concept of property and simply theft);

Bad laws, often not even laws, but threats and wishes;

Distrust of any authority other than the highest (distrust of intermediate authorities, increased rejection of any obvious authority other than the central authority);

Corruption and widespread shadow economy.

In support of this list, we can cite the famous words of Saltykov-Shchedrin that “the severity of Russian laws is softened by the optionality of their execution” and the no less famous words of Herzen that “a Russian, no matter what his rank, circumvents or violates the law wherever it is can be done with impunity; the government does exactly the same."

Therefore, there is no reason to assert that Russian society unconditionally accepted the institutions of authoritarian power and did not resist the attack on its rights - resistance constantly existed, but it took forms leading not to democracy, but to anarchy and chaos. In other words, the alternative to the institutions of authoritarianism was not democratic institutions, but various shadow anti-institutions, which not only softened the practice of applying cruel laws, but also destroyed the very functioning of any public and state institutions, the lowest levels of the hierarchy of the institutional system. Maintaining the basic rules of the game and building institutions at the upper levels in these conditions was carried out by draconian measures, including the issuance of cruel decrees, the literal and strict implementation of which was in principle impossible. For example, in Peter’s “Military Articles” the death penalty was provided for in 200 cases, however, despite the cruelty of the reign of Peter I, in most cases “the threat of death was an imaginary threat, the execution of which was not intended by the legislator himself at the time the law was issued.” Naturally, the issuance of such rules ultimately leads to even worse implementation of laws and even greater corruption. In addition, it is quite obvious that such legislation and legal proceedings do not achieve their main goal - promoting law-abidingness and reducing the crime rate; the instability of legal norms, disproportionately cruel punishments and arbitrary pardons, inevitable if the norm is too harsh, equally contradict the principle of the inevitability of punishment and do not contribute to the education of legal consciousness.

Partially, the weakness and sparseness of the institutional system explains even the most “authoritarian” features of Russian society - the lack of independence of people and special respect for the highest authority. The ineffectiveness or lack of legal, formalized means of protection forces people to either look for workarounds provided by anti-institutions and turn as clients to those who are especially successful in this, or appeal to the very source of power, which has the right to repeal laws or remove specific people from under their jurisdiction. It should be noted that the younger generation, who grew up after Soviet rule, as a rule, demonstrates greater independence than the older ones.

Summing up what has been said, we are inclined to conclude that the system of institutions emerging in Russia is, first of all:

Market economy with extensive but unsystematic government intervention;

Lack of civil society;

Widespread shadow economy and corruption

It fully corresponds to the current state of Russian society, and one can hardly expect significant progress in the cultivation of new effective institutions in the near future. Moreover, if under different, even the most democratic, slogans a new elite comes to power and tries to implement its reforms, then, apparently, after some time the previous situation will be restored.

Of course, the difficulties of growing effective institutions of modern society in Russia are in no way a reason to stop efforts - all societies, even with the most stable institutions, once went through periods of institutional chaos and the formation of their institutions and returned to a similar state in eras of institutional revolutions. But it should be borne in mind that there is no reason to expect quick success.

As for the analysis of the functioning and development of institutions of the public administration system, here, thanks to neo-institutionalists, such problems as Path Dependence (track effect) and QWERTY effects are being updated.

The name of the Path Dependence theory is usually translated in Russian literature as “dependence on previous development” or “rut effect.” She pays attention to institutional change and the role of institutions in technical change.

QWERTY effects in modern scientific literature refer to all sorts of relatively ineffective but persistent standards that demonstrate that “history matters.”

These effects can be detected in two ways:

1) either compare technical standards that actually coexist in the modern world;

2) or compare implemented technical innovations with potentially possible, but not implemented ones.

Although the modern economy has long been globalizing and unifying, different countries around the world continue to maintain different technical standards that are incompatible with each other. Some examples are well known - for example, the differences between left-hand (in the former British Empire) and right-hand traffic on the roads of different countries, differences in railway gauge or in electrical transmission standards.

