The term "transitional economy" was first introduced into literature by Marx and Engels in the middle of the 19th century and characterized the transformation from capitalism to socialism. The term used today belongs to recent history and characterizes economic condition transformation from a command-administrative to a market system. The problems of the transitional economy, otherwise the transformational economy, is studied by the science of transitology. The term "transitology" itself was proposed in 1992 by M. Baravua.
In general, a transformational (transitional) economy is a set of social economic relations that arose in the environment of the evolutionary historical process of transition from the old to the new social system.
The transitional period is a period of time during which society carries out fundamental economic, political and social transformations, and the country's economy is moving into a new, qualitatively different state in connection with cardinal reforms. economic system.
The transitional period can be caused by objective and subjective reasons. To the objective The reasons include the evolutionary development of the economy and society, scientific progress, historical movement, inconsistency with other systems (environment, etc.), which create natural contradictions that require an ideological and material reorganization of the surrounding system. subjective the reasons are the political, economic intervention of the state, large private companies, trade unions, the church or other forces in the development of society. This intervention may not correspond to the natural course of events and be accompanied by revolutions and wars. Obviously, only objective reasons can justify the existence of a transitional period.
By specialization causes that cause transient period may be:
The transition period includes three stages:
Thus, the transition from one socio-economic system to another is a very complex process of reform, transformation and development, which requires a rather long period. On the one hand, it is a process of gradual "undermining" the fundamental socio-economic relations of the old system and the emergence and development in its depths of new ones, contradictoryly connecting with the first ones within the old system. On the other hand, the economy will gradually develop and strengthen the relations and elements of the new system and weaken the relations and elements of the old system.
Based on this, the following main features of the transitional economy can be distinguished, which distinguish it from other established systems:
A characteristic feature of the transition economy is also institutional incompleteness, the absence or embryonic state of individual market institutions (land market, stock market etc.). Let us consider these phenomena on the example of the transition from administrative-command to market economy. The main difficulty of the transition period is the creation of market economy institutions. Institutions in a broad sense are the rules of economic behavior and the mechanisms that ensure their implementation, as well as economic organizations, business entities. During the transition period, institutions are being formed, without which a market economy cannot function normally: private property, economic freedom and responsibility of business entities, competition, market infrastructure, etc.
Among the many changes taking place during the transition period, some are necessary, inevitable and therefore can be considered as regularities. Visually, the general patterns can be presented in Figure 1.
Figure 1 J General patterns of transition to a market economy
Thus, the transition to a market economy requires profound changes in the institutional structure of society, institutional transformation: the transformation of property relations (privatization) and the introduction of the institution of private property, the liberalization of the economy, the creation of a package of market laws and limiting the role of the state, the formation of new business entities (commercial banks, various exchanges, investment and pension funds and etc.). Let us consider the main tasks of the transitional economy and ways to solve them.
Each economic system goes through stages of formation and development, a mature state and decline, when the formation of a new system takes place. Since the end of the 1980s, in the socialist countries, there has been a transition to a radical transformation of the relations inherent in the former type of economy. The economic system established in the USSR and in other socialist countries was distinguished by a number of stable features from all previous and parallel systems existing in the world.
Firstly, this system developed on the basis of public ownership of the means of production, and from here its fundamental differences from capitalism stemmed.
Secondly, economic life was focused on the principles of the "single factory", and a planned-directive approach was established in management. The state sought to directly manage the vital activity of labor collectives, determined their functional orientation, brought to them long-term and current plans for all the main indicators. The enterprise was actually deprived of the ability to make decisions on the introduction of farms.
Thirdly, a system of developed socialist guarantees was formed at the expense of the state. Nationalization deformed the appropriation process. The vast majority of the surplus product was concentrated in the hands of the state with its subsequent redistribution outside the self-supporting interests of the main sectors of the economy. A kind of dependency has become customary, in which, due to highly profitable industries, the vital activity of poorly working teams was ensured.
The economic system based on public property made it possible to concentrate the material and human resources of society in the most important areas and ensure powerful breakthroughs in decisive areas. economic activity. However, historically this system was doomed to failure. The normal functioning of the increasingly complex economy came into conflict with centralized directive management. The USSR was not able to fully master the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution in its second part, and the country's economy entered the stage of extinction. There was a need to change property relations as the basis of the entire system of economic relations. Thus, the fiasco of the Soviet command-administrative system of economic management was the objective reason for the need to transform the newly emerged sovereign states into market economies.
