Innovations, Information Society and Long-Term Development Strategy of Russia (Part 1)
Valentina M. Bondarenko

The current situation in the world and Russia is featured by assault of the financial and economic crisis along all vectors. The world, again, is faced with the situation, for which it has not at all been prepared. Hence, first, the hectic search of the guilty party, and second, the efforts to invent prescriptions that would correct the crisis phenomenon. Illness is cured by the method of trial and error; without thorough theoretical understanding of the mechanisms of appearance of this illness it is impossible to guarantee its complete recovery. It seems evident that theory is necessary in order to solve the task of building the information society – the more so that today the talk on the latter subject extends to formation of Electronic State of the 21^st century. If an incorrect way is selected from the very start, that would pose a great danger.
At the same time, however, the studies of this problem indicate that a separate theory for building of information society is not and cannot be available, because the problem is not the one of engineering, technology or economy, but is rather a social-science problem of systemic magnitude. That is, understanding of this problem is to be found in the mainstream theoretical comprehension of regularities pertaining to development of the entire human community and all of its subsystems in whatever the aspect.

To support this argument, I always refer to the following cases in point. The early 1980s saw the start of computers’ introduction in the Soviet national economy and development of various types of computer-based automatic control systems. The pioneer of those R & D was Academician V. Gloushkov. As a result, however, he arrived to the conclusion that to use computers in the system of relations prevailing in the Soviet Union would be the same as to install jet engine on a farm wagon. The system turned imperceptive of achievements reached in the progress of science and technology.

Development models of today reveal another extreme. Broad dissemination of information, genic and nano- technologies as well as DNA molecule-based biological computers created the conditions, in which it becomes possible to contact human mind with a computer and thus to create a human-machine cybernetic organism, the cyborg. Advent of self-learning robots posed a threat that humans would be replaced by and lag behind machines in the sphere of intellectual activities as well as become machines’ slaves.

It is most important to understand that today many countries, including Russia, seek, although without success so far, to proceed to innovative development and start building the knowledge-based society. Many countries have begun developing their national innovative systems, the arsenals of which contain R & D of the sixth technological tenor – such as nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, fantastic information technologies and security system technologies. But, there is no warranty that these achievements will not be applied for destructive purposes but would rather serve for the good of humanity.

Meanwhile, the progress of science and technology goes on, and the task of building the information society is now discussed in broader terms, such as creation of Electronic State of the 21^st century. However, the current social, economic, political, organizational and science-tech disparities do not make it possible for various countries, regions, municipalities and people to enjoy equally all the benefits of digital technologies.

In other words, today, like in the Soviet period, the existing development model for human community in general and Russia in particular (notwithstanding all post-Soviet transformations) runs counter to achievements in science and technology. Today, mankind is at the brink of self-destruction by its own intellectual inventions, while in the social-science and humanitarian terms it has not realized the regularities of human development.

I refer to these examples in order to show, how great responsibility is for implications of decisions on building of information society, especially when such decisions neglect the effects of deep-seated general objective laws laid in the basis of human system development.

Therefore, in my papers, presentations and articles I always address theoretical problems incurred in building of information society through the prism of understanding the regularities in development of human community as an integral system.

Let me identify the main topics: “Information Society For All – Information Society For Each Human Being” [1. pp. 97-99], “Internet As A Means For Concentration of the Entire Human Community in the Same Time Space” [2. pp. 143-144], “New Methodological Approach To Substantiate the Concept and Strategy of Building the Information Community” [3].

This article, entitled as “Innovations, Information Society and Long-Term Development Strategy of Russia”, also addresses theoretical problems of mankind development in the context of information society in formation.

All mentioned publications have such feature in common as consideration of therein discussed theoretical problems through the prism of the new methodology, developed by me, for cognition of regularities in development of human community. In 2008, a Russian publishing house of “Economica” issued a book entitled as “Prognozirovanie buduschego: novaya paradigma” [Forecasting the Future: A New Paradigm]. Therefore, I would not expand on the new methodology for cognition in this article. I would just address its major points in order to clarify the essence of my further discourse.

