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Chapter 1
A few words about history
emergence of a new theory

As you can see from the Introduction, this book is not a textbook. At all. In it
there will be no consistent presentation of the entire economic
science neither in the format of political economy, nor in the format of
economics, nor in any other format. From a content point of view, it
written as a response to something completely unexpected for me:
circumstance for the researcher. Being a mathematician, studying
at the mathematical school and at the mathematical faculties of Yaroslavl
and Moscow universities, I was brought up within the framework of a
systematic approach to any question that came across
on my way. And when at the end of the 80s I began to study economic
statistics (at the Institute of Statistics and Economic Research of the State
Statistics Committee of the USSR, and then Russia, which
then my first economics teacher and also a mathematician Emil Borisovich
Ershov was in charge), I drew attention to some general patterns that are
not very clear in textbooks.
were noted.

In addition, an understanding of statistical mechanisms (the department

from which I graduated in 1984 is now called “Probability Theory and
Mathematical Statistics”, today it is headed by
A.N. Shiryaev, vice-president of the International Society of Financial
Mathematics, he gave us a special course on random processes ) allowed
me to look at
statistical foundations of economics than they see it
the majority of “pure” economists, for whom statistical indicators are simply
some kind of a priori given. And ble-

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valuable knowledge E.B. Ershova, V.A. Novichkov and other ISEI

specialists allowed me to see many unexpected
effects that are not noted in textbooks and manuals.
Further work in the Ministry of Economy of the Russian Federation
and the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, as
well as supervision of numerous Western advisers to Russian reformers, whose
ideological (and commercial, by the way) engagement
was often visible to the naked eye, demonstrated to me that very often economic
science ignores real circumstances that are well known to practitioners, but
contradict some dogmas that can be worn as

ideological and intrascientific nature.

After being forced to leave public service in the early summer of
1998, I and a group of like-minded people, many
of whom also had extensive practical management experience
economy at the state level, tried to describe
their observations of the previous 10 years within some more
or a less transparent systems approach, resulting in
a joint book with Andrei Borisovich Kobyakov was born
"The Decline of the Dollar Empire and the End of the Pax Americana." I note that
This book was dedicated to just one economic
effect, namely the problem of structural imbalances and their
negative consequences for real practical economic life.

The book was written in 2002, supplemented by the last chapter

in 2003 and the same year it was published. It's already been since that day
more than 15 years, and today it becomes clear that many
the thoughts contained there found their confirmation. Here
We can mention the very idea of the collapse of the Bretton Woods
dollar system, and currency zones and the “devaluation parade”,
which received the name “currency wars” in the media after the 2008
crisis, and the problem of accumulated debt. By the way, the now
famous abbreviation BRICS (at the time of the book’s publication it
did not exist at all ) consists of the first letters of the names of the countries that we
assumed to be the base ones in their currency zones.

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However, neither the ideas contained in the book (which even

today look quite relevant, although it is written in a rather outdated language),
neither the concepts expressed later, describing the upcoming crisis of 2008, nor
the further development of the entire body of ideas related to the ideas presented
in the book
did not find support in academic science. Moreover, the speech is not
it means that the book contained some openly anti- scientific fantasies, as noted
above, a number of those described in it
designs have found their place within the framework of the development of crisis
economic processes in the world, but serious and constructive criticism, not to
mention constructive cooperation
Really, we never got around to it.
Moreover, world economic science did not simply miss the 2008 crisis, which
was described in this book as inevitable . Even today, after 10 years from its
beginning, it is still
and unable to determine why it happened and how
will develop further. If you look at the memory awards
Nobel, which are considered today the most prestigious award in academic
economic science, then none of
Since the beginning of the crisis, they have not been awarded for his research!
Academic science demonstratively refuses
public discussion of the most important (from the point of view of almost any
person on Earth) economic phenomenon
recent years!
At the same time, I (and not only me) indignantly reject the opinion
that the 2008 crisis is over and has been replaced by an economic
height. Even the most preliminary assessments of the situation, taking into account
real scale of inflation, numerous changes
Methods for assessing GDP (including the inclusion of “goodwill” and intellectual
property) do not show growth. About
This is also reflected in the standard of living and household income. Except
Moreover, and this is perhaps the most important thing, there was no fundamental
reduction in the debt accumulated before the crisis. In other words, there was
simply a re-registration of it, in which part of
new debt was balanced on balance sheets by fictitious GDP growth.

