To better understand how modern how mankind has learned to find answers to its main questions, it is necessary to analyze the thousand-year history of the development of the economic systems of civilization.
Depending on the method of solving the main economic problems and the type of ownership of economic resources, four can be distinguished. main types of economic systems: 1) traditional; 2) market (capitalism);3) command (socialism); 4) mixed.
The most ancient of them is the traditional economic system.
Traditional economic system - a way of organizing economic life, in which land and capital are shared by the tribe, and limited resources are allocated in accordance with long-standing traditions.
As for the ownership of economic resources, in the traditional system it was most often collective, that is, hunting grounds, arable land and meadows belonged to a tribe or community.
Over time, the main elements of the traditional economic system ceased to suit humanity. Life has shown that factors of production are used more efficiently if they are owned by individuals or families, rather than collectively. In none of richest countries peace, the basis of the life of society is not collective property. But in many of the world's poorest countries, remnants of such property have survived.
For example,the rapid development of agriculture in Russia occurred only at the beginning of the 20th century, when the reforms of P.A.Stolypin destroyed the collective (communal) ownership of land, which was replaced by the ownership of land by individual families. Then the communists who came to power in 1917 actually restored communal land ownership, declaring the land "public property".
Having built its agriculture on collective property, the USSR was unable for 70 years of the XX century. achieve food abundance. Moreover, by the beginning of the 1980s, the food situation had become so bad that the CPSU was forced to adopt a special "Food Program", which, however, was also not implemented, although huge money was spent on the development of the agricultural sector.
On the contrary, the agriculture of European countries, the USA and Canada, based on private ownership of land and capital, managed to solve the problem of creating food abundance. And so successfully that the farmers of these countries were able to export a considerable part of their products to other regions of the world.
Practice has shown that markets and firms are better at solving the problem of allocating limited resources and increasing the production of goods of life than councils of elders - the bodies that made fundamental economic decisions in the traditional system.
That is why the traditional economic system over time has ceased to be the basis for organizing people's lives in most countries of the world. Its elements faded into the background and remained only in fragments in the form of various customs and traditions that are of secondary importance. In most countries of the world, other ways of organizing economic cooperation between people play a leading role.
Replaced by the traditional market system(capitalism) . This system is based on:
1) the right to private property;
2) private business initiative;
3) the market organization of the distribution of limited resources of the company.
Private property right there is the recognized and legally protected right of an individual to own, use and dispose of a certain type and amount of limited resources (for example, a piece of land, a coal deposit or a factory), which means that and receive income from this. It is the ability to own such a type of productive resources as capital, and to receive income on this basis, that determined the second, often used name of this economic system - capitalism.
Private property - recognized by society the right of individual citizens and their associations to own, use and dispose of a certain amount (part) of any types of economic resources.
For your information. At first, the right to private property was protected only by force of arms, and only kings and feudal lords were the owners. But then, having traveled a long path of wars and revolutions, mankind created a civilization in which every citizen could become a private owner if his income allowed him to acquire property.
The right to private property enables the owners of economic resources to independently make decisions about how to use them (as long as it does not harm the interests of society). At the same time, this almost unlimited freedom to manage economic resources has a downside: the owners of private property bear full economic responsibility for their chosen options for its use.
Private business initiative there is the right of each owner of production resources to independently decide how and to what extent to use them to generate income. At the same time, the well-being of everyone is determined by how successfully he can sell on the market the resource he owns: his labor force, skills, products of his own hands, his own land plot, the products of his factory, or the ability to organize commercial operations.
And finally, actually markets- in a certain way organized activity on the exchange of goods.
It is the markets:
1) determine the degree of success of a particular economic initiative;
2) form the amount of income that property brings to its owners;
3) dictate the proportions of the distribution of limited resources between alternative spheres of their use.