Unfortunately, QWERTY effects arose not only in the relatively early stages of economic history, they also manifest themselves in the era of scientific and technological revolution.

The theory of dependence on previous development and related scientific research on alternative history are based on the metascientific paradigm of synergetics - self-organization of order from chaos. According to the synergetic approach, the development of society is not strictly predetermined (according to the principle “nothing else is given”). In fact, there is an alternation of periods of evolution, when the vector of development cannot be changed (movement along an attractor), and bifurcation points at which the possibility of choice arises. When “QWERTY economists” talk about the historical randomness of the initial choice, they consider precisely the bifurcation points of history - those moments when any one possibility is chosen from a fan of different alternatives. The choice in such situations almost always occurs under conditions of uncertainty and instability of the balance of social forces. Therefore, during bifurcation, even very minor subjective circumstances can turn out to be fateful - according to the principle of Lorentz’s “butterfly effect”.

The victory of the initially chosen standards/norms over all others, even comparatively more effective ones, can be observed in the history of the development of institutions. Prior dependence for institutions is likely to be quite similar to prior development dependence for technologies, since both are based on the high value of adaptation to some common practice (some technique or rules), so that deviations from it become too costly.

If when describing the history of technical innovations they often write about QWERTY effects, then within the framework of the analysis of institutional innovations they usually talk about Path Dependence - dependence on previous development.

In the history of the development of institutions, manifestations of dependence on previous development can be traced at two levels - firstly, at the level of individual institutions (legal, organizational, political, etc.), and secondly, at the level of institutional systems (especially national economic systems ).

As a matter of fact, any example of technological QWERTY effects necessarily has an institutional background, because it is not the technologies that compete, but the organizations that use them. Let's say, the victory of the narrow gauge standard over the more efficient broad gauge standard is the victory of the less efficient (at least by this criterion) D. Stephenson's company over its more efficient but less successful competitors.

Thus, the application of the theory of dependence on previous development to the political-economic history of institutions allows us to see their opportunity costs and thereby draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the choice made at the bifurcation points of socio-economic development.

Foreign literature on Path Dependence emphasizes the multiplicity of factors that give rise to it. If the discoverers of QWERTY effects paid main attention, in the traditions of neoclassics, to the technical causes of this phenomenon, then D. North and other institutionalists paid attention to the social causes associated with people's activities.

In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to such effects as the “coordination effect” - the benefits from the cooperation of some agents with others (in this regard, it is necessary to point out low costs (including transaction costs) for those following generally accepted standards, and high ones for “Robinsons” ).

The next factor is the growth of returns to scale (the use of any standard is more profitable the more often it is used). The most trivial one - the factor of dependence on previous development - also allows for a non-trivial institutional interpretation: norms as social capital can also become obsolete. But it is much more difficult to change them than physical capital. In modern studies of the causes of Path Dependence, attention is increasingly paid to cultural factors - mentality, education and social harmony.

Question 3. Practical value and prospects for using BIT in public administration .

As for the practical value and prospects for using BIT in the field of public administration research, we can note, firstly, the theory of coordination and the need to analyze transaction costs.

The analysis of transaction costs provides an original theoretical basis for solving the problem of comparative effectiveness of institutional forms of coordination of interactions. According to the new institutional theory, each such form, as well as the level of coordination, has its own, special configuration of transaction costs. Thus, based on the works of Williamson and Powell, “ideal” management structures were identified that could theoretically be present in executive authorities: hierarchy, corporation and network.

However, keep in mind the differences between the private and public sectors. The main difference is that the initial management structure in the public sector is hierarchy. There are situations in which it is possible to conclude contracts, but, as a rule, the activities of counterparties are strictly controlled. And while in the private sector inefficient producers will most likely be forced to leave the market, in the public sector, where political support plays a big role, ineffective management structures can exist for quite a long time. Thus, the theory of transaction costs needs to be adapted to the specific characteristics of

cams of public sector organizations, especially if it is intended to analyze the internal structure of organizations.