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And in general, from the point of view of any economic manager ,

what kind of growth is this, in which debt grows significantly faster
than GDP? Or, in other words, what kind of company is this in which
Is capitalization significantly behind debt growth? It's clear that
we are just talking about converting part of the debt into mechanisms
capitalization, and the actual value of the company in such a situation can only
fall.
In reality, this means that the issues of the mechanisms of the crisis, its scale
and consequences are not only not removed from the agenda, but, on the contrary,
have become even more relevant than they were in 2003. Yes
and our new research that complemented the results
early 2000s, showed that in practice there was no crisis
overcome, it was only suspended. And as soon as the resources through which
this effect was achieved (and they, as will be
seen below, are of a limited nature), will be exhausted, and the crisis will resume
with renewed vigor.
At the same time, a painful reaction to some ideas and considerations
expressed in our book from the academic
sciences, very clearly correlated within the framework of that very systemic
approach with the ideological problems with which
I encountered it in the early 90s. And there was a natural desire to give an
alternative description of economic processes, perhaps not exhaustive in terms of
volumes, directions and
time, but allows us to systematically describe the contradictions that I encountered
and that face any researchers and practitioners trying to manage economic
processes both at the level of states and

and at the corporate level. Moreover, the second wish was

provide a logically consistent and systematic presentation of economic processes
for people who have not received formal
economic education. Without delving into deep scientific
wilds, not very interesting for practitioners.
In terms of the answer to the first question, in general, I had preliminary
considerations obtained in the process of interaction with economic science
during my work at the state government.

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gift service. Scientists see the world exclusively within the framework
their methodological schemes, structures and models, already agreed upon with
each other , and if any real processes
are not included in these constructions; they are easily ignored . At best, they
start a long-term (at
many years) the process of preparing new models for these real
processes, at worst, declare them to be fakes, mistakes, artifacts , not worthy of
consideration.
Sometimes it takes decades to shift the basic
scientific schools in the direction needed by practitioners. And according to this
because of ideas and designs invented by practitioners
public administration, which do not have not only ten years, but sometimes even
several months to react to some
events are often met with hostility by the scientific community. The scientific
hierarchy also plays its negative role; it is almost impossible to enter into it from
the outside; it is not without reason that scientific
schools are regularly cited as examples of totalitarian
organizations.
To answer the second question, I used many mechanisms : I wrote articles,
participated in television and radio programs , hosted and host radio programs,
and I also had my own
analytical programs on television (“Five on Economics ,” which
aired on the “Spas” channel, and a little later a program on
“RBC-TV”), created a website on the Internet (today it is
khazin.ru). But they all had a serious drawback: they
could only touch upon local moments; in general, it was impossible to develop a
holistic concept through them.
As part of the work of the consulting company Neokon,
which I created with several comrades in 2002, we managed
read several courses of lectures on economic theory, which, as I (and our
listeners, by the way) imagine
even today, they were very interesting and informative. But
We were unable to carry out serious work on processing and publishing these
lectures ; besides, these courses were still very
academic in nature and were quite voluminous. Meaning

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a significant part of those people who are interested in crisis

processes, such a deep presentation of the theory is simply not
necessary, it does not carry much meaning for them, they simply will not do it
read. But questions about the essence of economic processes still
will remain.
And that’s when I realized that I needed to write a book. Actually, her
the reader today holds it in his hands. And it is dedicated precisely to a systematic
presentation of economic processes in the world. At
In this case, in the process of deepening our understanding of the points we
considered in the book of 2003, it became clear that to realize the dream that I
wrote about in the Introduction, that is, to describe
the development of the economy of the period of capitalism, so that it is strung ,
like rings, onto a single basic core, it turns out! What
made it possible, in particular, to significantly reduce numerous
and complex discussions of individual economic constructs
and circumstances that overwhelm almost all eco-
nomic texts.
In addition, I tried to summarize those points that, although
not formally part of economic theory, are nevertheless
play less of a fundamental role, including in assessing crisis processes in today’s
world. In the end, I will repeat this again, economics is a social science, and it
cannot be considered in isolation from social processes; it is

will inevitably lead to some serious moments

will be missed. Thanks to this, by the way, it becomes possible
answer the question of why economics loves some aspects of economic
processes so much and does not like others. Yes, and the ideological problems
mentioned above will find their way
explanation.
In general, from my point of view, the problem of any science, especially the
humanities, is that, as it develops, it is divorced from the reality for which it is
revealed.
theoretically created. As already noted, we have encountered this and are
constantly encountering it when refined
“scientists” who constantly scold me personally for the lack of basic

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of economic education and all of us for ignorance of “scientific ” terminology, unable

to answer banal
questions that we, within the framework of our description of reality,
gave answers that were understandable and, in general, accepted by
everyone who knew him. I’m not even talking about answering difficult questions.
Here, by the way, you need to decipher the term “we”, which
will appear quite often in the future in the book. Case
is that within the framework of the public administration system there is
quite a lot of people who are extremely skeptical
to various academic arguments (in the USA for authors
the latter even had a rather offensive nickname
"eggheads") Simply because they have the opportunity
see how life and the economy work in reality, in particular , how this reality reacts to
very specific signals. But these people have no opportunity to systematize

This is your understanding, nor should you convey it more or less regularly
to the general public. They simply don’t have the time for this, and often the habit.

