#6014 #6015
#5
Vremya MN
January 9, 2002
THE FUTURE ENDED YESTERDAY
Predicting Russia's future has become much more difficult
Author: Andrei Kolesnikov
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
IN RECENT YEARS THE NUMBER OF UNCERTAINTIES AND RISKS IN GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT HAS RISEN SHARPLY. FORECASTS HAVE BEEN DEVALUED; THEY HAVE LOST CLARITY AND PRECISION. WE CAN EVEN PUT IT MORE HARSHLY - THEY HAVE LOST ALL SENSE. SEPTEMBER 11 PUT AN END TO THE HISTORY OF FUTUROLOGY.
In 1994 Viktor Chernomyrdin made the most impressive forecast. At a Cabinet meeting, he consoled his colleagues thus "Those who survive will laugh." This exactly what happened - today's problems cannot be compared with those of the past. We can compare formal economic achievements and the psychological state of people in one word, it was more difficult to live at that time. Those who have survived can laugh at themselves.
But 1994 differs from 2002 not only in this way. Six or seven years ago, it was possible to predict the development of Russian economy, the movement of world policies, describing details of the technological era with its technological progress. In recent years the number of uncertainties and risks in global development has risen sharply. Forecasts have been devalued; they have lost clarity and precision. We can even put it more harshly - they have lost all sense. September 11 put an end to the history of futurology.
Controlling risks has always been one of the subtlest spheres of knowledge. But this knowledge has never been so deprived of value. At that, for objective reasons. Fund analysts are hardly trusted. Most powerful analytical units of the largest world investment banks should be trusted with caution. International financial organizations correct their forecasts every month. Well-known Russian economists manipulate with figures, assess economic growth, budget revenues and expenditure, inflation and, the most important, oil prices.
Despite the fact that Russian economy looks almost as dynamic as that of China at the background of world recession, its predictability is far from being great. The background of its development, consisting of declining USA, Euro zone and Japan, is fraught with numerous, unpredictable risks. There are a lot of interior problems, which makes it very hard to predict inflation rates. It is even difficult to assess the so-called fundamentals of economy. By formal signs, the national economic system is healthy. But the figures themselves, if we do not look deep into their structure, and the processes, if we do not trace their development, do not make any sense. For example, budget revenues are still high, but only due to raw materials export. Does it prove that our economy is good? Of course, not. Over the past year incomes of population have considerably increased. But if we compare them with the level of 1997, they will make only 41% of default incomes of people.
At the same time, slow growth does not mean anything either. It is now when oil thriving is over, and the devaluation effect has exhausted itself, that we can measure true growth of Russian economy. Growth, based not on the state of market, but on home demand, which drives economy in fact.
But even these figures will not paint a true picture of our economic life. Growing economy does not develop all the time, because development is not the amount of produced goods, but society, which is improving on the basis of modern technologies. And it is not only widening of our own basis for the scientific and technological progress, but also development of democracy, institutions of civil society and a lot more important things, without which all economic indexes turn into dust, decoration and subjects for political speculations.
The present period in the Russian history is much stabler than 1994, for example. However, stability has its back side - its soothing psychological effect turns to dust, as soon as we think of uncertainty. It suffices to turn to the experience of Argentina economic miracle, which resulted in pogroms, victims, collapse of the economy and replacement of presidents - three presidents during the last two weeks of the year. It suffices to remember of threats and challenges of terrorism.
Stability corrupts, lulls vigilance, begets indifference, threatens democracy. We had ideological power for a long time. But it is to early to rejoice over de-ideologization of the state and society. A stable society respects neo-nazis, conformity becomes the dominant line of behavior, there is no strategy or progress in the economy, and public opinion disappears. The public hardly paid any attention to the shameful verdict in Pasko's case; it overlooked the abolition of the Presidential Pardons Commission.
All this, like under Soviet rule, is of interest only to a small group of human rights defenders. Could we predict this a decade ago? Does it have anything to do with the economy? Eventually, it is easier to drive painful but important reforms in a sleeping society for example, the housing and utilities and pension reforms. But the matter is that a vague, indifferent society is another huge uncertainty in economy and policies. Such a society will not even think of its interests, if he country is forced to accept autocracy. At the same time, one day it may revolt for some reason, if the level of social tension reaches the critical point - the serenity of the people is deceptive...
Without political democracy it is impossible to control economic risks. And the level of uncertainty is only increasing right now.
(Translated by Daria Brunova)
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