Ideas and Ideals

Institutions (norms and rules) play an important role in the development of any socio-economic system, and largely determine its direction and speed. Economic freedom is one of the most important ‘products’ generated by the institutional environment. Strictly speaking, there is no unambiguous understanding of this phenomenon, but there is an almost universally accepted opinion that without freedom it’s diffi cult to achieve success in economic development and thereby ensure the growth of public welfare. The degree of freedom determines the extent and forms in which the interests of economic agents, related to the desire to obtain private benefi ts, which ultimately benefi ts the whole society, can manifest themselves. Bernard Mandeville, who can be considered the “petrel of economic freedom” almost the fi rst among scientists and philosophers of Modern times, addressed this issue long before the founders of classical political economy and presented his judgments in allegorical form in “The Fable of the Bees”. Mandeville’s understanding of economic freedom as an opportunity for the manifestation of socially useful ‘private vices’ differs markedly from the interpretations of economic freedom that currently prevail and on the basis of which the relevant international indices are built. Nevertheless, Mandeville’s views, which were frank and devoid of any hypocrisy, served as the ideological foundation of modern views on economic freedom as an extremely useful, but very contradictory phenomenon in people’s lives.

The history of international economic sanctions is simultaneously old and relatively young. The fi rst sanctions recorded in written history were applied in ancient times, but the newly introduced punitive economic measures received legal status only after the First World War. At fi rst, sanctions were not given much political signifi cance and there were not many of them. The situation changed radically after the Second World War and especially after the collapse of the USSR. The rapid increase in sanction activity over the past two decades is a manifestation of the desire of the United States and its satellites to protect their position as a world hegemon. The punitive economic apparatus, the most powerful in the United States, is set up for sanction activity and generates restrictions and prohibitions as the main products of its activity. To paraphrase the philosopher Rene Descartes, the western sanctions government offi cer use to say: “I authorize, therefore I exist”. International economic sanctions are losing their original function as a means of preventing military confl icts and are turning into an economic weapon. But, paradoxically, attempts to interpret them as an instrument of economic policy are not valid, if only due to the fact that working with the categories of “effi ciency”, widely used in economic science, is impossible in the case of sanctions. Instead of “effi ciency”, the term “effectiveness” should be used, but measuring the latter, unlike “effi ciency”, is impossible; therefore, the phenomenon of sanctions, as such, largely goes beyond the scope of economic science. The nature of modern sanctions is perverse. Their use not only entails economic degradation and destruction of the institutional structure of society in the target countries, but also causes damage to the sending countries. Most modern sanctions are illegitimate and have no moral justifi cation. Sanctions and their systematic application are nothing more than a geopolitical weapon used to undermine the sovereignty of independent states. This article shows the historical evolution of the sanctions mechanism, its degeneration and transformation into a stable institutional entity.

In recent decades, space has begun to be viewed as an important economic resource, an engine of global competition and technological development, capable of having a multiplier effect on the development of the entire economic system of a country. It is a necessary factor in global communication and information. Each state can use space for peaceful purposes, since it is a common resource for all countries. That is why the space industry is the object of the careful study by many researchers and a special sphere of government regulation. The top three leaders in the space industry are the USA, China and Russia. The purpose of this article is to conduct a comparative analysis of the development of the space industry in the USA, China and Russia, as well as to develop recommendations for improving the regulation of the Russian space industry based on foreign experience. The author selected the following characteristics as the main parameters of comparison: 1. Signifi cant space achievements, 2. Industry fi nancing, 3. Structure of the space industry, 4. The scale of private space sector development, 5. Motives for international cooperation in the fi eld of space exploration.

Based on the analysis, the features of space industry development in each country were identifi ed. Special attention in the study is paid to the Russian space industry. In particular, it was found that the main structural feature of the Russian space industry, in contrast to the USA and China, is the signifi cant predominance of state-owned companies over private enterprises. This is associated with the lack of the necessary regulatory framework in our country and, as a consequence, the underdevelopment of the market for space products and services. At the same time, Russia can be considered a leader in terms of funding for the space industry (as a percentage of GDP), but in absolute fi nancial indicators (in millions of dollars) Russia lags signifi cantly behind the United States and China. In addition, Russia adheres to the practice of participating in international cooperation in the space sector, based primarily on political factors rather than economic motives, which fundamentally distinguishes its approach from the approach used by the United States. The article proposes a number of practical recommendations, the implementation of which, according to the author’s opinion, will contribute to increasing the effi ciency of space activities in Russia.

