Sergey Glazyev: How to win the war
Along with the Ukrainian hotbed of stirring up the world chaotic war, the United States continues to support armed conflicts in Syria and Iraq, destabilize the situation in the Middle East, prepare for the Taliban and Islamic militants to invade Central Asia, design color revolutions in Russia and other Eurasian integration countries, and organize coups in the out of control Latin American countries.The United States is pushing the objective laws of global economic and political dynamics described above into world war. Their understanding allows us to predict military-political activity for the next decade.
1. Forecast of a cyclical exacerbation of the military threat
An analysis of long cycles of economic and political dynamics shows that the most likely period of major regional military conflicts involving the US and its satellites against Russia is 2015 – 2018. This is the period when the new technological order emerges from the phase of childbirth into the phase of growth, when its technological trajectory is being completed and the economy based on it is being modernized. It was during this period that technological change entailed changes in the structure of international relations.
Countries that had previously embarked on the wave of growth of a new technological order acquire a competitive advantage in the world market and begin to crowd the former leaders, who have to make great efforts to get out of the crisis of capital over-accumulation in outdated production and technological structures.
The above-described struggle between new and old leaders of economic and technological development for dominance in the world market, which leads to an increase in international tension and provokes military-political conflicts that have so far led to world wars, unfolds. It is this period that begins now, which will last until 2020 – 2022, when the structure of the new technological order is finally formed and the world economy will enter a phase of sustainable growth based on it.
The Ukrainian crisis began a year earlier than the forecast estimate of the time when the escalation of military-political tensions began. If Yanukovych had signed an agreement on the establishment of an association with the EU, it would have begun one and a half years later - at the time of the next presidential election.
By this time, the mechanisms envisaged by the EU for managing the economic, foreign and defense policies of Ukraine on the part of the EU would have earned. The Ukrainian-Polish-Lithuanian battalions that are being formed now would be created and deployed on the borders with Russia. I would go through the development of procedures for joint actions of the European and Ukrainian armed forces in the settlement of armed regional conflicts.
Although the agreement provides for Ukraine’s commitment to act in these conflicts under the leadership of the EU, as well as to follow its foreign and defense policy, it is clear that NATO will be engaged in the actual organization of military operations under the leadership of Washington.
There is no doubt that at the time of the presidential election in the spring of 2015, the same technologies of replacing Yanukovych as a protege of the USA would have been applied as during the coup d'état this winter. Only a change of power would pass in a relatively legitimate way, which would exclude the intervention of Russia.
The Americans would also form a government and power structures of Ukraine from their agents, which would direct them to join NATO and oust the Black Sea fleet Russia from the Crimea. Russia would not be confronted by Nazi gangs, but by quite legitimate Ukrainian-European military contingents, relying on the entire military power of NATO.
A legitimate Ukrainian government sent by the United States would break cooperation with Russia in the defense industry, conduct an equally frantic anti-Russian campaign in the media and force Ukrainization of the South-East of Ukraine.
According to forecasts of long cycles of political activity, the peak of international military-political conflicts is in the 2016 – 2018 years.
If it were not for the disruption of Ukraine in the political crisis, by that time it was completely under the control of NATO and would conduct an anti-Russian policy with blocking the work of the Black Sea Fleet and provoking inter-ethnic conflicts in Crimea with the aim of destroying pro-Russian public organizations and clearing the south-eastern regions from Russian influence .
Russia would be in a much worse position than it is now, after reunification with the Crimea and the establishment of the Nazi regime in Kiev, whose illegitimacy and criminal actions condemn Ukraine to disaster and collapse.
Of course, the socio-economic catastrophe that has gripped Ukraine and the growth of chaos in this territory does not meet the goals of Russia, which is vitally interested in a prosperous and successfully developing Ukraine, which is part of the Russian world and is inextricably linked with Russia technologically, economically and spiritually.
The catastrophic scenario could have been avoided if Yanukovych had not been led by American and European emissaries, had defended the state from the Nazi insurgency and had not allowed a coup d'état. However, for the United States this would be tantamount to a defeat in the long anti-Russian campaign that they conducted in Ukraine throughout the post-Soviet period.
Therefore, they did everything possible, using all their political, informational and financial resources to organize a coup and transfer power over Ukraine to their protégés. For this adventure, the United States risks paying with its ideological and political leadership if Russia conducts a competent and decisive defense of itself and peace from the American policy of unleashing a world chaotic war.
With 2017 in the United States will begin a new election cycle, which, apparently, will be implicated in Russophobia as the ideological basis of the World War they fueled. However, by this time, the crisis state of the American financial system may manifest itself in budget cuts, dollar depreciation and a noticeable deterioration in the standard of living of the population.
US external aggression may choke in the Middle East, fail in Afghanistan and Iraq. The pressure of internal problems and crises in foreign policy, on the one hand, will provoke an increase in the aggressiveness of the American leadership, and, on the other hand, will weaken its position.