But in our country, on the border between 1990 and 2000, something happened
An interesting event: the liberal political team got the opportunity to harshly purge
those people from the system of state management who did not agree with it,
regulation. Most of them were not including in the basic principles of economic
inclined towards purely scientific activities , but some of them had such a tendency.
And, it seems to me, it is for this reason that in our country at the beginning of the
new century

and there was a sharp breakthrough in the development of economic theory

based on political economy. Theoretically, maybe if in 98-99 . Primakov and
Maslyukov’s group won, then a breakthrough would have occurred in the liberal
economy, but history is subjunctive
has no inclination.
As a result, some illiberal experts (not to be confused
with anti-liberal!), who already had serious practical knowledge of managing the
economy, and in a crisis
situation, there was quite a lot of free time (not

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who, for reasons beyond their control, had to

be unemployed for several years). And they started actively these
transform their knowledge into a description of the processes that took place in
the world. One of these groups united within the framework of
Association of Political Experts and Consultants (AsPEC), an informal group
whose leader was the now deceased political scientist and political strategist
Mikhail Malyutin. If there be
more precisely, this group arose back in the early 90s, but the emphasis
on economic theory arose precisely at this time. In this
group were mostly concerned with economics Oleg Grigor-
ev and me.

Actually, Oleg Grigoriev, who just received a professional economic

education and worked in this field all his life, began to create an alternative
structure to existing economic theories long before

this. But the main breakthrough occurred just in the early 2000s. We worked
together for quite a long time (until 2011), including at the Neokon company,
then our paths diverged, but we
were far from the only ones. The most important thing is that at the beginning
In the 2000s, quite a lot of people appeared in our country who tried to rethink ,
economic theory
from the point of view of reflection on one’s own experience of public
administration and the consequences of the 90s, describing it within the framework
unified methodology, and without appeal to the “only
correct" theory. It is these people, without specifying their contribution and
contemporary activity, that I understand by the pronoun
“we” in the further text of the book.
At the same time, I repeat once again, I do not at all believe that the goals
and objectives of this group have anti-liberal goals, meaning
liberalism is not so much an economic theory as the right-wing liberal system
created over the past decades
economic management recipes , ranging from completely inadequate
in the style of the “Washington Consensus” and ending with many more complex
and subtle theories, for example, monetary policy management. By the way,
adherents of the mainstream

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Mov theory precisely perceives us as frank

opponents, actively trying all illiberal research
transfer to the status of anti-liberal and, accordingly, withdraw
the researchers themselves into the status of outright marginals. In
particular , this is clearly visible, for example, in discussions of my works
on the Russian Wikipedia, whose editors, being on the ideological platform of
mainstream economic theory , actively tried (and are still trying) to prove that

my works do not relate to economic science at all.

Returning to the main topic, I should note that in attempts to
clarify, disseminate, expand the scope of
a theory created over almost 20 years (more precisely, a whole complex
me-local theories, ideas and considerations related by general
a todological approach into a single systemic picture) I am all
time I come across the fact that people who do not have a
formal economic education (despite the fact that in general they
very educated), understand it very quickly and easily. And here
those who received such an education within the mainstream
economic theory (economics), desperately resist
appropriate understanding. All this got me thinking
about what the opposition between political economy and economics is
is no coincidence, and one of the chapters of this book will be devoted to the
objective basis of this contradiction.
Here we should make a small digression. Further
I will name the dominant economic school more than once
liberal, so this is the definition of the representatives of this
schools provokes strong protest. They immediately begin to
refer to complex internal classifications and appeal
to its complete inadequacy. At the same time, it has an
absolutely natural explanation, which, however, is outside
within the framework of the economy itself. The fact is that any humanities
science is closely connected (and largely determined) with the dominant political
ideology. In terms of economics this is
is described in detail within the framework of global project
theory, which I describe below. But political ideology describes

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is defined by two main coordinates, opposite

the ends of which, respectively, are “left”, “right” or liberal conservative.