First of all, development of the new methodology for cognition was not an end in itself. Having come across the contradiction in my particular applied studies, I was able to disclose its essence only when it became clear that the found contradiction was of systemic nature. That is, contradiction in the particular can be only comprehended through understanding of the general, and can be explained and resolved through integration of the available scattered pieces of knowledge.

It was necessary to unify them systemically by identifying the target function of development of the whole system and any of its parts in any aspect. It was necessary to define not only the purpose of the human community development, but the end goal, which cannot become a sub-goal for a higher objective. In other words, it was necessary to identify the objective reason for the human system development and to understand that human beings do not live in order to provide for GDP growth or to manufacture the maximal possible amounts of weapons for their own annihilation.

A human being lives in order to develop and realize his / her spiritual and intellectual potential and at the same time to elevate the level of consciousness and physical perfection. By reaching the Supreme Reason, a human being would approach the image and liking of the Author of Life – that is, would become a god-and-man who would start creating those similar to himself. This is the true reason for human existence, and the Cosmos for realization of this objective is infinite.

Then it turned out that for objective appraisal of the system development in relation to the identified objective, all the variety of processes and phenomena could be only analyzed though just one index, the time. By applying this index, it becomes possible to measure and juxtapose what is not measurable and not subject to juxtaposition, and – what is most important – to correlate all facets of human and societal life with the target ideal and to identify as at which stage of human progress has been reached by the time. Today, neither GDP or GNP, nor human potential development index or other indices would make it possible to identify the cause-and-effect relation of all processes and phenomena, as the change rate of economic reality is higher than the rate of its exploration. Therefore, contemporary science cannot say precisely if it approached the dangerous line of ignorance, or crossed that line, or still has a sizable margin of safety. It seems that traditional (or, in contemporary terms, orthodox) science does not have a margin of safety any longer. So, human knowledge of economic reality, while growing like an avalanche, becomes outdated immediately, because when this knowledge is used and conclusions made, the picture of the world would be entirely different already. Hence, we need a different paradigm, a different index and a different rate of obtaining information and knowledge.

The above analysis suggests that functional efficiency of the whole system and any of its parts could and should be considered through the only one criteria – that is, continuous and dynamic reduction of time that would pass between arising and satisfaction of a specific human being’s need – provided diversity of people and their equal and free access to material and spiritual goods for maximal development and realization of their spiritual and intellectual potential. This quality index makes it evident that if such time tends to reduce continuously and evolutionally, then the human system develops efficiently in relation to the set objective.

Today many forecasters emphasize that in the global economy, the quantitative indices of economic development (for example, GDP) become less significant, while the index of development quality moves to the forefront. Therefore, in terms of reaching the ultimate objective of human community development, we must know a priori as what socio-economic and political structures as well as what technological system would be relevant to the given objective, what is the instrument for their realization, and how the human interests would be reconciled meanwhile. Without mutual relevance of the said structures, technological system and the objective, and without an instrument for its realization and mechanism for conciliation of most diverse human interests, the system could take monstrous forms through to self-annihilation. By finding the proper conditions for relevance of socio-economic and political structures, technological system and mechanism for realization of the objective, we would come closer to this objective, and the more rapid the processes would proceed, the nearer we approach the objective. If the time reduces, it would mean evolutional development of human community, while the growing time would mean prevalence of involution development process and reverse movement.

In the above-mentioned book, “Forecasting the Future: A New Paradigm”, the main conclusion was reached owing to the new methodology for cognition: future can be only forecasted from future – that is, from the future, in which the objective has been attained already. In other words, the “new paradigm” means substantiates the acute need to withdraw from the methodological system, in which the prognostic process proceeds “from past to future” and which defines the course of history in the established trends. The proposal is to change the paradigm of scientific thinking by proceeding from the principle of historicism (which until now is considered the only scientific principle both in the materialist and idealist systems of thinking) to the principle of meta-historicism – that is, to cognition of something, which is beyond the present day and beyond the empiric perception.