As Pantin argues, in the case of intellectual, economic and military mobilization, Russia has a chance not to lose in the 2015 – 2018 conflicts, since the United States and its satellites will not be ready for open aggression.
According to the same forecasts, the most dangerous period for Russia will come at the beginning of the 2020-s, when the technological re-equipment of developed countries and China will begin, and the USA and other Western countries will come out of the 2008 – 2018 depression. and make a new technological leap.
It was in the period 2021 – 2025. Russia may again fall behind technologically and economically, which will devalue its defense potential and sharply strengthen internal social and interethnic conflicts, as happened with the USSR in the late 1980s.
American analysts from the CIA and other departments directly rely on the collapse of Russia from the inside after 2020 due to internal social and interethnic conflicts initiated from outside. The appointment by the new US ambassador to Russia of the most famous organizer of the “color revolutions” and coup in the post-Soviet space, John Tefft, also testifies to this.
The most dangerous for Russia are interethnic conflicts, which will be artificially ignited from the outside and inside, using social inequality, inequality between regions and economic problems.
To this end, the United States has consistently cultivated its “fifth column” among the Russian political, business and intellectual elites, singling out for these purposes, by some estimates, up to 10 billion dollars a year.
To avoid this most negative scenario leading to the collapse of the country, a systemic domestic and foreign policy is needed to strengthen national security, ensure economic independence, increase international competitiveness and advance development of the national economy, mobilize society and modernize the military-industrial complex.
By 2017, when the US begins to openly and on all fronts to threaten Russia, the Russian army must have modern and effective weapons, Russian society must be united and confident in its abilities, the Russian intellectual elite will own the achievements of the new technological order, the economy will be the wave of growth of a new technological structure, and Russian diplomacy - to organize a broad anti-war coalition of countries capable of coordinated action to stop American aggression.
We have already mentioned above the need to create a broad international coalition of countries not interested in starting a new world war. Such a coalition is needed not only to prevent it, but also to win it, if war proves to be inevitable.
2. Anti-War International Coalition
The anti-war international coalition might include:
- European countries that are drawn into the war against Russia against their national interests;
- the BRICS countries, whose economic growth can be torpedoed by the US-organized destabilization;
- Korea, the countries of Indochina, which are not interested in the deterioration of relations with Russia;
- The countries of the Middle East, for which a world war would mean an escalation of their own regional conflicts;
- The Latin American countries of the Bolivarian Alliance, for whom the unwinding of a new world war brings the threat of a direct US invasion;
- developing countries G77 - heirs of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries - traditionally opposed to wars for a just world order.
As a motive for creating such a coalition, the threat of a global chaotic war unleashing the United States should be put forward for all its participants.
An important condition for the successful creation of such a coalition is to deprive the United States of a monopoly on ideological dominance by consistently exposing the inhuman consequences of their interventions by their soldiers in the mass killings of civilians and the devastating results of American henchmen in various countries.
It is necessary to destroy the image of American infallibility, demonstrating the cynicism and deception of American leaders, the disastrous consequences of their policy of double standards, the incompetence and ignorance of American officials and politicians.
Religious organizations that oppose the imposition of the cult of permissiveness and depravity, undermining family and other human values, could become powerful allies in the creation of an anti-war coalition.
They would help coalition members to work out and propose to the world a new unifying ideology that proceeds from the restoration of the unshakable moral constraints of human arbitrariness.
A constructive role could be played by international humanitarian and anti-fascist organizations. An ally could be the world scientific and expert community, acting from the standpoint of sustainable development and generating development projects uniting humanity.
The actions of the anti-war coalition should be aimed not only at exposing and destroying the political domination of the United States, but, above all, at undermining the American military-political power based on the emission of the dollar as a world currency.
In the case of continuing aggressive US actions to incite a world war, they should include abandoning the use of the dollar in mutual trade and dollar instruments for the placement of foreign exchange reserves.
The anti-war coalition should have its own positive program for organizing the global financial and economic architecture on the principles of mutual benefit, justice and respect for national sovereignty.
We have already mentioned above the necessary measures for financial stabilization, more efficient regulation of the financial market, banking, financial and investment institutions, stimulating the growth of the new technological order and progressive structural changes, the formation of the corresponding new institutions. They must eliminate the fundamental causes of the global crisis, among which the most important are:
- the lack of control over the issue of world reserve currencies, leading to the abuse of issuers of a monopoly position in their own interests at the price of growing imbalances and destructive tendencies in the global financial and economic system;
- the inability of existing mechanisms for regulating the operations of banking and financial institutions to provide protection against excessive risks and the emergence of financial bubbles;
- the exhaustion of the growth limits of the dominant technological order and the lack of conditions for the formation of a new one, including a lack of investment for the widespread introduction of clusters of its basic technology components.