The market system assumes:
variety of forms of ownership;
personal initiative and freedom of enterprise;
developed competition;
Availability legislative framework, adequate market economy;
availability of developed markets for the main factors of production or prerequisites for them;
the availability of entrepreneurial staff and experience in the interaction of government agencies with risk;
the presence of economic and legislative barriers to the monopolies' striving for undivided dominance.
The transitional economy characterizes, as it were, the "intermediate" state of society, when the former system of socio-economic relations and institutions is being destroyed and reformed, while the new one is only being formed. The changes taking place in a transitional economy are predominantly developmental rather than functioning, as is typical for the current system. Today there is no exact definition of the transition economy, however, based on its main features, we can say that the transition economy is a type of economic system in which the transformation of the management mechanism from administrative-command principles to market ones takes place.
The transitional economy is characterized by the following features:
First, the transitional economy is characterized by volatility and instability, which are "irrevocable" in nature. They do not just temporarily disrupt the stability of the system, so that it then returns to an equilibrium state, but weaken it, it gradually gives way to another economic system. This instability, the instability of the state of the transition economy, on the one hand, causes a special dynamism of its development and the corresponding nature of changes - irreversibility, non-repeatability, and on the other hand, an increase in the uncertainty of the results of the development of the transition economy, options for the formation of a new system.
Secondly, the transitional economy, which is a mixture of old and new, is characterized by the existence of special transitional economic forms.
Thirdly, the transitional economy is characterized by a special nature of contradictions. These are the contradictions of the new and the old, the contradictions of the various strata of society standing behind one or another subject of relations. The changes taking place in the transitional economy ultimately lead to a change in the economic system, and in the socio-political sense, transitional eras are often accompanied by a sharp aggravation of contradictions leading to socio-political upheavals.
Fourth, a characteristic feature of the transitional economy is its historicity, which is due to the peculiarities economic development individual countries. The problems faced by the Eastern European countries and the newly independent states that were part of the former USSR are more complex than, for example, the problems of Latin American countries, where some market institutions already existed, and the number of state enterprises subject to privatization was in the hundreds, not thousands. In addition, the specific levels of development of each country determine the specifics of the course of transition processes. The regularities common to the transition economy are different forms manifestations under various conditions. All this must be taken into account when developing programs for reforming the economic system in the transition period.
The process of transformation of the economic system of the state from the command-administrative mechanism of management to the market one is usually called transitional.
The transitional period is a special period in the evolution of the economy, when one system leaves the historical arena, and another, new one, is simultaneously born and approved. Therefore, the development of the transition economy is of a special nature, significantly different from the usual, normal economic development. Indeed, in the transitional economy, the old economic forms and relations are still preserved and function for quite a considerable time, while the emergence and establishment of new economic forms and relations. Moreover, neither one nor the other forms and connections operate in full force, since some are undermined and gradually decline, while others are born and gradually assert themselves. Moreover, the situation is aggravated more and more, because the ratio between the new and the old is constantly changing. This applies to any transitional economy.
The transitional period from a command to a market economic system is characterized by great originality. The current developed countries were moving from a traditional, agrarian economy to a market economy, and this transition was accompanied by an industrial revolution, the birth of industry, and, above all, the production of means of production, which became the material basis for the transformation of production and society as a whole.
The transition period is a transition from a planned economy, which was based on peculiar foundations, and therefore it has its own features and patterns. Thus, the formation of an industrial basis capitalist society led to intensive processes of socialization of production and labor, the growth of private property, the development of such forms of ownership as joint-stock, monopolistic and state. The administrative-command system was based on absolute domination state property, and one of the main tasks of the transition period is the denationalization and privatization state property. Instead of state ownership, diverse forms of ownership (collective, private, cooperative, state, etc.) should be established. In the transition to a market economy, the objective regularity is the restructuring of the organizational and economic structure of the economy through its demonopolization, deconcentration of production and decentralization of management, and the widespread development of small and medium-sized businesses.
The transformation of property relations and the organizational and economic structure of the economy means the formation of new production relations. To transition to a market economy, it is necessary to rebuild the production and technological structure of the economy, but this is not a simple change in the ratio of its various industries and areas, but technical re-equipment, the transition to a qualitatively new level productive forces. When one type of economic relations changes to a fundamentally different one, the administrative-command type of management is forced to collapse, the task of survival of producers inevitably comes to the fore, which depends on the ability to manage processes.