It is for the first time that the prognostic process is placed as subordinate to teleology and definition of its objective. However, articulation of such objective is not an imaginable construction, but rather identification of the objective and attainable goal in development of a new meta-historic quality. Further on, from this null space and time we identify the possibilities and mechanisms for evolutional attainment of this new quality. Forecasting of future from the future has never been formulated either in Russian or foreign literature.

Another novelty is that the systemic cross-disciplinary approach is used for the first in the version, which identifies the influence of the future upon the present. The traditional method of socio-economic and science-tech prognostics, based on the borrowed ideology of classical mechanics, means extrapolation of different and sometimes diametrically opposite trends from the past and present into the future. The shortcoming of such methodology is evident – it fails to consider involution process in relation to the identified objective, which processes draw the human system’s development far behind, as the growing time-lag between production and consumption as well as between the objective and its attainment would inevitably result in crisis situations irrespectively of the type of socio-economic relations in any given society.

In order to remove this problem, our theoretical model should include the third basic postulate – namely, the principle of minimization or, in perfect terms, even nullification of the time lag between emergence and satisfaction of a need. This task can be resolved through the already available methods of modern information telecommunication. As a result, we would obtain knowledge coming from the future rather than from the past – the best prerequisite for sustainable development by the offered theoretical model of socio-economic relations.

Today many observers associate such task as selection of Russia’s long-term development strategy with innovative breakthrough and use of innovations as a strategic resource.

But, what does the term of “innovations” mean? Does it mean new and radically new R & D in the spheres of science, engineering, policy, and economy, or is it rather an innovation, which, according to Shumpeter, would change the way of production irreversibly?

In the first case, there could be a giant number of innovations (for example, as many as the number of current mass media publications on the subject), and it would be difficult to match them with Shumpeter’s definition.

According to Shumpeter, such innovations must be comparable with steam machine, railroad and electricity, and hence innovations should be limited in number – probably, even to one. How would we know? Before trying to answer this question, let us turn to foreign experience.

In 2004, IBM published its “Review of Global Innovations”, prepared with due regard of opinions held by leaders in science and other fields of decisive importance for innovations – all in all, from 96 organizations based in 26 countries and regions.

IBM staff started that worldwide talk in order to find an approach to innovations in terms of identifying the regularities in societal development. But such approach, based on “Foresight” methodology, built upon information from the past and prolonged to the present and future, turned out too complex and extensive. In fact, the international team of researchers failed to find the needed approach.

Therefore, the IBM researchers limited their conclusions only to innovations, which are evident on the surface in the three spheres, such as: healthcare; state and citizens; business in work and life – not at all in line with Shumpeter.

So, without cognizing the regularities in societal development, one would not find the innovation, which would provide resolution of the most acute problems of our time. I happened to be able to go along a different way – to try to find an answer to the raised and many other questions by addressing them through the prism of the new methodology for cognition of regularities in development of human community.

Without expanding on the know-how of the conducted research, let me present the results, which help to understand the problem of innovations, information society and selection of Russia’s long-term development strategy. Juxtaposition of the Russian and global practice of development with the theoretically outlined shared objective made it possible to find that:

All development models available on the planet (neoliberal, Keinsian or totalitarian) have share such main feature as orientation of production to satisfaction of needs (demand) of an abstract end consumer through the elemental, archaic market form of communication with a specific human being. However, with the current rates of changes in economic reality, uncertainty of consumption resulted in emergence and global growth of disproportion between the time of production and time spent for circulation of commodities and money (in Toeffler’s terminology – to de-synchronization of all processes).