The dignity of the market mechanism is that he makes each seller think about the interests of buyers in order to achieve benefits for himself. If he does not do this, then his goods may turn out to be unnecessary or too expensive and instead of gaining he will receive only losses. But the buyer is forced to reckon with the interests of the seller - he can receive the goods only by paying the prevailing market price for it.
Market system(capitalism) - a way of organizing economic life in which capital and land are owned by individuals and limited resources are allocated through markets.
Competitive markets have become the most successful way known to mankind to allocate limited productive resources and the benefits created with their help.
Of course, and the market system has its drawbacks... In particular, it gives rise to huge differences in income and wealth levels , when some are bathed in luxury, while others vegetate in poverty.
Such differences in income have long prompted people to interpret capitalism as an "unjust" economic system and to dream of a better organization of their lives. These dreams led to the emergence of NSIX century social movement named Marxism in honor of its main ideologist - a German journalist and economist Karl Marx... He and his followers argued that the market system has exhausted the possibilities of its development and has become a brake on the further growth of the well-being of mankind. Therefore, it was proposed to replace it with a new economic system - command, or socialism (from Latin societas - "society").
Command economic system (socialism) - a way of organizing economic life in which capital and land are owned by the state, and the distribution of limited resources is carried out according to the instructions of the central government and in accordance with plans.
The birth of the command economic system was a consequence of a series of socialist revolutions , whose ideological banner was Marxism. The concrete model of the command system was developed by the leaders of the Russian Communist Party V. I. Lenin and I. V. Stalin.
According to Marxist theory mankind could sharply accelerate its path to improving welfare and eliminate differences in the individual well-being of citizens by eliminating private property, eliminating competition and conducting all economic activities of the country on the basis of a single obligatory (directive) plan, which is developed by the state leadership on a scientific basis. The roots of this theory go back to the Middle Ages, in the so-called social utopias, but its practical implementation took place precisely in the 20th century, when the socialist camp arose.
If all resources (factors of production) are declared the property of the whole people, but in reality they are fully controlled by state and party officials, then this entails very dangerous economic consequences. The income of people and firms ceases to depend on how well they use limited resources how much the result of their work is really needed by society. Other criteria are becoming more important:
a) for enterprises - the degree of fulfillment and overfulfillment of planned targets for the production of goods. It was for this that the heads of enterprises were awarded orders and appointed as ministers. It does not matter that these goods could be completely uninteresting to buyers who - if they had the freedom of choice - would prefer other goods;
b) for people - the nature of the relationship with the authorities, who distributed the most scarce goods (cars, apartments, furniture, trips abroad, etc.), or occupation of a position that opens access to "closed distributors" where such scarce goods can be bought free.
As a result, in the countries of the command system:
1) even the simplest goods necessary for people turned out to be “in short supply”. “Paratroopers”, that is, residents of small towns and villages, who came with large backpacks to buy food, as there was simply nothing in their grocery stores, became a familiar picture in the largest cities;
2) the mass of enterprises constantly suffered losses, and even there was such an amazing category of them as planned-loss-making enterprises. At the same time, employees of such enterprises still regularly received wages and bonuses;
3) the greatest success for citizens and enterprises was to "get" some imported goods or equipment. In the queue for the Yugoslav women's boots were recorded in the evening.
As a result, the end of the XX century. became an era of deep disillusionment with the possibilities of the planned-command system, and the former socialist countries took up the difficult task of reviving private property and the system of markets.
Speaking about the planned command or market economic system, it should be remembered that in their pure form they can only be found on the pages scientific papers... Real economic life, on the contrary, is always a mixture of elements of various economic systems.
The modern economic system of most of the developed countries of the world is precisely of a mixed nature. Many national and regional economic problems are solved here by the state.
As a rule, today the state participates in the economic life of society for two reasons:
1) some needs of society, due to their specificity (maintenance of the army, the development of laws, the organization of traffic, the fight against epidemics, etc.), it can satisfy better than possible on the basis of only market mechanisms;
2) it can mitigate the negative consequences of the activity of market mechanisms (too large differences in the wealth of citizens, damage to the environment from the activities of commercial firms, etc.).