In this regard, the first thing that needs to be done is to define the concept of transaction in the context of the provision of public services. As a rule, the result of the work of executive authorities is the developed legal acts, projects, and decisions on a certain range of problems. Thus, for executive authorities, the main criterion for a transaction is the delegation of tasks. That is, a transaction in executive authorities is the transfer of a task from one employee to another. As a rule, one of the employees occupies a higher level on the hierarchical ladder, but this is not a prerequisite. The processes that have been taking place in the field of public administration over the past 20–25 years have provided researchers with an extensive field for conducting not only theoretical but also empirical research: since the 1980s. Various countries are undergoing gradual reforms in the public sector. Already by the mid-1970s. the need to search for alternatives to the hierarchical management structure in executive authorities became obvious. In the 1980s Under the so-called new public management, executive branch organizations began to be viewed as corporations to be managed by professional managers. In the 1990s. this model of public administration was supplemented with “market elements”, which suggested, for example, the possibility of outsourcing some functions performed by government bodies; in the 2000s Network elements began to be actively introduced into public administration.

Thus, by comparing management structures in government organizations, it is possible to identify ideal types and present their characteristics.

Taking these features into account in the process of reforming administrative and public administration, it is possible to achieve a more efficient use of market instruments by saving on costs specific to each form of coordination, which is extremely important for the modern managerial program of administrative reforms.

The most important conclusion that the theory of transaction costs comes to is that the combination of different types of transactions with different mechanisms for managing them is not accidental. Each class of transactions corresponds to a special class of regulatory structures that ensure their execution with the lowest transaction costs.

In addition, the new institutionalists proposed a number of basic concepts and concepts; some of them raise more questions than answers, and most require further theoretical development and empirical substantiation.

This is governance as network cooperation up to the formation of a “fragmented and disarticulated state” (network institutionalism): how the universality / fragmentation of social and political orders relate to each other; a type of leadership that provides symbols and meanings for those in and outside the control network; embeddedness (including the adoption of new technologies (technology enactment)3) – what are the institutional consequences of the formation of “electronic governments”; legitimacy (in particular, organizational), which, as some researchers believe, is more important than efficiency - what is the institutional meaning of legitimacy and is institutional efficiency possible; bounded rationality following the logic of fitness - how it relates to political choice, etc.

It is obvious that the results of institutional research, despite the inevitable and sometimes obvious inconsistency, are very significant. Of course, the institutional approach did not and could not become a universal paradigm applicable to the study of any problems.

Despite all the costs, institutionalists of almost all schools managed to update previous ideas about politics, public administration, the political-administrative process and political actors at the micro, macro and mega levels.

Self-test questions:

1. Characterize the main directions of neo-institutionalism.

2. What are the methodological and theoretical prerequisites of NIT?

3. Describe the main provisions of the new institutional theory of public administration?

4. How productive is it to use the theory of transaction costs NIT in the practice of public administration?

5. What are the fundamental differences between New Managerialism and the New Institutional Theory of Public Administration?

6. What is the role of Path Dependence, QWERTY effects in public administration?

Why is the world a bunch of irrational and immoral opportunists and how to survive in such a world? So begins the book by the famous economist and dean of the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University Alexander Auzan, which was published by the Mann, Ivanov and Ferber publishing house. “Theories and Practices” publishes an excerpt from this publication - about the diseases of countries, the rut effect and the fate of Russia.

