Ideas and Ideals

The main thesis of the article is that the concept of economic reality cannot be interpreted from the point of view of such a category as “matter”, although in the Marxist tradition this is exactly the case. This was associated with characteristic intention of Marx to direct transfer of the scientific picture of the world created by the earlier scientific forms of natural science into the area of economic and general social knowledge. However, as it is shown in the article, the scientific picture of the economic world is represented by the forms of culture that are fundamentally different from natural phenomena. For example, according to F.A. Hayek it is linked to the concept of "subjectivity", according to K. Popper's – with the “Third world”.

In explaining the causes of the acute economic crisis, which is Russia experiencing now; it is important to step aside from the widespread simplified opportunistic interpretations, connecting it to the events of recent times. The real causes of this crisis are determined by the fundamental phenomena in the history of Russia and the Russian economy of the last century. As the first reason the authors name a huge loss of human capital during the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century. The second reason is a wrong way of reforming the Russian economy in the early 90's. The third reason is a long period of minimizing labor and intellectual efforts of all sectors of Soviet society in the period of stagnation, in contrast to their mobilization in the 30-60s years. As a result of these three causes Russia has currently produced, at least four "dwarves": government, society, business (to a lesser extent) and much of the economic science. The article provides several scenarios for the Russian economy in the situation when these “dwarves” influence all the processes occurring in the country. The conclusion is that the crisis of 2010, with the sharpest (in the last 25 years) foreign policy crisis, marks the end of an era of modern Russian history related to social and economic transformations of post-Soviet period, or even the entire post-Stalin period.

It is typical for innovative projects to be not profitable during the first stages of their implementation, as well as to carry high levels of risk because of high uncertainty degree in forecasted cash flows. In that situation standard methods of economic efficiency analysis do not allow to obtain proper evaluation of whether it is reasonable to make investments. The paper describes contemporary methods of such evaluation able to solve this problem. These are the real options method and the fuzzy-sets method. A critical analysis of foreign and Russian works is conducted. It is revealed that real options approach is quite widely used in foreign articles but is almost absent in the Russian ones, whereas a fuzzy-sets method is actively applied both abroad and in Russia. At the same time combined utilization of both methods is quite rare. Despite more accurate results in highly risky projects evaluations brought by the real options method comparing traditional approaches, it is also could be complemented with the fuzzy sets methods. It could allow to improve accuracy of innovative project evaluation made by a venture investor and to enhance the toolset available for him.

A Round table on regional and international studies was held as a part of the annual scientific session of the Novosibirsk State Technical University (NSTU) on 5 March 2015. The Round table brought together the lecturers engaged in the research of Russian society and the regional problems in the field of international relations. The Round table was attended by the lecturers of the Departments of International Relations and Regional Studies, Sociology, Social Work and Social Anthropology. The purpose of the Round table was to discuss the problems of regional studies in the field of theoretical research and applied research. The following issues and topics were discussed: the complexity and interdisciplinarity of regional research, strategies for construction of the Regional Studies subject, the specificity of regional studies and teaching of regional disciplines. In addition to the development of regional studies focused on international relations, comprehensive studies of Russia's regions that meet the needs of a specific region in the new regional modeling systems, implementation of innovative technologies, the examination of the activities of the various organizations, programmes and projects are becoming more noticeable. A number of Roundtable participants clearly showed that the driver of the emergence and development of scientific projects are the needs of the region addressed to "its" University. It was noted that the development of applied research, social forecasting and social diagnosis for the local community at the University is yet another challenge for University regional segment research.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the role of mercantilism in the context of economic policy during the crisis of the XVII century. Traditionally, the study is carried out within the mercantilism
economic history discourse. However, the author has given his analysis not only from the standpoint of the theory of fi nance but also from the standpoints of historical sociology, demography and climate. The
author believes that mercantilism can be: a political practice, a perceived need, and a destructive fi nancial technology. The negative aspects of mercantilism as an economic policy and a fi nancial technology are mainly considered in the article. The basic requirements of mercantilism ideology provoked an aggressive foreign policy: intra-wars and the seizure of colonies. It is concluded that mercantilism has metaeconomic reasons: demographic and climatic. The policy of mercantilism was the result of European societies being caught into the Malthusian trap in the XVII century due to overpopulation and global cooling. There are two ways out of the Malthusian trap. The fi rst one involves external aggression with the aim of increasing the proportion of ever diminishing amount of resources of the world economy during the crisis. The second way is the creation of a new, broader resource base through innovations and cheap labor of the marginalized layers of the population. The practical application of the mercantilism ideology in the XVII century became a self-fulfi lling prophecy, which stigmatized the category of “duty” and thus destroyed the people’s credit system in the preceding era in England. Credit money was replaced by metal cash in circulation and marginalized workers labor became the prerequisites of the industrial revolution.