So, the last 30-40 years have passed under the clear dominance of right-wing
liberal ideology. And it was she who formed the modern economic mainstream,
with the aim of
legitimation, of course. But, as this book will show, the potential of the economic
model on which it was built
this whole system is exhausted; Accordingly, the basic ideological paradigm
begins to blur. This is most striking
noticeable in the United States, which has the most vibrant political model. There,
the movement began from the liberal base: on the one hand , to the left towards
the left-liberal ideology, which was supported by the most popular candidate of
the Democratic Party
(who lost the 2016 primaries, most likely only because the Democratic Party
apparatus at that time was controlled by Clinton’s people), Bernie Sanders; and
on the other hand, from liberalism to conservatism, since Trump is an obvious right-
wing conservative politician. Let us note that the natural conclusion of these
processes is the left-conservative direction, which we will talk about later.

But, as a consequence, no matter what the representatives of the economic

mainstream themselves say, this theory is inscribed precisely
into right-wing liberal ideological discourse. Actually, according to
For this reason, the corresponding economic school has
it makes sense to call it right-liberal, but for simplicity I omit
the first half of this definition. In addition, significant
a role in it is played (although they are decisive) by left-liberal groups in Western
Europe. Which, however, corresponds to the tradition of socio-political discourse
that has developed in recent years in Russia.

Returning to the main idea, we note that the actual

monopoly of the liberal economic school, which has developed
the last four decades, has done for its representatives
extremely difficult and sometimes impossible to understand alter-

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native logic, including because this largely devalues not only the entire
volume of knowledge acquired over the years of work, but , but also
also the volume of connections and status. Actually
the more successful a person's career was
within the framework of a liberal academic team, the more difficult it is for him
abandon her ideologically approved views. Easier
pretending that unpleasant knowledge does not exist is better than being in a
state of stress for some, sometimes significant, time
and frustration.
This, by the way, is characteristic not only of economics, but also of other
activities, including sports: learning from scratch is always easier than relearning.
For this reason I understand that retraining
It’s quite difficult for specialists; they will definitely resist . And
the only thing you can do here is present
give them some new ideological structure that will strongly
more attractive and will allow them to recombine their own
knowledge on a new basis, within the framework of a new structure
understanding of the subject. Plus, of course, to demonstrate that
adherence to the right-liberal ideology and the ideology behind
This part of the elite may no longer provide guaranteed success in the future.

As for practitioners for whom economics is their

life, then they don’t need a textbook at all: what is necessary, they
so they know. And if you give them clear logic on a dotted line, then they
They themselves will construct all the necessary arguments and restore
the gaps in the theory. Textbooks are needed for schools and universities,
so I hope that in the process of developing our theory, things will come to this.
In general, this book is a description of that
ideological and logical structure, which, on the one hand, prompted us to write
an alternative economic concept, and on the other, expanded within the
framework of answers to practical questions arising in the process of development
of world
economic (crisis) processes. Maybe some
the answers will seem incorrect to the reader, I will be happy to get acquainted
with other options and ideological structures

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niyami. The new theory exists to be a reason

for the widest possible discussion and public
Vitya.

As soon as it became clear that our theory was becoming significantly

broader than the narrow-profile development of individual
professional issues, around the fall of 2008 arose
The question is that it is necessary to come up with a name for it. Since at that
moment the main developers (Oleg Grigoriev and Mikhail Khazin) worked at
the Neokon company, inside it
a cry was thrown out, and its director Denis Raksha came up with the name
“neoconomics”. It was used for several years, until then
until in 2011 O. Grigoriev left Neocon and decided
reserve the name exclusively for your own
research.
My attempts to explain that this is strategically incorrect have come to
nothing, and for this reason I will not use
this is the name that has been used for many years: it's official
brand registered for O. Grigoriev. For this reason
In the book, the term “our theory” will be used in the future; I
hope that readers will be able to find a more successful term,
and then in subsequent editions I will begin to use it. But
in any case, our theory is the development of the ideas of political economy
within the framework of its main branch, from Adam Smith and Marxado Rosa
Luxembourg.
And in conclusion, I will once again repeat the meaning of this book: this is
a description of the ideological and logical circuit that explains the development
economies over the last two millennia, including general
moments of modern capitalism and ancient Rome, the
emergence of capitalism and the crises of recent decades. But
special attention is paid specifically to the period of capitalism, i.e.
the period from the 16th century, and the current crisis, which can, even
and with some stretch , call it the last capital crisis
lism.

Note: the implementation of this program showed that basic economic

ideas are subject to a certain cyclical

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ness, they either suddenly disappear from everyday life, or

are just as unexpectedly reborn; Thus, there is much in common between the
economic models of socialism and feudalism, such as
and between the model of ancient Rome and financial capitalism. And there are
good reasons to believe, as the reader will read towards the end of the book,
that some of the old ideas will give
impetus for the development of the post-crisis economy. It is precisely this
circumstance that gives rise to the title of the book, and the significant place it
devotes to historical and philosophical issues is due to this.