The time for circulation is many times as longer than the time for production, and this fact, directly or indirectly, serves the basis for all other disproportions as well as negative and crisis phenomena.

In this sense, the Russian model is the most problematic, as with Russia’s territorial dimensions the disproportions between the time for production and time for circulation of commodities and money are pronounced more strongly than in any other country.

For example, as a result of such measures as establishment of stabilization and reserve funds, Development Fund and other specialized funds for safe-keeping of national monetary assets, and depositing thereof in accounts with foreign banks and various companies, the arrear of monetary funds without circulation in 2004 amounted to 12 days. As of early 2007, this index grew to over 95 days and today exceeds 100 days. To add the time while these funds will stay in foreign accounts, the given index will become many times as bigger. Meanwhile, these moneys are the revenues from sale of natural resources, high-tech equipment and intellectual R & D.

With other factors considered, we shall see the magnitude of disproportions. For example, such factors as digital inequality among regions, various local government authorities and specific people, as well as the lack of the shared information space and the use of ICT mainly for formation, storage and processing of information for government and corporate needs result in the stronger de-synchronization of all processes.

The above discussion allows to derive the following main conclusion: the further production orientation to satisfaction of needs (demand) of an abstract consumer would result in accelerated destruction of all kinds of resources and even in extermination of human species as such. This thesis is amply confirmed by the current financial – to be more correct, systemic – crisis.

This systemic crisis is about to cross the reversal point, and then control at all levels and the possibility to create a critical mass of a different model would be lost. The profound reasons are to be found at the systemic level – that is, in the currently existing development model.

Therefore, the main strategic task is to change the contents of national economic and social policy as well as to reorient it to reproductive development trajectory within the country and to the ultimate result. Reduction of time between emergence and satisfaction of needs (demand) of each specific human person on the base of his / her order (that is, without redundant production) must become the major beacon for development.

If the planned economic diversification in individual sectors is not continued today along the whole chain of reproduction through production and consumption of ultimate products by specific consumers, the disproportions and de-synchronization of all processes would grow. In such case all efforts and injections, provided today for industry, high technologies and agriculture, will be futile.

With the current rate of changes in economic reality, it is not sufficient to connect government budget investments to the real growth of labor productivity in order to ensure efficient use of such investments and prevent from the further inflation growth. Such investments must be connected with productive consumption, so that everything, which is produced, would be actually consumed. This can be only attained through specific orders of specific people, without any redundant production, and such measure would make it possible to enhance wealth of all people rapidly and evenly in the whole space of Russia.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are to become an efficient instrument to eliminate disproportions and de-synchronization of all processes in time of production and circulation of commodities and money as well as to accelerate such processes synchronously in the vast expanses of Russia. To this end, however, ICT must be considered as a super-modern means of human communication, which, having replaced telegraph and telephone, makes it possible, owing to the current rate of production and consumption, to conciliate human interests in the real-time and online regime.

As demonstrated by West economy in the last quarter of the 20^th century, market relations in the course of their development underwent different stages – from the low level of archaic, free and unpredictable relations through the highest level of organized and direct ties and contract relations in the whole way of commodity movement, with knowledge of the precise outcome. Moreover, in the contract economy, while commodities were manufactured under the consumers’ orders, it was not the manufactured product as such that became the purchase-and-sale item, but rather the special commodity, information, as the capitalist market was already basing on global information, received through networks of cable television, telecommunications, satellite communication and Internet.

Later on, this vector in development of Western economy was formalized as post-Fordism.

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Footnotes:

¹ This article was written with support from Russian Humanities Foundation (Grant No. 06-02-00165а).

² All-Russian Conference on “Electronic State of the 21^st Century” (Moscow, September 30, 2008).

³ All-Russian Conference on “Electronic State of the 21^st Century” (Moscow, September 30, 2008).

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Dr. Valentina M. Bondarenko - Leading Researcher, RAS Institute of Economics; Director, International N. D. Kondratieff Foundation.

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