In institutional theory, there is a term that in English is called path dependence, and in Russian I propose to translate it as “rut effect.” Essentially, it is institutional inertia that keeps a country on a certain trajectory. The very idea of ​​such trajectories along which countries move was developed thanks to the work of statistician Angus Madison. He implemented a very simple thing. In many countries, statistics have existed for quite a long time: in England - more than 200 years, in France - a little less than 200 years, in Germany and Russia - more than 150 years. Madison took the main indicators - gross product, population and, accordingly, the level of gross product per capita - and compiled all this data into a single table (and he compiled data for two millennia, but the data of the last 200 years should still be considered reliable ). Since several empires controlled most of the globe in the 19th and 20th centuries, we essentially have a single statistical picture of the world.

When economists saw the Madison table, they gasped. It has become obvious that most countries in the world are divided into groups, and this division is very clear. The first group is on a high trajectory and consistently shows good economic results. The second group is equally steadily following a low trajectory: it often includes traditional countries that simply do not set the goal of having high economic results, but focus on other values ​​- family, religious, etc. It turns out that there is a kind of first escape velocity, which allows you to stay in orbit, but nothing more, and a second escape velocity, which allows you to go into outer space. But there is also a third, most volatile group of countries that are constantly trying to move from the second group to the first. They have emerged from the state of traditionalism, but cannot complete modernization.

“All attempts to transition from a low development trajectory to a high one in Russia have invariably failed for several centuries, and the country returns to stagnation over and over again.”

Examples of successful transitions are extremely rare; most often, countries jump up, but then hit the ceiling and slide down again. This is exactly what the “rut effect” is. And Russia belongs precisely to this type of country (as well as, for example, Spain, which has been in this state for quite some time and has not yet solved the problem, because the latest crisis is again pushing it out of the Western European macroeconomic trajectory). Despite multiple Russian breakthroughs, on average we are 50 years behind Germany and France. That is, now we have, accordingly, the beginning of the 1960s in Paris, not at all the best times for France: the war for independence in Algeria is at its end, the Secret Army Organization (an ultra-right terrorist group that opposed the secession of Algeria) is operating, and there is still a lot ahead everything interesting up to the student revolution.

However, let's not get carried away with direct analogies. The main thing is not the difference in economic indicators, but whether the country’s goal is to move from one group to another and why it fails, and a blockage, a rut, occurs. The presence of this rut ​​can be diagnosed by three symptoms: belonging to a low trajectory, attempts to leave it, and a low level of happiness. Ukrainian economists once asked me why both Ukrainians and Russians have a happiness index at the level of equatorial Africa, although we are clearly more successful than the vast majority of African countries? To this I replied that, according to the definition of one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, John Rawls, happiness is the feeling of successful implementation of a life plan. And a country that cannot implement its life plan for modernization turns out to be unhappy.

All attempts to transition from a low development trajectory to a high one in Russia have been invariably frustrated for several centuries, and the country returns to stagnation over and over again. Living in a country that is stuck in development is a very difficult task. The experience of Russian stagnation gave birth to two formulas of attitude towards emigration. One of them belongs to Viktor Nekrasov, a wonderful writer, who, having seen the slogan “Let’s raise the role of women in socialist agriculture even higher” over Khreshchatyk, said: “It is better to die of homesickness than of anger in one’s native open spaces.” So the singer of the Battle of Stalingrad left the USSR. The second formula belongs to Vladimir Vysotsky: “Don’t worry, I didn’t leave. And don’t get your hopes up - I won’t leave!” I don’t know which of these formulas is correct, but I know that both are born from the experience of stagnation and the feeling of the country being stuck.

But why does this stagnation repeat, where does the blockage come from? The question remains open. There are at least three hypotheses explaining the “rut effect”. Imagine a medical consultation. The first doctor says: “This is a genetic disease, nothing can be done about it.” The second doctor says: “What are you talking about, colleague! This is a chronic disease. It is very difficult to cure it, but it is possible.” And the third doctor says: “No, it’s neither one nor the other. This is measles in adulthood.” Some countries suffer from the same diseases that other countries suffered from, but at a later stage in their history, already as adults, and therefore suffer them very hard.