The growing specialization and formalization of economic knowledge threatens to break away from the general scientifi c base that forms the worldview of the researcher. An urgent task is presented in the reintegration of basic methodological principles and categories of science into modern social science and economic theory. The article conducts a comparative analysis of the works of K. Marx and K. Popper, who made revolutionary changes in the methodology and ideological attitudes (conceptual frameworks) of scientifi c knowledge. Marx’s contribution focuses on dialectical and historical materialism, the doctrine of the economic basis of society and the change of socio-economic formations; Popper’s contribution focuses on his trial and error method with falsifying interpretation of results and the concept of successive three worlds of the universe. Popper’s criticisms of Marxist doctrine (essentialism, elements of mythology, teleologism) and the counterarguments of consistent Marxists are evaluated. The paper characterizes Popper’s positions on the realism of scientifi c knowledge, the world of predispositions, fl exible management in animate and inanimate nature, the world of mental states of consciousness and the world of the objective content of thinking. Their commonality with the provisions of dialectical and historical materialism (the material nature of objective reality, the theory of refl ection, the role of objective mental forms and ideological social relations) in the formation of the ‘world of objective knowledge’ is shown. The insuffi ciency of Popper’s epistemology for the study of the economic basis of social life is revealed. Based on a str uctural and logical analysis of the methodological principles and theoretical positions of Marx and Popper, the paper outlines the paths to the development of a system of concepts that brings together the complementary results of their apparently opposing research programs. Also presented are sources showing the relevance of the ideas of Marx and Popper in modern methodological and socio-economic literature. It is concluded that the world of objective knowledge (the key category of Popper’s social science) is part of the socio-economic life of society (in its Marxist interpretation), which, in turn, is incomplete without taking into account the realities of this world and needs additional study from the appropriate angle.

In modern marketing, researchers are focused on the omnichannel approach due to the growing number of communication channels and sources of consumer information about brands. This paper examines the complexity and multifactorial nature of the omnichannel approach in the formation of customer experience and marketing communications in the digital environment. The article discusses the concept of a “Consumer Journey Map”, which refl ects the stages of making a purchase decision, after-sales interaction and the customer experience formed within this path. This approach allows you to defi ne and analyze the touchpoints with the consumer and information messages at each stage of the consumer journey in order to create a positive brand image. The consumer’s journey is formed by the sequential passage of a number of points of contact, which may belong to the brand, its partners or be independent. This affects the degree of brand control over the information at each of these points. Particular attention is paid to the complexity of tracking the entire variety of contact points through which the customer passes on the way to making a purchase. The management of this variety of points from the standpoint of a single communication environment of brand and consumer interaction is the subject of omnichannel marketing research. Within the framework of this study, the author considers the evaluation of the effectiveness of marketing channels at the stage of preparation for purchase. These channels may be underestimated, since in terms of direct return on marketing investments, they lose to the fi nal pre-purchase channels, but they play a key role in shaping the customer experience leading to subsequent purchases. The article presents the results of a study of online communication based on a company providing educational services. This study demonstrates the relationship between the volume of investments in paid promotion channels and the total revenue from online channels. The results of the study emphasize the importance of the omnichannel approach in modern communication, where the buyer interacts with the brand in various channels and perceives communication as a single continuous process, even when switching from one channel to another.

Based on the analysis of a number of macroeconomic and sectoral indicators, it is established that in January–April 2024, there was an economic decline compared to the corresponding period in 2023. Moreover, the extent of the decline is increasing month by month. It is noteworthy that the authorities, as in the past in the USSR, are turning a blind eye to the decline. The causes of the decline are determined by the combined impact of both cyclical factors (Western economic sanctions, overstrain from military expenditures) and long-term trends of a decline in fi xed assets and a reduction in the workforce, as well as the qualifi cations of personnel at all levels. The future prospects of the Russian economy are determined, along with ensuring effective economic policy and building a functional state system, by the level of escalation of the confl ict in Ukraine and the extent of economic sanctions. In the event of signifi cant escalation of military actions, what will be required is a transition to a wartime economy with a high share of military expenditures in GDP, a reduction in consumer spending and non-productive investments, mobilization of labor resources in favor of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex, and the introduction of a rationing system for main food products, as well as the nationalization of several companies. The success of this structural maneuver is determined by the organization and qualifi cations of the state apparatus. In the case of moderate escalation of military actions and economic sanctions, the radical nature of structural and institutional changes will decrease.