The specificity of the socio-economic processes that began in the late 1990s. and currently taking place, lies in the fact that the principles of functioning of all subsystems of the economic formation of society are radically changing: government controlled(the role of the state in the economy), the social sphere, property rights, the structure of the economy (its separate branches, complexes), since a change in the actual economic system is expected.
The economic system is a combination of the public and private sectors of the economy. economic basis its transformation is the evolutionary development of property relations and, accordingly, types of management, which manifests itself as an increase in the diversity of forms and directions of development. Inevitably economic functions states become more complex, efficient, combine economic and social aspects, thereby creating a favorable environment for the development of a modern market economy with strong legal protection.
So, the transition process is characterized by gradualness, the impossibility of a quick replacement existing forms new, and even more so - the impossibility of such an approach, according to which you must first destroy everything old, and then create a new one. In other words, under the conditions of the transitional period, the old forms are preserved for quite a long time, and at the same time, new forms and relations are growing. This means that in the gradualness of changes in the economy, continuity and inheritance in socio-economic development are realized.
Modern classical economic theory studies the mature state of a market economy from the standpoint of stability and balance, orderliness and homogeneity, emphasizing development as a progressive process. In the last quarter of the XX century. in connection with the transformation of industrial society into a post-industrial one, due to a revolutionary leap in the development of productive forces, a new science of transitology began to take shape - the theory of economic transformation. Transitology (economics in transition)- an economic scientific discipline, the subject of which is the problems of transformation of economic systems, and the object is the economy of a country or countries that are in the process of transition from one state of the socio-economic system to a qualitatively different state.
Transitional economic relations are characterized by the fact that at this moment they combine the features of both the old and the new structure of society. The transitional economy is a transformation of the entire system of economic relations, and not just a reform of their individual elements. transitional economy- intermediate state of the economy as a result of socio-economic transformations; it is a transitional state from one socio-economic system to another.
An economy in transition has a number of specific characteristics that distinguish it from an economy that is in a relatively stationary state and develops on its own basis. First, the transitional economy is multi-layered. Economic structure - special type economic relations. Diversity - the presence of a number of sectors of the economy, characterized by various forms of production. The main feature of the intersystem transition is that economic relations of both economic systems coexist in society - both the outgoing and the emerging one. Secondly, the instability of development. Each of the mature stages of the evolution of society and the economy has been and is an integral system. The transitional economy is characterized by a combination of both old and new economic forms and relations. Therefore, it is objectively incomplete, and therefore unstable. The transitional economy involves the search for new, more efficient forms of economic relations. Along the way, miscalculations and mistakes are made. A return movement is possible. For example, in cases where the application of a particular economic innovation worsens the macroeconomic situation. Thirdly, alternative development. The results of the development of the transitional economy can be variant. Economic reforms are aimed at achieving a certain expected result. However, these reforms may not live up to expectations. Many economic transformations either did not give positive results, or they did, but they were too insignificant. As a result of the completion of the period of transition from one economic system to another, different variants of the economic structure can be formed, which represent different options for the development and evolution of society. Fourth, the special nature of the contradictions. In a transitional economy, economic contradictions are contradictions of development (between new and old elements of production relations), and not contradictions of functioning (within each production relation). Fifth, historicity, that is, the transient nature of the transitional economy, which is replaced by a period of mature development of the economic system. The duration of transformations in the transitional economy is explained both by the complexity of the ongoing processes and the inertia of the former economic system (the inability to quickly change the technological basis and structure National economy, create new economic institutions, train personnel, etc.). Transition period- a historically short period during which there is a liquidation or a radical transformation of one economic system and the formation of another.
Introduction
1. Transitional economy: concept, features, varieties, features, functions
2. Transformational recession as a phenomenon of transitional economy
Conclusion
List of used literature
Introduction
Since 1992, Russia has been undergoing profound changes. In some other countries, mainly in Eastern Europe, the changes started even a little earlier.
The transition period in the economy is a historically short period of time during which the dismantling of the administrative-command system is completed and the system of basic market institutions is being formed. This period of time is often called the period of post-socialist transformation.
Naturally, economic transformation is part of deep, usually fundamental changes in society - in the political and state-administrative structure, in the social sphere, in ideology, in domestic and foreign policy.
Change of order can proceed in different ways. In our country, the change of power in 1991 occurred after dramatic events - the suppression of the August coup, the collapse of the USSR, the self-dissolution of the Supreme Soviet and the forced resignation of the President of the USSR.