Therefore, for the civilization of the late XX century. the mixed economic system became predominant.
Mixed economic system - a way of organizing economic life, in which land and capital are privately owned, and the distribution of limited resources is carried out both by markets and with significant participation of the state.
In such an economic system the basis is private ownership of economic resources, although in some countries(France, Germany, Great Britain, etc.) there is a fairly large public sector. It includes enterprises whose capital is wholly or partially owned by the state (for example, the German airline Lufthansa), but which: a) do not receive plans from the state; b) work according to market laws; c) forced to compete on equal terms with private firms.
In these countries the main economic issues are mainly decided by the markets. They also distribute the majority of economic resources. At the same time part of the resources are centralized and distributed by the state using command mechanisms in order to compensate for some of the weaknesses of market mechanisms (Fig. 1).
Rice. 1. The main elements of a mixed economic system (I - the sphere of action of market mechanisms, II - the sphere of action of command mechanisms, that is, control by the state)
In fig. 2 shows a scale that conventionally represents which economic systems different states belong to today.
Rice. 2. Types of economic systems: 1 - USA; 2 - Japan; 3 - India; 4 - Sweden, England; 5 - Cuba, North Korea; 6 - some countries Latin America and Africa; 7— Russia
Here, the arrangement of the numbers symbolizes the degree of proximity of the economic systems of different countries to one type or another. The purely market system is most fully implemented in some countries.Latin America and Africa... The factors of production there are already predominantly in private ownership, and the state's interference in resolving economic issues is minimal.
In countries like USA and Japan, private ownership of the factors of production dominates, but the role of the state in economic life is so great that one can speak of a mixed economic system. At the same time, the Japanese economy retained more elements of the traditional economic system than the United States. This is why number 2 (Japan's economy) is slightly closer to the apex of the traditional triangle than number 1 (US economy).
In economies Sweden and Great Britain the role of the state in the distribution of limited resources is even greater than in the United States and Japan, and therefore the number 4 symbolizing them is to the left of the numbers 1 and 2.
In the most complete form, the command system is now preserved in Cuba and North Korea... Here, private property has been eliminated, and the state distributes all limited resources.
Existence of significant elements of the traditional economic system in the economy India and others like her countries in Asia and Africa(although the market system prevails here) determines the placement of the corresponding figure 3.
Location Of Russia(number 7) is determined by the fact that:
1) the foundations of the command system in our country have already been destroyed, but the role of the state in the economy is still very large;
2) the mechanisms of the market system are still being formed (and are still less developed than even in India);
3) the factors of production have not yet been fully transferred to private ownership, and such an important factor of production as land is in fact collectively owned by members of former collective and state farms, which were only formally transformed into joint stock companies.
To what economic system does the further path of Russia lie?
The command economy is an economic system, the main role in the regulation of which is played by the state. In this system, the state determines what products and in what quantities should be produced, for whom to produce and how to produce. Why is the state assigned the role of the main regulator in the economy? Because in this economic system, state ownership of all basic means of production prevails, that is, the bulk of economic resources is owned by the entire population living in the country. On behalf of the population, the state manages the distribution of all basic economic resources, as well as their use.
Due to the insignificant share of private ownership of the means of production or its absence, there is no market in the command economy. It is being replaced by central planning, distribution and procurement. However, there are market elements here. Manufactured products are considered to be goods, but the prices for them are set by the state. There is a network of trade establishments that act as intermediaries between sellers (state or cooperative enterprises) and buyers (enterprises, institutions or the public).
The advantages of a command economy are:
1) a minimum of uncertainty in changing the economic situation in the near future, a relatively stable development of the economy;
2) the possibility of setting social goals for the economy and achieving them;
3) the absence of sharp differences in the levels of income of the population between its various groups, which contributes to a more even development of all strata of society;
4) the ability to maintain a stable level of employment of the population.
