Russia as part of the Eurasian Economy in the modern era of transformation of the world market: economic security

Vakarev Aleksander Alekseevich ORCID: 0000-0002-2151-3142 Doctor of Economics Professor, Department of Applied Economics and Management, Volga Institute of Economics, Pedagogy and Law 404111, Russia, Volgogradskaya oblast', g. Volzhskii, ul. Sovetskaya, 6 management@viepp.ru Other publications by this author     Vinogradov Valerii Valerievich ORCID: 0000-0001-8627-8641 PhD in Law Associate Professor, Department of Theory and History of State and Law, Municipal Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education Volga Institute of Economics, Pedagogy and Law 404111, Russia, Volzhskii oblast', g. Volzhskii, ul. Sovetskaya, 6 12000102@mail.ru Ievleva Natal'ya Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0001-5124-7079 PhD in Economics Associate Professor, Department of Economics and Management, Volga Polytechnic Institute (branch) of the Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education Volgograd State Technical University 404111, Russia, Volgogradskaya oblast', g. Volzhskii, ul. Engel'sa, 42 A ievleva@mail.ru Other publications by this author     Vinnichenko Aleksandr Sergeevich ORCID: 0000-0002-7732-1801 PhD in Law Associate Professor, Department of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Criminalistics, Volgograd Institute of Management (Branch) of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration 400066, Russia, Volgogradskaya oblast', g. Volgograd, ul. Im. Yu.a. Gagarina, 8 vinnichenko.sashuta@mail.ru

Kotel'nikova Dina Valerievna ORCID: 0000-0001-7615-7133 PhD in Law Associate Professor, Department of Fundamentals of Forensic Activity, FGKOU HE "Volgograd Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia", Volgograd Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation" 400075, Russia, Volgogradskaya oblast', g. Volgograd, ul. Istoricheskaya, 130 va-dina@mail.ru

Anthology and epistemology of the current state of the global economy

A specific feature of the current stage of socio-economic development of the global economy is the growing conditions for a radical change in the entire world economy, the construction of a new world with new poles of strength and economic growth. On this occasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin specifically pointed out: "some completely different time is beginning, that we are not just on the threshold of cardinal changes, but an era of tectonic shifts, and in all spheres of life"^[9]. Such a state of affairs poses a wide range of tasks for domestic science, which it should solve in order to answer one, but very capacious target question, what direction of development should be chosen for our country in order to ensure its effective positioning in a changing world in the future, when a new model of world development is formed ^{[1, p. 75]}.

The human system of cognition, even in the presence of a variety of development options, is somehow implemented in a dualistic form, predestining to consider only two main options and make a choice from only one of them. So, in relation to the current moment, Russia faces the problem of choosing the ways of its development from the following two directions:

- with a focus on the West, that is, the countries of the USA and Europe, which are currently developing within the framework of the financial concept of socio-economic development;

- with an orientation to the east, when movement will be carried out in the direction of the Eurasian countries that are developing under the domination of the production concept ^{[4, p. 230]}.

Here we immediately note that the term Eurasia is used in this article as a reflection not of the purely geographical location of the continent on which two continents (Europe and Asia) are located, but as a reflection of countries that are not located in Europe on this continent and have a non-European development model. The reason for using the term Eurasia is that, in an economic and geopolitical sense, following the results of the current crisis, a single Eurasian socio-economic space will most likely be formed, which will be an opponent of the American socio-economic space.

The design of the above financial and production concepts took place in the second half of the 80s of the last century. The advanced countries of that period, the USA and the countries of Europe, especially Western Europe, began an active process of their deindustrialization and transformed their economies into financial and partly innovative centers within the world economy. At the same time, they actively brought their industry to the countries of the then third world, especially to China and the countries of Indochina, turning them into workshops where the production itself was carried out, but from where the profit went to the financier countries. This is how two groups of countries have developed: financiers and manufacturers. Moreover, if the financiers were also innovators at first, carrying out scientific and technical developments for implementation in the producing countries, then by the beginning of the new millennium they gradually stopped doing these developments and turned almost into pure financiers, transferring the developments into the hands of the manufacturers themselves.

In this state of affairs, when virtually unlimited financial resources began to accumulate in the United States and European countries, the development of financial markets became a priority there, which became the main specialization of the economy of the United States and Western European countries. These financial markets have almost completely broken away from material production and turned into an independent factor in managing the socio-economic development of the entire world economy.

It should be emphasized that all such changes were not carried out spontaneously, but were carefully calculated and controlled. It is necessary, therefore, to pay tribute to Western economic science and the mind of the leaders who have secured leading positions for their countries for about 35 – 40 years. Thus, in order to ensure the overall globalization of the world market, an entire International Conference was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the so-called "concept of sustainable development" was adopted, which allegedly, due to environmental protection, led to the creation of the entire system of institutions of such globalization, the dominance of the financial concept of development and the division of countries according to the specializations of financiers. and manufacturers.