Rut as a genetic disease

The first doctor to offer the darkest explanation is the economists of the so-called neo-Schumpeterian school. They extended to the economic history of countries the theory of “creative destruction” that the Austro-American economist Joseph Schumpeter formulated for the development of technology. According to this theory, what we usually mistake for development is nothing more than a recombination of elements: their shuffling gives the semblance of new pictures, but they all lie within the framework of one paradigm, which changes extremely rarely. As applied to countries, the paradigm is national identity, which sets strict boundaries for development. The country is making various modernization efforts, the picture seems to be changing, but it will not be possible to jump over one’s head until the paradigm changes.

The main argument of the supporters of the Schumpeterian explanation of the blockage is the story of Japan, one of the few countries that managed to break out of the rut and firmly establish itself in the group of developed countries. In the 1850s, Japan is a dying eastern country struggling to close itself down to quietly fade into oblivion. But Europe does not allow her to do this - not out of some abstract humanism, but out of a completely practical need for Japanese markets. The fleet of European powers forcefully opens the country to trade, and it is forced to begin the Meiji reforms. The results of these reforms were soon felt by our ancestors under Tsushima. In a military-technical battle where such things as long-range artillery and optics mattered most, an unremarkable eastern country smashed the great maritime power of the Russian Empire to smithereens.

“For 500 years we lived in an empire, and now few people can list three or four national characteristics that constitute the Russians as a nation.”

Then there was the Second World War, which, let me remind you, ended not on May 8, or even on May 9, 1945, but on September 2. For four months the whole world was at war with one country - Japan. And it took an atomic bomb for her to capitulate. And then the Japanese economic miracle of the 1960s happened. Over the course of 100 years, the country went through the entire Madison table and confidently moved from a low development trajectory to a high one. Neo-Schumpeterians argue that in order to make this leap, the country sacrificed its paradigm - national identity. The Japanese are no longer Japanese. There are indeed signs of this. For example, in Japan for ten years now the issue of abandoning the national language in office work and switching to English has been seriously discussed (because the Latin alphabet is much more convenient for a computer than hieroglyphs). At the same time, the suicide rate in Japan is extremely high - that is, the country as a whole seems to be quite successful, but something is still wrong. Neo-Schumpeterians explain it this way: to become a successful country, you need to abandon what institutional economists call supra-constitutional rules. These are informal institutions of the highest order, higher than the constitution or any other formal institution. It is they who determine the specifics of the country’s national values, and changing them is a monstrously difficult task that can result in very traumatic consequences.

But it seems to me that the neo-Schumpeterian explanation of blocking in the case of Russia does not work simply because a nation with its own supra-constitutional values ​​has not been formed in Russia. We lived in an empire for 500 years, and now few people can list, without anyone arguing with them, three or four national features that constitute Russians as a nation. This seems to be not bad, because the most pessimistic forecast for our country turns out to be irrelevant, but what in this case is the reason for the blocking?

Rut as a chronic disease

The second doctor who at our consultation gives the patient, albeit illusory, but still hope for a cure, are economists who adhere to the Northian point of view on blocking. This version, which now dominates economic thought, is based on the theory of institutional change that won Douglas North the Nobel Prize in 1993. Like the theory of “creative destruction,” it grew out of observations of the development of technology, and more specifically, from Paul David’s article “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY,” published in the mid-1980s.

If you look at your computer keyboard, you will see the letters QWERTY in the top left corner. Do you know where this combination came from? When typewriter inventor Christopher Scholes perfected the keyboard layout in the 1870s, he placed the letters QWERTYUIOP in the top row so that salespeople could effectively emboss the device's name—TYPE WRITER—to impress customers. Many years have passed since then, the Remington company, which was the first to use the invention in mass production, is long gone, and there are problems with the typewriters themselves, but the name remains, and with it the corresponding layout. This is despite the fact that the arrangement of letters on a QWERTY keyboard is far from optimal; there are much more ergonomic layouts like the “Dvorak keyboard”. But no one is going to change it - everyone is too used to it.