3. Anti-crisis program of the anti-war coalition
The anti-war coalition should come up with a positive program of measures to overcome the global crisis by eliminating its causes and creating stable conditions for the functioning of the world financial market and international monetary exchange on a mutually beneficial basis, developing international production cooperation, and world trade in goods and technologies.
These conditions should allow the national monetary authorities to organize loans for the development of new technological way of production and modernization of the economy based on it, stimulating innovation and business activity in promising areas of economic growth.
To do this, countries issuing world reserve currencies should ensure their sustainability by complying with certain restrictions on the size of public debt and the deficit of payment and trade balances.
In addition, they should comply with the appropriately established requirements for the transparency of the mechanisms used to ensure the emission of their currencies, and to allow them to freely exchange for all the assets traded in their territory.
An important requirement for issuers of world reserve currencies should be compliance with the rules of fair competition and non-discriminatory access to their financial markets. At the same time, other countries that comply with similar restrictions should be provided with the possibility of using their national currencies as a tool for foreign trade and monetary exchange, including their use as reserve by other partner countries.
It is advisable to introduce a classification of national currencies that claim to be global or regional reserve currencies, by category, depending on their compliance with certain requirements.
Simultaneously with the introduction of requirements for issuers of world reserve currencies, it is necessary to tighten control over the movement of capital in order to prevent speculative attacks that destabilize the world and national monetary and financial systems.
To do this, coalition countries need to ban transactions of their residents with offshore zones, as well as not allow banks and corporations established with the participation of offshore residents to refinance schemes. It is also advisable to introduce restrictions on the use in international payments of currencies whose issuers do not comply with the established requirements.
To determine the requirements for issuers of world reserve currencies and monitor their compliance, it is necessary to carry out a thorough reform of international financial institutions in order to ensure equitable representation of the participating countries according to an objective criterion from the set of signs of the relative weight of each of them in world production, trade, finance, natural potential and population .
According to the same criterion, a basket of currencies can be formed for the release of a new SDR, in relation to which the rates of all national currencies, including world reserve ones, can be determined. At the initial stage, currencies of those countries of the coalition, which will agree to undertake obligations to comply with the established requirements, can enter this basket.
The implementation of such large-scale reforms requires appropriate legal and institutional support. This can be done by giving the coalition decisions the status of international obligations of countries interested in their implementation, as well as relying on UN institutions and authorized international organizations.
To stimulate the global spread of socially significant advances in technology, it is necessary to deploy an international system of strategic planning for global socio-economic development, including the development of long-term forecasts of scientific and technological development, identifying prospects for the development of the world economy, regional associations and large countries, identifying ways to overcome existing imbalances, including gaps in the level of development of advanced and underdeveloped countries, as well as selection of priority directions of development and indicative plans of activities of international organizations.
The US and the G7 countries are likely to reject the proposals for reforming the global monetary and financial system described above without discussion, since their implementation will undermine their monopoly right to the uncontrolled emission of world currencies. The current mode of sharing the results and factors of economic activity between developing and developed countries of the latter is quite satisfactory.
As shown by the policy pursued by the United States, they prefer to instigate a chaotic world war to protect their dominant position in terms of justice, mutual benefit and respect for sovereignty. Therefore, in order to be effective and efficient, the anti-war coalition must have sufficient defenses to repel American aggression and attempts at military-political destabilization anywhere in the world.
For this, it is necessary to expand the format of the CSTO, to involve China, Vietnam, Syria, Cuba, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, to create partnership mechanisms for peace with India, Iran, Venezuela, Brazil, and other countries threatened by American aggression.
With military-political and economic power comparable to NATO, the anti-war coalition could defeat the confrontation imposed by the United States and, regardless of their will, proceed to reform the global financial and monetary system in the interests of sustainable economic development of both the global and all national economies.
In the event that G7 countries refuse to “move over” in the governing bodies of international financial organizations, the anti-war coalition must have enough synergy to create alternative global regulators.
It is possible to initiate the creation of such a coalition on the basis of BRICS, starting with solving the issues of ensuring their economic security, including:
- creation of a universal payment system for the BRICS countries and the issuance of a common BRICS payment card uniting the Chinese UnionPay, the Brazilian ELO, the Indian RuPay, and also the Russian payment systems;
- the creation of an interbank information exchange system independent of the US and the EU, similar to SWIFT;
- transition to the use of its rating agencies.
Russia will have to assume the leading role in creating an anti-war coalition, since it is she who is in the most vulnerable position and without creating such a coalition will not be able to win the world war against her.
If Russia does not create such a coalition, then the anti-Russian coalition that is being formed by the United States can absorb or neutralize potential Russian allies. Thus, the war provoked by the Americans in Europe against Russia may prove beneficial to China.
Following Chinese wisdom about an intelligent monkey waiting for two tigers to complete a fight in the tree, then assign the prey, they can choose a strategy of non-intervention.
