On economies and ideologies
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Angel Georgiev
Thank you for the opportunity and the invitation to participate in this conference.
Its subject and object are too voluminous. This allows to intersect different points of view, approaches, methods, and models in search of both the "lost time" as well as new energies and forms of cooperation which benefit development.
Today's world is less and less like yesterday's. Covid-19 is just one of the essential differences, but not the only one. The world today is pulsating, converging and diverging at the same time based on diverse characteristics.
The world as a system is a set of states, peoples and connections between them. Diversity is the great challenge facing government, be it political leadership and / or technocratic governance.
Economies and society realize that they are interconnected in a system. Their mutual interdependence presupposes a careful attitude towards globalization as a trajectory of their collective behavior.
After the end of the First World War, the working class gained direct access to power in a revolutionary way. The building of socialism by the trial-and-error method began. Two competing worlds were built: the one of capitalism and the one of socialism.
Years of confrontation and cooperation followed, of peaceful days and brutal wars, local ones and a world war. Adequate lessons from that period were not learnt. The world tenaciously preserved its diversity and identity.
The efforts of the institutions established after the Second World War achieved significant success.
The contradictions between the two worlds grew and changed. Numerous structures were set up, such as the Club of Rome, the World Economic Forum, which deal professionally with both conceptualizing the world development and suggesting what is right and what is wrong. In essence, the tendency towards unification and standardization of development intensified. However, this is at odds with the world's natural propensity for diversity and identity.
The socialist world stagnated in the early 1980s and lost its competitive position. The Eastern European countries and the former USSR followed the path of catching-up strategy and imitation, which was a renunciation of their own identity. Even the unity between the peoples that had been achieved was put on the verge of disintegration.
The People's Republic of China and its leadership, led by the Chinese Communist Party, analyzed the mistakes made by the Eastern European countries and shrewdly developed socialism with its Chinese characteristics.
This turned out to be the politically correct decision.
Today China is the only competitive socialist country thanks to China's preserved identity and wise political leadership.
Today China is a country that is changing the world and itself.
The huge Chinese market (1.4 billion consumers) has been with sustainable economic growth (8-10% per year) for many years (25-30 years). This is the factor of world development today.
China is building socialism with a Chinese face, which means that capitalization, whatever it means, is under the control of the state and the Chinese Communist Party. The problems that arise in this case are solvable because they are within the framework of Chinese culture, state, and identity.
China's influence on world markets is enormous and most often destabilizing.
The balance between the world's production and consumer capacity needs global decisions that cannot be made without China.
The structures responsible for this decision are in place, a political will is sought, adequate to the political changes (artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, etc.), as well as to the developing consumer society. Both technology and the purchasing power of citizens, workers, and employees are a source of market power and a broad perspective. Sensitive and analytical politicians are needed.
Ideologies and economies are in a complex ambiguous relationship. Marxist-Leninist philosophy and ideology are materialistic and dialectical. A disadvantage (weakness) is considered to be the neglect of technical progress and the impact of foreign economic relations on development.
Today's world is dominated by technology and trade. The world needs a new paradigm in economics and social science. Science is becoming more complex because the world is becoming more complex at an unexpected rate, and the dynamics of the society is being traced effectively through new technological solutions.
Marxism will not become an ideology locked in library shelves. This ideology has not only explained but also changed the world. And this is exactly its awkward characteristics for many people. This ideology not only explains but also changes the world. But as an ideology, it has to work hard and qualitatively to maintain its leading explanatory and transformative role in the material and spiritual changes.
The economy and the material world of the people are changeable, fast, hybrid, more and more transparent and such should be the ideology of the modern world. Today the digital economy seeks and finds a new type of person and builds new consumers by creating new problems without solving the classic ones, for instance, the labor market.
What happens to people whose jobs are done by the digital systems used?
There is no simple answer to this question.
The connection and interdependence between ideology and economics goes through technical progress, through modern institutions, and especially through the modern man. Each of these systems has its own laws, its own lives, and its own trajectory of functioning.
Monetarism, the Washington Consensus, the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are one of the widely advertised and applied ideological platforms.
The second platform is pragmatism of people with industrial and entrepreneurial experience in Eastern European countries, the countries of the former Soviet Union and especially China, often called "statesmen".
There is "unity and struggle of opposites" between these two ideological platforms. The results are evident. China has overcome poverty and built a middle-class society, successfully coping with Covid-19, exploring outer space and has a lot to show the world.
Eastern European countries work with a borrowed mind following the recommendations of monetarism. Here, too, the results are evident: dissatisfied people, loss of competitive positions, low growth rates, inefficient economies.
The conclusion is the following: the specific characteristic in economic development is of great importance, while ideologies and economic policies are effective if they take into account this specificity.
I would like to thank the organizers for the opportunity to participate in this conference.
Thank you for your attention!