With all that, according to the dialectical law of negation of negation, the whole complex of these measures initially contained the germ of the death of the system being formed. Even J.B. Say (05.01.1767 – 15.11.1832) ^[6] pointed out that during the work of financial markets there is always a temptation to detach them from the real sector of the economy and the development of financial speculation on them, which can lead the entire economy to severe crises, therefore systematic and very strict control is needed over financial markets. Something similar happened in the late 10s of the current century. In the USA and European countries, financial markets without control began to lead the world economy into an explosive state. Such an explosion hazard can be characterized by the following main features:

- a systematic money issue has begun, which has been going at an increasing pace in recent decades;

- there was a very active growth of internal and external debts, the phenomenon of the debt economy was formed;

- the secondary securities market had advanced development, which in terms of its turnover in exchange trading was more than four times higher than the market of real goods.

Against this background, the very understanding of the economy as the basis of society, ensuring the production of primarily material goods for the existence and development of the population, has been distorted. In the USA and European countries, the shares and volumes of intangible assets began to grow enormously in the funds of enterprises, and real fixed assets began to fade into the background. The production of real material goods has almost completely stopped.

In general, this situation has greatly aggravated the economic security of all countries of the world community and put them on the verge of starting a full-scale world war. Moreover, Russia has already been involved in a special operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine – a conflict that could grow into a similar war.

Such a situation cannot exist permanently. The objective nature of the economy sooner or later had to lead to the restoration of real production relations, to the restoration of the status of the real economy. Apparently, this is happening in the context of the current COVID-19 economic crisis, exacerbated for our country by a special military operation. In this regard, overcoming this crisis for our country will be associated with the implementation of the choice of prospects for a new positioning in the conditions of a modern competitive global market [5c. 85].

The main differences between the economies of the USA and Europe with the economies of the Eurasian countries, as well as the positioning of the Russian economy in modern conditions

It is most expedient to select the prospects for a new positioning of the Russian economy on the basis of an analysis of identifying the main features of the economies of the United States and other Eurasian countries. Moreover, the main issue that such an analysis should highlight should be the identification of differences between the indebtedness of the economies of these camps, as well as fundamental differences between them in the field of real production. Such differences can best be illustrated by statistical data.

Table 1 - Rating of countries with the largest volume of external debt in 2020 ^[3]

Figure 1 Comparison of countries with the largest volume of external debt in 2020

Statistics can also illustrate that, by the example of the development of industry, debtors have very limited production volumes, and lenders are also actively working, providing the whole world with real goods.

Table 2 - Rating of the studied countries of the world in terms of industrial production in 2020 ^[11]

Figure 2 Comparison of the studied countries by industrial production in 2020

In general, there is a clear contradiction. The current economic model is built in such a way that whoever works, he also ensures the prosperity of debtors. Objectivity exists and it is logical. And here everything is illogical and sooner or later it should collapse.

Against this background, Russia, according to its current state, is more closely aligned with the camp of the countries of the USA and Europe. It has a formally growing gross domestic product (GDP), systematic inflation and a deindustrialized economy whose real production and potential productivity are limited.

In graphical form, you can only see the smooth growth of the country's GDP, which takes place mainly due to the action of inflationary factors.

Figure 3 Dynamics of the GDP of the Russian Federation in current prices for the period 2015-2020 ^[2]

In contrast to the entire GDP, inflation in the country is developing at a faster pace, pulling out the cost indicators of GDP due to a systematic increase in the cost of production and prices for it, practically without an increase in real production volumes. In such a situation, conditions are essentially only created for the formation of various financial bubbles – the basis of economic dangers, economic destabilization and threats of various crises.

Figure 4 Dynamics of money supply (M2) at the beginning of 2008-2020, the beginning of the 2nd quarter of 2020 according to the Bank of Russia (CBR)

Additionally, it can be emphasized that the Russian economy currently has a rather dubious structure that satisfies the interests of the global market and those who occupy commanding heights on it, but does not allow the country to make an economic breakthrough in order to occupy its worthy position [7c. 40]. This further underlines that Russia is facing a choice of what needs to be done to ensure its economic security and the growth of its own authority.