But, like any economic system, the command economy has its drawbacks:
1) lack of freedom of choice of goods (in particular, means of production) for sellers and buyers - everything is planned and distributed in advance;
2) the need to create a large, complex bureaucratic structure of economic management, which often interferes with the rapid adoption of operational decisions;
3) subjectivity in economic management, which leads to imbalance and disproportionate development of industries;
4) alienation of owners (population) from property objects (means of production) and lack of competition (competitiveness), which leads to lack of initiative among workers and insufficient incentives to use economic resources more efficiently; as a result - underutilization of the achievements of scientific and technological progress, reduced efficiency, stagnation in the economy.
An example of a command economy is the economic system in the former Soviet Union and in countries with a socialist direction of development.
Planned economy (administrative-command system) previously dominated in the USSR, Eastern Europe, and a number of Asian states.
The characteristic features of the ACS are public (and in reality - state) ownership of practically all economic resources, monopolization and bureaucratization of the economy in specific forms, centralized economic planning as the basis of the economic mechanism.
The ACS economic mechanism has a number of features. It presupposes, firstly, the direct management of all enterprises from a single center - the highest echelons of state power, which negates the independence of economic entities. Secondly, the state fully controls the production and distribution of products, as a result of which free market relationships between individual farms are excluded. Thirdly, the state apparatus manages economic activity with the help of, mainly, administrative-administrative (command) methods, which undermines the material interest in the results of labor.
The complete nationalization of the economy causes an unprecedented monopolization of the production and marketing of products. Giant monopolies, established in all areas of the national economy and supported by ministries and departments, in the absence of competition, do not care about the introduction of new products and technologies. The deficit economy generated by the monopoly is characterized by the absence of normal material and human reserves in the event of a disturbance in the balance of the economy.
In countries with ACN, the solution of general economic problems had its own specific features. In accordance with the prevailing ideological guidelines, the task of determining the volume and structure of products was considered too serious and responsible to be passed on to the direct producers themselves - industrial enterprises, state farms and collective farms.
The centralized distribution of material goods, labor and financial resources was carried out without the participation of direct producers and consumers, in accordance with pre-selected public goals and criteria, on the basis of central planning. A significant part of the resources, in accordance with the prevailing ideological guidelines, was directed to the development of the military-industrial complex.
The distribution of the created products among the participants in the production was strictly regulated by the central authorities through the universally applied tariff system, as well as centrally approved standards of funds for the fund. wages... This led to the prevalence of an equalizing approach to wages.
Main features:
state ownership of practically all economic resources;
strong monopolization and bureaucratization of the economy;
centralized, directive economic planning as the basis of the economic mechanism.
The main features of the economic mechanism:
direct management of all enterprises from a single center;
the state fully controls the production and distribution of products;
the state apparatus manages economic activity with the help of predominantly administrative-command methods.
This type of economic system is typical for: Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea. A centralized economy with an overwhelming share of the public sector is more dependent on agriculture and foreign trade.
Command economy
Pure capitalism presented above has its antipode (opposite) in the person of a centralized (command-administrative) system, characterized by state ownership of everything. material resources and important economic solutions through collective meetings and centralized economic planning. In other words, the means of production (land, capital) are concentrated in the hands of the state, the leading economic entity, and economic power can be spoken of as centralized. It is important to take into account that the market does not determine the balance of economic forces (it does not affect which companies and what they produce, which ones will withstand the competition), the prices for goods and services are determined by the government. The central planning body (CPO) distributes the initially available and finished products, its competence includes the task of what products should be produced and in what quantities, what the quality of these products will be, from what resources and raw materials will be produced. As soon as these issues are resolved, the CPO transmits the order (implements directives) to specific enterprises with the necessary details. It should be noted that enterprises located in the country also belong to the state.
