Abstract: The authors provide analysis of deficit broadly understood as a modern social phenomenon, which is formed by the leading means and styles of human life and involvement of the people in the Internet and mobile communications, rather than just deficit in goods and services. It is shown that the connection between such a deficit and forms of government, as well as between a deficit and the attempts of a human being to understand what is going on. The authors compare cultural models of government and society in Russia and in the West. The authors discuss the concept of “conspiracy theory”, showing that coordination of actions of various social subjects is directed by meta-narratives and ability to reach agreement with the others, rather than by this theory. The article applies the methodology of comparative analysis, including cultural and historic analysis, as well as virtual internal dialog as a type of thinking experiment. As a result, it was shown that regular deficit in the modern culture is substituted with the new type of deficit, which basically “enslaves” a person, depriving a person of his freedom. It is also shown that the Internet and forms of mobile communications play an important role in it, and the forms of management and governance become more and more intricate, while being different in Russia and in the West.

Keywords: deficit, power, Internet, mobile communications, freedom, personality, subject, culture, society, modernity.