Another example is the width of the railway track. Technologists have come to the joyful conclusion that the width of the railway track in Russia is correct and safer. Does it follow from this that the whole world will rebuild its railways according to the Russian model? No. Rather, Russia will build roads with a narrow, irregular surface, so as not to waste time and money on replacing carriage wheels in Brest. This is also a manifestation of the “QWERTY effect”, when an erroneous technical solution is fixed because everyone is used to it.

“We can observe not only the track along which Russia is moving, but even the point at which the mistake of the initial institutional choice was made - the 14th–15th centuries, when the institutions of autocracy and serfdom began to emerge.”

Douglas North decided to apply this idea more broadly - to development in general. Using the concept of institutions instead of technical solutions, he suggested that countries that are trying in vain to reach a high development trajectory have made mistakes in the initial institutional choice. He proved this using the examples of England and Spain. By the 16th century, these countries were on absolutely equal starting positions. Both were approximately equal in population and employment structure, and both carried out foreign policy expansion. Any macroeconomist would say that they will be at similar levels in a hundred years and in three hundred. But already in the 19th century, England, without any reservations, was the main world power, and Spain was one of the most backward countries in Europe. What's the matter?

North testified that what happened was an accident. It just so happened that in the 16th century in England the issue of tax distribution fell within the competence of parliament, and in Spain - the king. As a result, Spain, which took much more wealth from the colonies than England, very quickly squandered its treasures - because kings love wars and leaky budgets. There is no point in investing in the economy if the king can confiscate those investments at any time. In England, on the contrary, conditions for accumulation and investment have developed. The realization of the mistake comes, by historical standards, quite quickly. However, on the wrong path, so many institutions and interests are growing, working against fundamental changes, that Spain has been moving through revolutions and civil wars for two hundred years, trying to jump out of the rut it fell into, but it is not yet very clear whether it succeeded or not.

How applicable is the idea of ​​random error in initial institutional choice to Russia? In principle, of course, it is applicable. Many researchers of Russian history argue that, firstly, in Russia the effect of returning to the rut is in effect. Nikolai Berdyaev very accurately described the situation in 1917, when from February to October all possible parties and ideas paraded before the surprised Russian gaze. What did the Russian people choose? Yes, the same as it was before February. A similar picture - in 1613, a bankrupt state was restored by the forces of society and the people's militia. But what next? Restoration of autocracy and strengthening of serfdom.

Thus, we can observe not only the track along which Russia is moving, but even the point at which the mistake of the initial institutional choice was made - the 14th–15th centuries, when the institutions of autocracy and serfdom began to emerge. As Georgy Fedotov quite rightly wrote, these phenomena are not identical to absolutism and feudal dependence, this is a unique Russian solution. And the same Fedotov came up with a formula: Russia has come up with a way to achieve progress without expanding freedom. In economics this has found a completely paradoxical expression. Since in Russia it was not land that was always in short supply, but people, then, in theory, the price of a person should have been constantly rising. But another solution was found: if you force a scarce person to the land, you get cheap labor. At the same time, you get a state that cannot withdraw from the economy, a state that is autocratic and not just an absolute monarchy. And in a sense, the consequences of this mistake in the initial institutional choice are still felt: our traditional armed forces are, in essence, serfdom, with its own versions of corvee and quitrent. And the relations between guest workers and employers are, in principle, reminiscent of serfdom. Of course, now the “serf” sector does not play such a huge role in the economy as in the 17th, 18th or mid-20th centuries, but several million people are employed in it.

Thus, the Northian diagnosis describes the Russian situation much more accurately than the neo-Schumpeterian one. And the forecast in this case, of course, is more optimistic, since the blockage is caused not by the supra-constitutional values ​​that underlie society, but by erroneously chosen institutions. But this diagnosis, although it does not imply that the patient is incurable, does not promise a simple and quick cure either. What other options does Russia have?