The mutual weakening of the US, EU and Russia makes it easier for China to achieve global leadership. Brazil may succumb to US pressure. India - to close in solving their internal problems.
Russia has no less than the United States, historical leadership experience in world politics, necessary for this spiritual authority and sufficient military-technical power. But in order to claim leadership, the Russian public consciousness needs to get rid of the inferiority complex instilled in it by pro-Western media during the Gorbachev perestroika and American domination under the Yeltsin regime.
It is necessary to restore the historical pride of the Russian people for the centuries-old stubborn creation of civilization, which united many nations and cultures and more than once saved Europe and humanity from self-destruction. Return an understanding of the historical continuity of the role of the Russian world in building universal culture, ranging from Kievan Rus, which became the spiritual successor of the Byzantine Empire, to the modern Russian Federation, which is the successor of the USSR and the Russian Empire.
In this context, the Eurasian integration process should be presented as a global project to restore a common development space for centuries lived together, collaborated and enriched each other peoples from Lisbon to Vladivostok and from St. Petersburg to Colombo.
Internal harmonization of the Russian public consciousness is also necessary, excluding its disruption both in Nazism and in cosmopolitanism. First of all, we are talking about the introduction of value systems that strengthen Russia, such as “any nationalism - Russian, Ukrainian, Chechen, Tatar, Jewish ... - is a preliminary form of Nazism”, “where officials cope with their duties, no one - neither among the citizens nor the nations - causes any reasons for protests, ”“ we are to blame for all the harm done to us, first of all, because we are weak and vulnerable, ”and the like.
In addition to the harmonization of interethnic relations, such attitudes will destroy the activities of local agents of foreign influence in Russia, who have succeeded in distorting meanings and changing concepts.
Russia will not be able to organize a repulse of American aggression, if it does not regain the ability for independent development. Despite the terrible destruction of the research and production potential and the degradation of industry, Russia still retains enough intellectual, natural and economic potential for successful development.
But its full use is impossible within the framework of the pro-American economic policy pursued today, which provokes the export of capital and the offshore economy, which limits domestic credit by providing loans to the United States and its NATO allies by placing currency reserves in their bonds.
4. Ensuring the economic security of Russia
The experience of the 2008 crisis of the year revealed the high vulnerability of the Russian economy to the global financial market, which is regulated in ways that discriminate for Russia, including undervaluing credit ratings, making uneven demands on the openness of the domestic market and observing financial constraints, imposing mechanisms of nonequivalent foreign exchange, in which Russia loses about 100 billion dollars.
Including about 60 billion dollars leaving the country in the form of a balance of income from foreign loans and investments, and about 50 billion billion is an illegal capital flight (Figure 9). The accumulated volume of the latter reached 0,5 trillion dollars, which in total with the direct foreign investment of Russian residents is about 1 trillion dollars of exported capital.
Income losses of the budget system due to capital flight amounted to 2012 in 839 billion rubles. (1,3% of GDP). The total loss of the budget system due to the offshore economy, capital flight and other tax evasion operations is estimated at 2012 in the 5 trillion rubles.
A particular threat to national security in the context of growing global instability is the current situation with the registration of property rights to the majority of large Russian non-state corporations and their assets (up to 80%) in offshore zones, where most of the operations with their turnover are carried out. They also account for about 85% of accumulated FDI, both in Russia and from Russia.
The growing issue of unsecured world currencies creates favorable conditions for the absorption of Russian assets transferred to offshore jurisdiction by foreign capital, which threatens the country's economic sovereignty.
The growth of the above threats above critical parameters requires in the shortest possible time to implement the following set of measures to ensure the economic security of Russia in the context of growing global instability. In order to de-offshore and stop the illegal export of capital:
1. Legislatively introduce the concept of a “national company” that satisfies the requirements of: registration, tax residency and core business in Russia, ownership of a controlling stake in Russian residents who have no affiliation with foreign persons and jurisdictions.
Only national companies and resident Russian citizens should be granted access to subsoil and other natural resources, government orders, state programs, state subsidies, loans, concessions, property and real estate management, housing and infrastructure construction, and other savings. strategically important for the state and socially sensitive activities.
2. Oblige the ultimate owners of shares of Russian strategic enterprises to register their ownership rights in Russian registrars, coming out of the offshore shadow.
3. Conclude tax information sharing agreements with offshore companies, denounce existing agreements with them for the avoidance of double taxation, including Cyprus and Luxembourg, which are transit offshore companies. Determine a single list of offshore companies, including those located onshorov.
4. Legislatively prohibit the transfer of assets to offshore jurisdictions with which no agreements on the exchange of tax information on the model of transparency developed by the OECD have been concluded.
5. Introduce requirements for offshore companies owned by Russian residents to comply with Russian legislation to provide information on company participants (shareholders, depositors, beneficiaries), and also to disclose tax information for tax purposes in Russia of all income received from Russian sources under the threat of 30% tax on all transactions with non-cooperative offshore companies.