A significant advantage of this model over the rest is the achievement of conditions conducive to the absence of obvious unemployment due to the centralized distribution of resources and accounting, in particular, of all available labor resources. Another point is the ability to control the distribution of income among the population due to the rigid centralization of management.
At the first stage of economic planning, the task of the central planning body is to draw up a five-year plan for the development of the country's economy as a whole. In the future, this plan is refined and detailed, divided into more detailed moments and ultimately obtained ready plans for economic sectors and individual enterprises. At the same time, it is worth noting the presence of feedback from the side of these very enterprises - at the stage of planning plans, they themselves give estimates and comments about the optimality of the required indicators. The ultimately approved plan must be carried out almost unquestioningly.
However, it would be wrong not to mention the difficulties in the implementation of this model. Among the priorities is the problem, directly, of the centralized management of the economy, as one of the most difficult. And here an important place is given to the problem of informing state planning authorities about the state of the economy directly in this moment time. Indeed, in this case, it is very difficult to assess the influence of numerous factors, to track changes in indicators characterizing the state of the economy (production costs, consumption growth, resource costs). At the same time, even statistically collected information changes rapidly, which makes planning often out of time. The higher the degree of centralization of management, the more the adequacy of economic indicators is distorted from the bottom up. Often, many economic institutions deliberately distort the obtained indicators in order to ultimately appear in the most favorable light for management.
Problems arise in the planned economy and when trying to introduce new technologies into production or when it comes to the release of new products. This is due to the control of the management of the enterprise by the management of a higher level and submission exclusively to its directives (commands), which cannot always be assessed objectively. It is in a market economy that enterprises strive to minimize costs and bring to the market a new product that surpasses competitors in merits and allows them to make a profit, keeping the company afloat in a constantly changing market environment. In the directive model, however, flaws in the management structure and an inadequate level of awareness do not allow to adequately increase the production efficiency of a particular enterprise in proportion to its potential.
Summing up, it is worth noting the following advantages of this model:
Centralized management makes it possible to concentrate funds and other resources in certain, most priority areas at the moment
Creation of social stability, a sense of "confidence in the future."
Of the minuses, it is worth noting:
Low level of customer satisfaction
Lack of choice in both production and consumption (including a shortage of consumer goods)
Achievements of scientific and technological progress are not always implemented in a timely manner
Studied issues
1. The concept of the economic system.
2. Types of economic systems.
Traditional economy (subsistence farming, traditional production, communal property).
Market economy (private property, motivation, competition, freedom of entrepreneurship, market pricing).
In the most general terms, the place of the state in a mixed economy can be reduced to the following points:
· Stabilization of the economy, that is, control over the level of employment and inflation generated by fluctuations in the economic environment, as well as stimulation of economic growth.
Despite the common features, the economies of developed countries represent a variety of models of mixed economies, which is explained by a number of factors: the mentality of the nation, the course of historical development, geopolitical position, the level of development and the nature of the material and technical base, etc. Let us consider some models of a mixed economy.
Key features of the American mixed economy model:
· Low share of state ownership and insignificant direct state intervention in the production process. Today, the US state budget receives about 19% of the national product;
· All-round encouragement of entrepreneurial activity. The main principles of economic policy are support for freedom of economic activity, encouragement of entrepreneurial activity, protection of competition, limitation of monopolies;
· high level social differentiation. American social classes differ perceptibly. The task of social equality is not posed at all. An acceptable standard of living is being created for the low-income strata of the population.
The main features of the European model of a mixed economy:
· Active influence of the state on the functioning of the national market economy. Today, the state budgets of the countries of the European Community receive from 29% (Spain) to 44% (Belgium) of the national product;
· Protection of competition, encouragement of small and medium-sized businesses;
· A strong social security system. In Western Europe, the social orientation of socio-economic systems is the highest in the modern world. The share of all social expenditures in federal budget expenditures in most Western European countries is 60% or more, and in France and Austria - even 73% and 78%, respectively. For comparison, these costs are 55% in the United States.