Ruts like measles in adulthood

The third doctor who claims that an adult patient simply suffers from a childhood illness very hard is the brilliant Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto. As Theodor Chanin wittily noted, developing countries are countries that are not developing. De Soto was precisely trying to show why they are not developing. The novelty of his approach is that he looked at the problem not from within the developed world, but from the outside. It turned out that all the problems that are now observed in developing countries also existed in today's developed countries - just much earlier. In England in the 17th century, cities tried to introduce an institution, which in Russian I would call “propiska,” - this is how they fought against the competition of visitors. At the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries, property rights were practically not recognized in the United States, the situation was much worse than, for example, in modern Russia, and now this is one of the supra-constitutional American values, which was painfully born in an endless series of lawsuits and state legislative decisions . But current generations in developed countries have already forgotten how these problems were solved in their time, and therefore the solutions they offer to developing countries often do not work.

What are the causes of childhood diseases in adult countries? According to de Soto, the whole point is the gap between formal and informal institutions, behind which there is a struggle of dominant groups seeking to preserve the status quo that is beneficial for themselves. There are several thriving centers that live within the bounds of the law and access to which is restricted by dominant groups. And the rest of the country lives according to informal rules, which conflict with the laws and are supported by influence groups such as the mafia. A cure for this disease is possible if a compromise is found between formal and informal institutions, involving the maximum number of groups - and in particular the mafia. To do this, first of all, you need to identify the most effective informal institutions. For example, to strengthen the institution of property in Indonesia, de Soto proposed the following: the country's rice fields were not fenced in any way, but while walking in Bali, he noticed that every time he crossed the boundaries of a farm, he heard a new dog bark. “Listen to the dogs, Mr. Minister,” said a Peruvian economist during a seminar in Jakarta. As for compromise, one of the most effective ways de Soto considers various types of amnesties that allow informal communities to be legalized.

“Some features of Peronism are already present in Russia, but at the core, I repeat, is the reluctance of the elites to change the trajectory, their hope that the curve will take out. But the curve doesn’t take us out.”

In the case of Russia, the problem with the Sotian - the most optimistic - theory is that de Soto considers primarily countries with a rich traditional layer, where customs work well. In Russia, unfortunately, this is bad.

It is clear that getting out of a rut is very difficult. But the theory of institutional change provides food for thought in terms of people's behavior and attitudes. On the one hand, it is obvious that the stagnation and reactionary political regime lights a revolutionary fire in souls. But there is no need to wish for revolution! An analysis of institutional changes shows that this is the worst of all options for getting out of a rut, and the grandchildren will have to deal with the delights associated with the consequences of revolutions. To students who are, in principle, inclined to revolutionary thinking (however, less so in Russia than in other countries), I repeat the phrase of Stanislav Jerzy Lec: “Well, let’s say you hit a wall with your head. And what will you do in the next cell?” A wonderful metaphor for revolution. On the other hand, do not trust evolution - do not assume that the curve itself will take you out. Where Russia's current curve will take it is not difficult to predict. There is such a country - Argentina. In the first half of the 20th century, in terms of GDP per capita, it was on par with the United States and confidently remained in the top ten countries in the world, but now the curve has taken it far from the top ten. Russia is now repeating this trajectory quite accurately.

What happened to Argentina? The country grew on traditional resources - grain and meat. During the Great Depression, when Roosevelt sharply changed course in the United States, the Argentine elites decided that they would not change anything, because people will always need grain and meat (our elites think that people will always burn oil and gas). Indeed, people still eat Argentinean meat with pleasure, but it turned out that this resource alone does not allow Argentina to be the leading country in the world. When Argentina realized this, convulsions began: the country went through the populist dictatorship of Perón, which was accompanied by political terror and human casualties. Some features of Peronism are already present in Russia, but at the core, I repeat, is the reluctance of the elites to change the trajectory, their hope that the curve will take them out. But the curve does not take out.