Suchergebnisse

Reflections are offered on the meaning of such topics as the global expansion of Western values & technologies & the uncertain future of the Russian Republic, focusing on the issue of how it could best be governed. Against those who argue for democratization & free markets in the former USSR, it is contended that Western society itself suffers from deep contradictions & heterogeneities that threaten its admired stability. It is argued that the individualization of people's needs & interests has engendered a cultural crisis whose roots lie in the opposition between the increasingly spontaneous activity of the individual & the alienated forms of social life that dominate it as an external force. Other issues discussed include the crisis of electoral democracy, social contradictions of technology, & the necessity of flexible systems of production.

The article examines characteristics of digitalization in the Russian economy in its connection with the semi-peripheral position of Russia. The reasons for the lack of efficiency of Russian digitalization and its uneven development in various economy sectors are explained. According to the authors, the root causes of this state of affairs can be seen even in the patterns of the degeneration and disintegration of the Soviet Union, when the features of rent-seeking behavior of the ruling elite were first identified. The article presents the results of a study into the needs for information resources in the sectors of the Russian economy (in comparison with the group of reference countries), which reflect the decline in those in industry and, on the contrary, the concentration in the research and development sector. The authors believe that these data confirm the conclusion about the selective and generally insufficient character of digitalization.