Let us consider in more detail what is a transitional economy?
1. Transitional economy: concept, features, varieties, features, functions
A transitional economy is a transitional state from one economic system to another economic system. As a result of this transition, a fundamental transformation of the foundations of this system is carried out, which determine the genesis and development of both new features of the transition economy and its features.
The following main features of the transitional economy are distinguished.
1. The transitional economy will have to create the basis of a new economic system, while past economy reproduced on its basis. The term "basis" in economic theory is a key one and includes: the type of ownership of the means and products of production; forms of economic relations; type of coordination of activities between economic entities.
With the creation of the basis of the new economy, the transitional state of the economic system is completed and it acquires a new quality.
2. An important feature of the transitional economy is its diversity. An economic structure is understood as a type of economic relations that allows the simultaneous coexistence in a given country of not only various forms, but also types of property. Thus, the transition economy is characterized by the presence of an old and a new basis, as well as the coexistence of various types of regulation of economic relations between economic entities.
3. Unsustainable development is characteristic of a transitional economy, since old relations are constantly being transformed in the absence of new institutions and rules, as a result of which! conflict between old and new economic interests.
4. Transformations in the transitional economy take a rather long period, which is explained by a number of factors:
The complexity and inconsistency of transformations;
natural factors;
The impossibility of simultaneously carrying out a revolution in the technological basis, modifying the economy, and forming new economic institutions.
A transitional economy and a mixed economy have common features:
Combination of the market and state regulation;
Combination of capitalist forms and social orientation of economic development, etc.
At the same time, qualitative differences are also inherent in these types of economy. Let's note some of them.
First, a mixed economy is a modern economic system that combines market and state regulation.
Secondly, the mixed economy as a modern economic system is dominant in most developed countries mi
As for the transitional economy, it:
It is not reproduced on its own economic basis, but is transferred from one economic system to another;
In contrast, a mixed economy is characterized by instability;
It covers a relatively short time period, while a mixed economy is characterized by an unchanged state of the economic system.
The transitional economy has several varieties:
1. The economy of the transition period from capitalism to socialism (in our country it covered the period from the Great October socialist revolution 1917 to 30s XX century).
2. A fundamental change in the methods of coordination within the same economic system, but they concern its basis and economic policy. This kind of transitional economy implies the inevitable replacement of old institutions, the development of new methods of regulation and the choice of new theories of socio-economic development.
3. The economic system of individual countries requires changes due to the change in the place of a particular country in the system of international economic and political relations. These changes are due to the need to eliminate deformations in the economy of the former colonial countries.
4.Overcoming a long period of unstable economic development of states. An example of this variety is, for example, the countries of Latin America, which have experienced low economic growth rates for more than two decades, increasing external debt, a sharp contrast in incomes of the population, high inflation, etc.
5. Transition economy of the former Soviet republics of the USSR and other post-socialist countries. She wears an intersystem transition. The peculiarity of this transitional economy lies in the fact that there is a transition from a socialist economic system to a capitalist economic system, i.e., a reversal, or, more precisely, a transition from a “pure” economic system to a mixed one.
In a modern mixed economy, the state should perform the following functions:
1. Providing an institutional and legal basis for the activities of economic entities (determination of rights and forms of ownership, conditions for concluding and executing contracts, relationships between trade unions and employers, general principles of foreign economic activity, etc.).
2. Elimination or compensation of the negative effects of market behavior and satisfaction of people's needs for public goods that the market cannot produce: addressing issues of national defense, ecology, education, science, healthcare, etc.
3. Pursuing an economic policy aimed at:
Maintaining the normal functioning of the market mechanism;
Smoothing of cyclic fluctuations;
Overcoming the consequences of economic shocks;
Ensuring the prerequisites for long-term economic growth (especially through fiscal, monetary and structural policies).
4.Implementation of an active and principled antimonopoly policy.
5. Maintaining a sustainable social climate in society through the redistribution of available income.
6. Pursuing a stabilization policy of the state aimed at restoring and maintaining macroeconomic equilibrium (in particular, full employment, a stable price level). Distinguish between formal and real stabilization. Formal stabilization is the achievement of a steady state in terms of one macroeconomic indicator (inflation, unemployment, and changes in gross domestic income). Real stabilization means not only, for example, a reduction in unemployment, but the existence of conditions for economic growth. The transition to real stabilization presupposes the need for an increase in state demand, investment, and strict control over prices and incomes.