6. To form a black list of foreign banks participating in dubious financial schemes with Russian companies and banks, attributing operations with them to the category of dubious.
7. Introduce a permitting procedure for offshore operations for Russian companies with state participation.
8. Take a set of measures to reduce tax losses from unauthorized export of capital:
1) VAT refund to exporters only after receipt of export earnings;
2) charging advance VAT payments by authorized banks when importing advances to non-resident suppliers;
3) the introduction of fines for overdue receivables for import contracts, the lack of export earnings, as well as other types of illegal export of capital in the amount of its value.
9. To stop the inclusion in non-operating expenses (reducing taxable profits) of bad debts of non-residents to Russian enterprises. Filing claims against managers for damages to the company and the state in case of such debts.
10. To tighten administrative and criminal liability for the illegal export of capital from the territory of the Member States of the Customs Union, including in the form of pretended foreign trade and credit operations, payment of inflated interest on foreign loans.
11. Introduce taxes on speculative financial transactions and net capital outflow.
In the context of the unfolding global chaotic war, which promises to be long, urgent measures should also be taken to reduce the external dependence and vulnerability of the Russian economy to economic sanctions by the United States and its allies:
- the withdrawal of foreign exchange reserves and savings of state corporations from assets in dollars to gold and currencies of friendly countries;
- transition to payments for the export of hydrocarbons, metals, timber and military equipment, on the one hand, and import of consumer goods, on the other hand, in rubles;
- transition to national currencies in mutual trade in the EAEU, CIS, BRICS, SCO;
- the termination of borrowing of state-controlled corporations abroad, the gradual replacement of their foreign currency loans with ruble loans of state-owned commercial banks at the expense of their targeted refinancing by the Central Bank with a corresponding percentage;
- limiting the provision of guarantees on deposits of citizens in the framework of the deposit insurance system only ruble deposits with a simultaneous increase in the standards of mandatory reserves for deposits in foreign currency;
- a cardinal increase in the effectiveness of currency control, the introduction of advance preliminary notification of capital outflow operations, the establishment of restrictions on the increase in the currency position of commercial banks;
- termination of discrimination of domestic borrowers and issuers to foreign (when calculating indicators of liquidity, capital adequacy, etc. The Central Bank should not consider obligations of non-residents and foreign countries more reliable and liquid than similar obligations of residents and the Russian state);
- the introduction of domestic standards for the activities of rating agencies and the use of ratings exclusively by Russian rating agencies in government regulation;
- imposing restrictions on the volume of off-balance sheet foreign assets and liabilities to non-residents on derivatives of Russian organizations, as well as on investments of Russian enterprises in foreign securities, including government bonds of the United States and other foreign countries with a high budget deficit or government debt;
- Mandatory initial placement of Russian issuers on domestic trading floors;
- the expansion and deepening of Eurasian economic integration.
It is necessary to intensify work on the involvement of our traditional partners in the Eurasian integration process, speed up the signing of an agreement on a free trade zone with Vietnam, and begin appropriate negotiations with India, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and other countries of the Bolivarian Alliance.
“If Russia does not form a coalition around itself, then the US-formed anti-Russian coalition may absorb or neutralize potential Russian allies”
To become the center of Eurasian economic integration and the leader of the anti-war coalition in the context of confrontation with the United States, Russia must become attractive, demonstrating social stability and a decent quality of life for the population, a high scientific, technical and intellectual level, which is impossible without modernization and advanced economic development.
The economic policy required for this should proceed from an understanding of structural changes and prospects for global socio-economic development, as well as identifying national competitive advantages, the activation of which is capable of ensuring steady and rapid growth in production.
5. The strategy of advanced economic development
As was shown above, the global crisis is associated with a change in the long waves of the economic situation. The exit from it is associated with the "storm" of innovations, paving the way for the establishment of a new technological order.
As the flow of capital bubbles remaining after the collapse of financial bubbles of capital flows, a new long wave of economic growth will form.
It is during such periods of global technological change that a “window” of opportunities arises for lagging countries to get ahead and perform an “economic miracle”. For this, a powerful initiating impulse is needed, which allows concentrating the available resources on promising areas for the development of a new technological order and outrun other countries in deploying production and marketing at least part of its key products.
The key idea of the required development strategy is to anticipate the development of basic productions of the new technological order and the speedy release of the Russian economy to the new long wave of growth associated with it. This requires the concentration of resources in the development of the perspective industrial and technological complexes that make it up, which requires the targeted work of the national financial and investment system, including the mechanisms of monetary, fiscal, industrial, and foreign economic policies.
They need to focus on the emergence of the core of a new technological structure and the achievement of the synergistic effect of the formation of new production clusters, which implies the subordination of macroeconomic policies to the priorities of long-term technical and economic development.