Russia's choice to overcome the current economic crisis and further position its economy in new conditions in order to increase its economic security and sustainability

The dialectical development of material and spiritual life determines that the management systems of all socio-economic objects, regardless of their level and scale, permanently face the question of increasing the adaptation of these objects to changing environmental conditions ^{[12, p. 20]}. Such a task is of continuing relevance for the management systems of the domestic economy. Moreover, in the light of the above-mentioned features of modernity, the problem of choosing landmarks in front of Russia is particularly acute. In essence, our fatherland is currently in a situation seven centuries ago, when our country had to make a choice from orientation to Europe in favor of orientation to Mongolia-China-Eurasia. Let's make a reservation that at a new turn of historical development, in technically complicated conditions, but practically under the same epistemological conditions, characterized by the following features:

- fragmentation of the former USSR, similar to the feudal fragmentation of medieval Russia;

- the presence of an alternative pole of collecting Russian lands in the face of modern Ukraine, which tends to the West and depends on it;

- lack of state ideology and split in the country's elites;

- pluralism of ownership forms and difficulties in ensuring the mobilization of the economy and society;

- the presence of many military and political conflicts, including a special operation for the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine.

But such a choice in modern conditions should be made with serious scientific study, which makes it possible to understand two main issues:

- what is the nature of the domestic economy and how much does it meet the requirements of the American-European and Eurasian development models;

- what are the prospects for the development of the American-European economy and the economy of the Eurasian countries, within which of these models Russia will be able to achieve better positioning ^{[8, p. 90]}.

At the same time, special emphasis in the study should be placed on the study of the production sector of the economy as the basis for the development of society, believing that the financial sector in the world economy will collapse and take its rightful secondary place.

In general , the production sphere of the domestic economy can be represented in the following form:

Figure 5 The structure of the production sector of the GDP of the Russian Federation in 2020 ^[2]

At the same time , in a more detailed form , the general structure of the country 's GDP can be represented by the following table:

Table 3 – Actual and desired share of economic activities in the GDP structure

This structure itself is unlikely to have a particularly high informative value, but it allows you to reveal its meaning when comparing, for example, with similar information from any of the European countries. As such a country, it is most expedient to use Germany as the most representative country, whose economy of all European countries most closely corresponds to the modern model.

Table 4 – Comparative characteristics of the GDP structures of Germany and Russia in 2020, %

And this is the picture that emerges. The domestic economy in its structure almost completely corresponds to the European model, taking into account its deindustrialization. The only exception is the mining industry, for which it corresponds to the countries of Eurasia. That is, on the one hand, Russia can be quite easily integrated into the economy of Eurasian countries, on the other, thanks to its sufficiently advanced level of economics and science for Eurasia, it can become a leader of socio-economic progress there, a generator of ideas and a trendsetter.

Considering the question of the prospects for the development of Eurasian countries, it makes sense to recall the theoretical polemic of the 70s of the last century between the then leader of China Mao Zedong and the leader of the USSR L.I. Brezhnev. Mao, then still the leader of backward and poor China, argued that the main reserve for the country's political and economic growth was the size of its population, hinting that China would soon become a world hegemon thanks to its already more than a billion people. And L.I. Brezhnev argued that the main thing was the socio-political system, therefore, only the USSR will be the leader, thanks to its most advanced socialism. Practice, the only criterion of truth, has clearly shown that China is right. Therefore, we will try to analyze the prospects for the development of Eurasia from a proven position, where the main potential for socio-economic growth lies in the population.

Table 5 - Population of Eurasia and the USA in 2021 ^[15]

Thus, even such simple statistics claim that Europe has practically no prospects left. Yes, and the USA, considering that their demographic growth is only mainly due to migration of the population from the same Asian countries and Latin America, have no prospects either ^{[10, p.90]}. In this sense, the choice for Russia is becoming very obvious.

At the same time, it should be noted that the change of development models is a very complex and painful process. It requires a thorough scientific justification and practical training. In this regard, the implementation of the following activities is becoming highly relevant for Russia in the near future:

- development of the concept of integration of the domestic economy into the economy of the Eurasian countries, taking into account the provision of leading positions, increasing economic security and sustainability;

- improvement of the structure of the Russian economy, taking into account the provision of outstripping growth of its manufacturing industries, scientific developments and activities in the field of information, with a corresponding reduction in the volume and share of extractive industries (see Table 3);

- turning Russia into a country of innovation development and investment, including in Eurasian countries;

- development of international cooperation processes based on the friendship of peoples and mutually beneficial cooperation, intercultural interaction and optimal segmentation of the international market according to the principles of international specialization of production;

- strengthening the friendship of the peoples of the multinational population of Russia;

- creating conditions for the effective implementation of migration processes, especially between the countries of the post-Soviet space;

- strengthening the economic autarchy of Russia in the field of defense capability, as the basis of its economic security and sustainability.

The future of Russia is inextricably linked with the future of Eurasia. The development prospects are clear. It is time to work more actively in the reorientation of the domestic economy from the outgoing West to the growing Eurasia. The sooner and more actively Russia undertakes the transition from a Western orientation to a Eurasian one, the greater the effect can be achieved, the more it will be possible to strengthen its economic security and stability. The current aggravation of relations with the West over Ukraine creates favorable opportunities for such a reorientation, and this should be taken advantage of.