Features of the Japanese mixed economy model:
· Coordination of government and private sector activities. Clear and effective interaction labor, capital and the state (trade unions, industrialists and financiers, government) in the interests of achieving national goals;
· The special role of the state in the economy. Japan is a country with a strong public policy carried out without direct participation of the state in economic activities. Today, only 17% of the national product goes to the state budget of Japan;
· Special emphasis on the role of the human factor. The share of all social spending in Japan is 45%. The low unemployment rate in the country is explained by the tradition of social partnership, well-delivered training in the workplace, and the widespread use of temporary contracts (or part-time work). The achievement of the Japanese economy is to reduce the proportion of the poor. While in the US and EU countries this figure reaches about 15% of the total population, in Japan it fluctuates around 1%.
Russian economy is at a complex and contradictory stage of development, designated as a transition - from the administrative-command system to a mixed one. The Russian model of a mixed economy is just emerging, and in the future it is expected that it will combine national features and all the most promising of other models. The Russian model of a mixed economy should be based on:
· On a variety of forms of ownership. A feature of the Russian mentality, on the one hand, is the craving for individualism, which has developed under the influence of Europe. On the other hand - conciliarism, collectivism, state thinking. Historically Russian state played a significant role in the life of society. The peculiarities of the Russian ethnos must also be taken into account. According to the majority of experts, Russia needs a public-private economic system, in which state property should occupy approximately the same proportion as private;
· Variety of forms of entrepreneurial activity. The variety of forms of ownership presupposes a variety of forms of entrepreneurial activity. Moreover, for Russia, the combination of private and state entrepreneurship is especially important;
· A mixed economic mechanism for regulating the economy. At the first stages of economic transformations, reformers believed that when building a market economy a prerequisite is the decrease in the role of the state in the socio-economic life of society. The consequence of this was the deepening of the economic crisis, the disorganization of reproduction processes, the undermining of the economic security of Russia. Today it can be argued that the withdrawal of the Russian economy from the systemic crisis and the provision of sustainable economic growth are impossible without an active role of the state in regulating reproduction processes;
· A variety of forms of distribution of the national product.
The limits of state intervention in the economy.
The most difficult problem in theoretical and practical terms is the solution of the question of permissible limits of state intervention in the economy. Obviously, they should be determined by the possibility of the functioning of the laws of the market. Otherwise, the market mechanism will collapse, and the economy may transform into the worst version of the command system. Western states have come across such limits more than once.
Social policy can conflict with market incentives to increase production, thereby weakening all the advantages of the market mechanism.
For example, the desire to provide a decent standard of living for all members of society in Sweden, in a state that was called the state of "general welfare", forced the government to raise the level of taxation of individual incomes to 80%, which undermined incentives for highly paid part of the population to work highly efficiently, to master complex specialties and, as a result, led to a decrease in production efficiency, inhibition of labor productivity. On the other hand, for recipients of social benefits, the opportunity, without working, to provide themselves with a quite tolerable standard of living gave rise to a dependent mood among a certain part of them, did not contribute to strengthening the family (the benefit was usually paid only to single mothers; if a woman got married, the payment of benefits was terminated). This caused a decrease in the efficiency of the Swedish economy.
In addition, it should be borne in mind that an excessive strengthening of the role of the state inevitably leads to bureaucratization, an exaggerated role of officials in the life of the country, and makes it difficult to make all kinds of decisions in the field of the economy.
Thus, if the state tries to go beyond the role that is assigned to it in a market economy, then no matter what good intentions it may be guided, as a rule, destructive deformations of market processes occur. In the end, the whole society suffers, including those of its strata, which the state has sought to help.