The last decade, despite the crisis, the cost of mastering the components of the new way of technology and the scale of their use are growing in advanced countries at a rate of about 35% per year. The steady and rapid growth of the core of the new technological order, consisting of a complex of interconnected nano-, bio- and information-communication technologies, creates the material basis of the new long-wave economic recovery.
It will take another 3-5 years to form the technological trajectories of this rise, following which will drastically change the structure of the modern economy, the composition of leading industries, major corporations and leading countries.
If Russia during this time fails to make a technological breakthrough in mastering basic production of a new technological order, the technological gap from advanced countries will rapidly increase, and the economy will be trapped in the trap of catch-up development, commodity specialization and inequitable foreign exchange even by 20-30 years.
The growing technological gap will undermine the system of national security and the country's defense, will deprive it of the ability to effectively resist the threats of a new world war.
As the experience of technological breakthroughs in new industrial countries, post-war Japan, modern China, and in our country shows, the increase in investment and innovation activity required for this implies an increase in the accumulation rate to 35-40% of GDP.
At the same time, in order to “stay on the ridge” of the current phase of the new wave of economic growth, investments in the development of new technological order production should double each year.
At the same time, it is necessary to take into account that the strategy of advanced development can be implemented in the development of only advanced technologies. In lagging industries, a strategy of dynamic catch-up should be implemented, which implies a wide borrowing of modern technologies abroad and their development with further improvement.
In the processing industries, following this strategy can give a multiple increase in the yield of finished products per unit of raw materials used, which for the woodworking and petrochemical industries is tenfold, for the metallurgical and chemical industries - fivefold, for the agro-industrial complex - threefold.
Thus, the optimal development strategy should combine: a leadership strategy in those areas where the Russian scientific and industrial complex is at the advanced technological level, and a dynamic catch-up strategy in other areas.
In relation to the R & D sector, a strategy of advancing commercialization of the results of basic and applied research is advisable. To implement this optimal set of strategies, a comprehensive government policy is needed, including:
- creation of a strategic planning system capable of identifying promising areas of economic growth, as well as directing the activities of state development institutions to their development;
- ensuring the macroeconomic conditions necessary for the rapid growth of the new technological order;
- the formation of mechanisms to stimulate innovation and investment activity, the implementation of projects for the creation and development of production and technological complexes of a new technological order, and the modernization of the economy based on them;
- creating a favorable investment climate and business environment that encourages entrepreneurial activity in the development of new technologies;
- maintaining the necessary conditions for the expanded reproduction of human capital and the development of intellectual potential.
The most bottleneck that impedes the implementation of the strategy of advanced development is the lack of mechanisms for internal long-term cheap credit.
The international and our own historical experience in implementing a successful economic restructuring show the need for a sharp increase in the volume of investments for the timely formation of a new technological order. The main source of funding for this growth of investment is the corresponding expansion of domestic credit (Table 3).
6. Transition to a sovereign monetary policy
At present, due to the weakness of the internal lending mechanisms, the Russian economy cannot develop on its own, following the external demand for raw materials and foreign investors.
For the formation of domestic sources of long-term lending for modernization and development of the economy, a transition to a money supply policy is needed, which is secured by domestic demand for money from the real sector of the economy and the state, as well as national savings, as is done in developed and successfully developing countries.
To ensure expanded reproduction, the Russian economy needs a substantial increase in the level of monetization, expansion of credit and the capacity of the banking system. Emergency measures are needed to stabilize it, which requires an increase in the supply of liquidity and the intensification of the role of the Central Bank as a lender of last resort.
In contrast to the economies of the countries issuing reserve currencies, the main problems in the Russian economy are not caused by an excess of money supply and related financial bubbles, but by chronic undermonetization of the economy, which has been working for a long time due to an acute shortage of loans and investments.
The necessary level of money supply for raising investment and innovation activity should be determined by the demand for money from the real sector of the economy and state development institutions with the regulatory value of the refinancing rate.
At the same time, the transition to inflation targeting should not occur due to the rejection of the implementation of other macroeconomic policy objectives, including the provision of a stable ruble exchange rate, investment growth, production and employment. These goals can be ranked by priority and set in the form of restrictions, achieved through the flexible use of state-owned instruments for regulating the monetary and foreign exchange sphere.
Under current conditions, priority should be given to the growth of production and investments within the limits set on inflation and the ruble exchange rate. To keep inflation within the established limits, a complex system of measures on pricing and pricing, currency and banking regulation, and the development of competition are needed.
Monetary policy instruments should provide adequate money supply for expanded reproduction and sustainable economic development. The objectives of the state monetary policy and activities of the Bank of Russia should include maintaining investment activity at the level necessary to ensure sustainable economic growth with full employment of the working-age population.
An integrated approach to the formation of monetary policy is needed in conjunction with the goals of economic development and the objectives of the budget, industrial and structural policies, based on domestic sources and mechanisms for refinancing credit institutions that are confined to lending to the real economy and investment in priority areas of development.