2. Transformational recession as a phenomenon of transitional economy
Throughout the 1990s until 1999 Russian economy was in a state of protracted economic recession, which reached its highest point in the crisis of 1998. The economic recession was preceded by the stagnation of the Soviet economy in the 1980s, to overcome which the concept of accelerating development, developed during the years of perestroika, was aimed in its time. However, the potential for the development of socialism was by that time completely exhausted, which was expressed in its inability to provide further the economic growth. The hopelessness of the situation doomed the attempt to resuscitate socialism, which ended in its death, to failure. Since 1990, economic growth has stopped even according to official data. A protracted transformational recession began.
The term "transformational recession" was introduced into scientific circulation by the Hungarian scientist J. Kornai. He argued that during the transition from the administrative-command system to the market, the economy is going through a deep crisis caused by the transitional, transformational state of the economic system. It is expressed in the fact that the former, planned mechanisms for organizing economic coordination have already been destroyed, and new ones market mechanisms still weak or non-existent.
The transitional economy is no longer planned, but not yet a market economy. Between different types of economy, between different economic systems, there is a long period of transition, which, by definition, is not capable of providing an immediate economic upsurge already as a result of a radical transformation of the entire system of economic and other relations. Therefore, it is inevitable in any transitional economy. There were many transitional periods in the centuries-old history of mankind, when there was a change in economic, and consequently, in all other social relations.
The transitional period from a planned to a market economy, from socialism to capitalism, is no exception. None of the post-socialist countries managed to avoid the transformational decline, although the scale of the decline in production was different.
The economic development of society is inevitably associated with the transition of the economy from one state to another. Common to all transitional economic relations and economic conditions is that for the period of transition they combine some features and properties of former and new economic relations. These transitions can be worn and local , and general character. Examples of changes of the first kind are constantly taking place before our eyes - the form of ownership of enterprises is changing, last years completely new forms of income have appeared, relations between people regarding the ownership of housing are changing, and so on. and earlier, in the old system, such changes constantly occurred.
From local changes in the economy should be distinguished general changes that characterize the transition the entire system of economic relations into a new quality, when the basic properties and initial relations of the system are transformed, or a new economic system is formed instead of the previous one.
A transitional economy is a transitional state from one economic system to another economic system. In this case, there is a change in the foundations of this system, which lead to its radical changes. From the foregoing, the main features of the transitional features and its differences from the established economic systems follow.
First, if the established economy is reproduced on its own economic and institutional basis, then the transitional economy is designed to form the basis of a new economic system. concept basis of the economic system is one of the key in economic theory. It includes the forms of economic relations established in the economy or the type of coordination of activities between economic entities, as well as the dominant type of ownership inherent in the system. When these elements of the economic system are formed, then we can talk about the completion of the transitional state of the economy and its entry into the stage of development on its own basis.
Secondly, multiformity economy is a property of a transitional economy. An economic structure is a special type of economic relations that exists along with other relations. In any economy, including a developed one, there are different types of economic relations, ways of life, characterized by different types of property, interests, ways of doing business. For example, modern economy The West is characterized by a large layer of small enterprises that have the source of their development and existence of their own labor of their owners. However, this layer of producers exists on the basis of the dominant type of coordination and the capitalist form of ownership. The transitional economy is another matter. multiformity exists here as an element of the base.
In the transitional economy, there is both an old and a new basis, and is still being formed. new system connections. With regard to the transition economy, along with the emerging market system different types of regulators of economic relations coexist, including non-economic and illegal ones, and so on. overcoming the multistructural nature of the economy is one of the goals transitional economy.
Thirdly, the transition economy is characterized by unsustainable development as its intrinsic property. There are no stable transitional economies. Due to the fact that there are constant changes in old relations in the absence of new institutions, norms and rules, new relations arise that have their own subjects; there is a clash of old and new economic interests, a tendency to a constant aggravation of economic and political relations - an internal feature of transitional economies. This requires the creation of special ways to maintain stability in the elimination of extreme transition conditions.
Fourth, relative duration transformations in the transitional economy. It is explained not only by the complexity and inconsistency of the processes. This is primarily a consequence of natural factors that do not depend on political power - the well-known inertia of previous approaches, the impossibility of simultaneously changing the technological basis, replacing personnel, changing the structure of the national economy, and creating new political and economic institutions. All this requires the creation of a special mechanism for coordinating interests for the entire period of the transition economy, as well as state support those subjects of the economy who found themselves in a difficult situation for reasons beyond their control.