Which was characteristic of a number of countries, appeared thanks to the socialist revolutions that took place in them. The ideological banner of this system was the postulates of Marxism. This economic model was developed by Lenin and Stalin - the leaders of the Communist Party of the USSR. The roots of the idea go back to the doctrine of social utopia. The introduction of the system is also typical for Asia in the first half and middle of the twentieth century.
The command economy is a system of managing the national economy based on its management by means of administrative orders. According to it, such a device was supposed to accelerate the process of increasing general welfare. At the same time, a prerequisite was the elimination of competition, which would make it possible to conduct all economic activities of the country in accordance with a single generally binding (directive) plan. The development of development planning features was carried out on a scientific basis by the country's leadership.
In the 50-80s (the heyday of the communist camp), about a third of the world's population lived in countries dominated by the administrative-command economic system. The introduction of this order began with the practical suppression of the personal freedoms of citizens and throughout its existence was accompanied by serious human sacrifices.
The command economic system of the USSR was characterized by the following features:
- the state planning committee determined what enterprises should produce;
- the line ministry determined how production was to be carried out and dictated the technology as it allocated funds;
- the state procurement committee decided where the manufactured products would be supplied and to whom, and also determined where to acquire resources for new production cycles;
- the state pricing committee calculated selling prices, which had not changed for decades;
- workers' wages were set by the State Committee for Labor and Wages;
- the management of income was in the hands of the Ministry of Finance;
- The State Construction Committee determined in which direction and volume the production would develop;
- state banks set the amount of funds that enterprises could take from them;
- The Ministry of Foreign Trade dictated which goods could be exported and which should be sold exclusively on the domestic market.
The command economic system is, first of all, the destruction of all forms of property, except for the state. This gives the authorities the right to command the use of all. Against this background, the distribution of goods for personal use in the so-called order of priority (or according to coupons) took place.
In general, the idea of planning an economy is quite reasonable, but within the limits of one enterprise or, for example, a farm. If we are talking about planning on a national scale, then this leads to a distortion of the objective laws of the economy. It can be expedient only during periods (wars, revolutions, natural disasters, etc.).
Ultimately, socialism (the command economic system) turned into a disappointment, and the countries had to deal with the revival of the market system.
The 90s were the final years for the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe in terms of assessing what was achieved through the introduction of the command economy. Upon analysis, it turned out that these results were very sad. Most of the manufactured products were characterized by low quality and outdated designs, therefore they were not in demand in the market; the life expectancy of citizens and the level of their well-being was lower than in countries that chose the path of a market economy. The level of the manufacturing sector as a whole was also significantly lower than in Europe, and nature was much more polluted.
The economic system is a special mechanism designed to solve the two-sided problems of scarcity and production. Since economic resources are limited in comparison with the needs of society for goods and services, certain ways of placing them between alternative directions of use are necessary.
Economic system- an ordered set of socio-economic and organizational relations between producers and consumers of goods and services.
The selection of economic systems can be based on various criteria:
The economic state of society at a certain stage of development (Russia in the era of Peter I, fascist Germany);
- stages of socio-economic development (socio-economic formations in Marxism);
- economic systems characterized by three groups of elements: spirit (the main motives of economic activity), structure and substance in the German historical school;
Types of organization associated with ways of coordinating the actions of business entities in ordoliberalism;
Socio-economic system based on two features: the form of ownership of economic resources and the method of coordination of economic activity.
In modern scientific and educational literature, the most widespread classification is according to the last of the selected criteria. Based on this, a distinction is made between traditional, command, market and mixed economies.
Traditional economics based on the dominance of traditions and customs in economic activities. The technical, scientific and social development in such countries is very limited, because it comes into conflict with the economic structure, religious and cultural values. This economic model was characteristic of ancient and medieval society, but it is also preserved in modern underdeveloped states.
Command economy due to the fact that the majority of enterprises are state-owned. They carry out their activities on the basis of state directives, all decisions on the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods and services in society are made by the state. This includes the USSR, Albania, etc.