This can be done by using indirect (refinancing secured by bonds, bills and other obligations of solvent enterprises) and direct (co-financing state programs, providing state guarantees, lending to development institutions, project financing) ways of organizing money supply.
7. Creating institutions and mechanisms for development
The measures described above to create long-term credit institutions for developing production and freeing up innovation from taxation should be supplemented by venture financing institutions for promising, but risky scientific and technical developments, as well as preferential credit methods for innovative and investment projects for developing promising industries.
It is necessary to increase the effectiveness of development institutions, directing their activity to support projects involving domestic leadership in industrial and technological cooperation.
In the conditions of intense international technological competition, it is important to support mainly those projects of international production cooperation in which Russian participants have the opportunity to receive intellectual rent. These are projects that implement either domestic scientific and technical developments or supplement them with the acquisition of licenses for the use of advanced foreign technologies.
Industrial assembly, even with substantial localization of production, does not meet these requirements. And the more they do not correspond to the import of foreign technology, if it is not used as a critically important means of producing domestic products. The use of development institutions funds for the import of foreign end-use equipment should be discontinued, as well as the provision of tax and customs benefits for these purposes.
The organization of the existing research and production potential into competitive structures assumes an active state policy on the cultivation of successful high-tech economic entities.
By themselves, the institutions of market self-organization in an open economy and the lack of competitiveness of the majority of Russian enterprises will not ensure the rise of the Russian manufacturing industry. It is necessary to restore long technological chains of development and production of high technology products.
To this end, on the one hand, it is necessary to reunite technologically related industries that have been torn apart by privatization, and, on the other hand, to stimulate the development of new high-tech companies that have proved their competitiveness.
To solve the first task, the state can use the reassessment of assets, including through the unaccounted for during the privatization of property rights to intellectual and land property. The solution of the second task is achieved through the use of a variety of industrial policy instruments: soft loans, public procurement, research subsidies, etc.
Of particular importance is the creation of a network of domestic engineering companies. After the elimination of most of the design institutes, foreign engineering companies focused on the acquisition of foreign equipment took the place of industrial integrators.
Urgent measures are needed to stimulate the development of engineering companies that own modern technologies for designing and completing industrial facilities, as well as planning the life cycle of complex types of equipment.
The formation of a new technological order takes place through the formation of clusters of technologically related industries, which are formed in the areas of distribution of its key technologies.
The leading role in the coordination of innovation processes in clusters of technologically related industries is played by large companies and business groups. They are system integrators of the innovation process, which takes place at different levels of the innovation system. Becoming large enough to maintain the competition in the number of such companies in all sectors of the economy is a key objective of industrial policy.
A prerequisite for modernizing and improving the competitiveness of large enterprises is a cardinal improvement in the quality of their management. In the context of the transition to a knowledge economy, where human capital becomes the main factor of production, it is advisable to activate the creative potential of employees by implementing modern ways of involving workers in business management.
Along with the owners of capital (owners), it is advisable to include in the system of enterprise management the owners of other types of resources: managerial powers (managers), labor (employees) and knowledge (specialists). For this, it is necessary to adopt the relevant legal norms as soon as possible.
For the formation of competitive corporate structures on the world market with a strong research base, long-term motivations and significant financial resources, it is necessary to ensure a multiple increase in the concentration of resources, the only way of which in current conditions is government participation in the corporate sector.
The required expansion of the high-tech core of the domestic industry today is possible only on the basis of state structures, including state corporations and banks, research and design institutes, technology parks, and other elements of the innovation infrastructure.
All these elements should work as a single scientific, industrial and financial system in accordance with the strategic plans and development programs of the relevant industries and sectors of the economy. This development should be supported by long-term loans, which under current conditions can be provided only by state-owned banks, relying on refinancing from the Central Bank.
The use of the public sector as the basis for the realization of the goals of advanced economic development does not mean crowding out or nationalization of private structures. On the contrary, the economic activity generated by the public sector will stimulate growth in private enterprises. Cooperation with state corporations will provide them with sustainable markets and sources of new technologies, and will expand opportunities for development.
At the same time, the key role of the state in the formation of competitive structures of the high-tech industry determines the relevant requirements for the management of state assets.
In order to ensure successful development of the economy in the current conditions of large-scale structural changes, it is objectively necessary to strengthen the role of the state, including as the owner of strategic assets. This is necessary both for the concentration of resources in key areas of the technological structure, and for the elimination of the technological gap in existing industries.
It is this process that is currently taking place in advanced countries with a developed market economy, against the background of which the line on privatization of assets conducted by the Russian government seems to be untimely.
As was shown above, the current transition from the American to the Asian secular cycle of accumulation is accompanied by a radical revision of relations between the state and business on the basis of social partnership and a harmonious combination of interests, in which the interests of society are dominant.
At the same time, the key role is played by institutions of regulation of private initiative, and not by the ratio of public and private property in the economy, which can vary widely.
The experience of the Asian "tigers" suggests that within the framework of a well-established system of strategic management and public-private partnerships, outstanding results can be achieved with the dominance of both private property ("Japan Incorporated") and the public sector (Chinese market socialism).
8. Consolidation of society
The implementation of the measures for the accelerated development and modernization of the economy described above requires a high consistency of actions and a certain solidarity of the main social groups in order to achieve the established goals. This implies a cardinal decrease in social inequality, which generates antagonistic attitudes and an alienated attitude of citizens towards state policy. For this you need:
- increase of the subsistence minimum to the level of the real value of the basic consumer basket, as well as a revision of its content, taking into account the actual structure of consumption of the population, needs for health, education, etc .;
- raising the minimum wage to the level of the poverty line;
- stimulating the creation of new jobs, promoting the development of small and medium businesses;
- the introduction of a progressive scale of taxation of income, inheritance and luxury goods.
The introduction of a progressive scale on the tax on individuals will allow exemption from taxation of part of the profits of enterprises allocated for investment activities by increasing depreciation to the level of developed countries (60-70% in investment financing). At the same time, it is necessary to legally establish control over the expenditure of depreciation.
Additional reserves for production growth can be provided by changes in value added taxation, which today stimulates the raw material orientation of the economy and reduces its competitiveness.
In order to simplify the tax system, reduce the cost of administering it, reduce tax evasion, and stimulate business and innovation, it is advisable to replace the value-added tax with a simpler sales administration tax (PTS), collected only at the final consumption stage.
The abolition of VAT will free up about one million accountants for production activities, will release the working capital of enterprises to increase production and investment.
The harmonization of the taxation system should be accompanied by the achievement of the parameters for financing the social sphere required for successful social development. Based on the proportions of the use of GDP in developed countries, it is necessary to double spending on health care, as well as an increase in spending on education in GDP by one and a half times.
Taking into account the fact that the state’s share in education expenditures should not fall below 80% and in health care below 65%, total public expenditures on reproduction and improving the quality of human potential should be consistently increased to 20% of GDP with a significant increase in their efficiency.
Along with the increase in government spending on these goals, an improvement in the moral climate in society based on the revival of traditional spiritual values should be a prerequisite for enhancing human potential.
This requires the restoration of the educational tradition in the education system, the moral improvement of the media, and the resolute suppression of the propaganda of immoral norms of behavior, licentiousness, violence and sodomy.
An active and systematic cultural policy of the state is needed for the improvement of public consciousness, the orientation of citizens to creative activity, the upbringing of a creatively active, patriotic and respectable younger generation. At the same time, the very system of state administration itself needs the primary moral recovery.
Low economic growth rates, the unsatisfactory quality of public services and business conditions, the colossal export of capital and the degradation of the country's research and production potential are the result of the poor quality of the public administration system, affected by corruption and incompetence.
The elimination of these vices requires a focused effort in personnel policy and the establishment of standards for the responsibility of both public servants and public authorities for the proper discharge of their duties.
The recruitment system should be based on the principles of the meritocratic approach, recruitment criteria should be clearly established, and customer relations should be minimized. The competitive procedure for filling positions must be accompanied by a public assessment of the performance of employees on a scale of objective indicators.
A direct link should be established between the career advancement of officials and objective indicators of the results of their activities. It is necessary to ensure the political neutrality of the public service.
In order to clean up the civil service from corruption, it is advisable to create a system for controlling the activities of civil servants by civil society institutions, including the right of citizens to demand the resignation of any official for improper performance of their duties.
It is also necessary to introduce the procedure for automatic provision of services requested by natural or legal persons in the event that they declare about the facts of extortion of bribes.
It is necessary to restore the institution of confiscation of property as a type of criminal punishment, as well as establish administrative punishment in the form of disqualification for officials as a measure of responsibility for violation of legislation on the organization of public services.
The mechanism of responsibility for the results of activities should also be established for state bodies, for which purpose a federal law should be adopted with the establishment of a system of indicators of the effectiveness of their activities. It is also advisable to adopt a federal law establishing a system of indicators of the level and quality of life of the population to evaluate the activities of the federal government as a whole.
Systematic implementation of the principle of personal responsibility for objective performance at all levels of government, not only in state structures, but also in the non-state sector, is a necessary condition for the successful implementation of the above proposed system of measures to ensure economic security and sustainable development of Russia. It provides for a manifold increase in the volume of resources allocated for the development and modernization of the economy under state control.
The introduction of effective managerial accountability mechanisms for achieving the goals set is an important condition for effectively managing these resources and implementing an advanced economic development strategy, which is necessary not only for the successful development of Russia, but also for victory in the global chaotic war unfolding against it.
- Sergey Glazyev, economist, presidential adviser on Eurasian integration
- http://vz.ru/opinions/2014/7/24/697063.html
Information