Market economy determined by private ownership of resources, the use of a system of markets and prices to coordinate and manage economic activities. In a free market economy, the state does not play any role in the allocation of resources; all decisions are made by market actors independently, at their own peril and risk. This usually included Hong Kong.
In today's real life there are no examples of a purely command or purely market economy, completely free from the state. Most countries seek to organically and flexibly combine market efficiency with government regulation of the economy. This combination forms a mixed economy.
Mixed economy represents such an economic system where both the state and private sector play an important role in the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of all resources and material goods in the country. At the same time, the regulatory role of the market is complemented by the mechanism of state regulation, and private property coexists with public and state property. The mixed economy emerged in the interwar period and to this day represents the most effective form of management. There are five main tasks solved by the mixed economy:
q providing employment;
q full utilization of production facilities;
q stabilization of prices;
q parallel growth of wages and labor productivity;
q balance of payments equilibrium.
Their achievement was carried out by states in different periods in different ways, taking into account mutual experience. Three models of a mixed economy can be provisionally distinguished.
Neoetatist(France, England, Italy, Japan) is characterized by a developed nationalized sector, an active countercyclical and structural policy pursued in accordance with indicative plans, and a developed system of transfer payments.
Neoliberal model(Germany, USA) also presupposes countercyclical measures, but the main emphasis is on providing the state with conditions for the normal functioning of the market. It is regarded as the most efficient regulatory system. The state, in essence, intervenes only to protect competition.
At the heart of concerted action models(Sweden. Holland, Austria, Belgium) is the principle of consent of representatives of social parties (government, trade unions, employers). Through special taxes on investments, the government prevents the economy from overheating and regulates the labor market. Special laws affect the ratio of wage growth and labor productivity, progressive taxation helps to equalize income. In the countries of this model, a powerful social security system has been created, and an active structural policy is being pursued.
Currently in Russia there is an eclectic economic system, consisting of elements of the administrative-command system, a market economy of free competition and a modern market system. In the former Soviet Asian republics, elements of the traditional system are added to this conglomerate. Therefore, the property relations and organizational forms existing in our country can be called an economic system (even an eclectic one) rather conditionally. Absent important feature system - its relative stability. Indeed, in domestic economic life, everything is in motion, has a transitional character. This transition, apparently, stretches over decades, and from this point of view, the transition economy can also be called a system.
Economy in transition- an economy that is in a state of change, a transition from one state to another, both within one type of economy, and from one type of economy to another, occupies a special place in the development of society.
It is necessary to distinguish from a transitional economy transition period in the development of society, during which there is a change from one type of economic relations to another.
For the transitional economies of the countries of the former "socialist camp" today there is a wide range of prospects: from degradation to a dependent increasingly lagging economic system of developing countries to transformation into new industrial states; from economies that retain "socialist" attributes and are based on public ownership, such as the Chinese, to right-wing liberal systems based on private property, which began with the implementation of the principles of "shock therapy". At the same time, three fundamental tendencies intersect in the transitional economy of each country. The first of them consists in the gradual dying (both natural and artificial) of "mutant socialism", which got its name in comparison not with a theoretical ideal, but with the real tendency of socialization existing in world practice. The second trend is associated with the genesis of the relations of the post-classical world capitalist economy (modern market economy based on private-corporate property). The third trend is to strengthen the process of socialization - an increase in the role of social (group, national and international) values in economic development and humanization public life as a prerequisite for any modern transformation. Obviously, in such conditions, the final choice of the economic system in Russia will ultimately depend on the balance of political forces in the country, the nature of the reforms being carried out, the scale and effectiveness of the ongoing reforms in all spheres of public life, as well as the adaptation of society to changes.
Summing up, we note that economic systems are multidimensional. They can be formalized: ES = f (A 1, A 2, A 3 ... An). In other words, the economic system (ES) is determined by its properties (A), where there are n such properties. This means that an economic system cannot be defined in terms of a single characteristic.