The article discusses the problem of rejecting the image of beauty in modern dance. It is indicated that the theme of despair, fear, violence and depression begins to dominate in modern dance since its inception in the 20s of the last century. The characteristic features of movements and plasticity in expressionist dance, in the school of M. Graham, are described: broken vertical, inwardly turned chest and feet, sharpness and convulsiveness of movements, blows aimed at oneself, etc. The article consistently examines the possible causes of this trend, such as technical ease and accessibility, lower energy cost of ‘sad dances’, as well as the opportunity to demonstrate originality, nonconformism, express social protest, etc. There is an opinion that the expression of pathological motives, negative feelings, fears in art contributes to the liberation from their destructive effect in real life. This approach is questioned, because there is also a reverse mechanism: as a result of viewing relevant plots (for example, scenes of violence), infection with emotions occurs, role models arise, and the thresholds of what is permissible decrease. Along with criticism of a number of trends in contemporary art, the importance of the concept of ugliness for culture is emphasized. Meeting one’s own infi rmity and imperfection, be that physical, psychological or moral, plays an essential role in the spiritual development of a person. However, modern art, including the dance performances considered, follow the path of establishing ugliness as a new norm and cultivate the perverted reality of the ‘sick’ creativity of a disintegrating personality. The expression of beauty, on the contrary, is characteristic of an integral personality striving for perfection and praising life.

Religion is the dominant aspect of Rozanov’s creativity. The main topics of Rozanov’s spiritual search include: God, the world and man are focused around this dominant. The peculiarity of this topics is the explication of intuition of a single whole. This intuition was realized by means of symbols that belong to the world of traditional religions. Rozanov’s creativity actualizes the opportunity of vision of religion as a phenomenon despite the prevalence of images of material things in his texts. This vision is based on a metaphysical foundation of suggestions, examined in the work “On Understanding”, where he understands religion as a temporal undetermined phenomenon. Contact with the world of religion allows us to explicate the human spirit as unity. Rozanov’s vision moves from a description of religion as unity to the description of single images of paganism, Judaism and the Christianity. Rozanov emphasizes this particular content, but his search is inspired by the doctrine of religion as having a certain potency. The realization of this certain potency is the historical development of religions, that conditions the occurrence of new religion in a cultural vacuum, and appears after the distraction of Christianity. The presentiment of metaphysical emptiness is the culmination of Rozanov’s search for God and at the same time the tragedy. Rozanov conceptualizes this intention as the absolutisation of particular things. The transparency of the religious search and the concentration on religion itself makes Rozanov’s position in some aspects close to the narrative of the classic phenomenology of religion. We study the creativity of Rozanov by means of historical-philosophical reconstruction, using elements of hermeneutic analysis.

In less than a century, the stable concept of «French garden» is formed and consolidated, having become the result of the activity of very specifi c historical fi gures (André Lenôtre and Louis XIV) in the national consciousness of the French and in the language. The concept can be classifi ed as a linguocultureme with a clearly expressed nationally colored semantic meaning. The article proposes to explore the ethnocultural features of the linguocultureme «French garden», as well as to determine its role and place in the national consciousness of the French, and to outline its infl uence on the formation of the French national picture of the world. The concept of «French garden» in the linguocultural aspect is not well-studied, which emphasizes the novelty of this work.

The author conducts the research using a complex of scientifi c methods, including contextual-interpretive analysis, diachronic research, and analysis of linguistic and cultural objects. It is also worth noting that the author for the fi rst time cites, in the author’s translation from French, primary sources of French scientifi c research and publications on the topic of landscape gardening, unknown to Russian readers. As a result of a comparison of theoretical generalization and analysis of linguistic material, the author comes to the conclusion that at certain stages of history, some concepts and traditions are formed in the collective consciousness of a nation, which can become elements of the cultural code and form the basis of the national linguistic picture of the world. Such a concept and a tradition stretching back centuries for the French is the desire to cultivate a garden, in which its aesthetic component acquires particular importance.

The present research paper is devoted to philosophic motifs in the creative work of one of the leading cultural fi gures of the Silver Age, the poet, writer and philosopher N.S. Gumilyov. His personal fate (executed in 1921 by order of the Petrograd Cheka) is one of the examples of the sad poetic “tradition” of Russian culture: Pushkin, Lermontov, Mayakovsky, Yesenin and others. This paper analyzes philosophical and linguistic peculiarities of the “Akmeism” poetic and theoretical style, which was originated by Nikola Gumilev. In socio-philosophical aspect, Gumilyov’s intentions were associated with the formation of the concept of “Adamism”, which implied the analysis of man as a personality (most fully refl ected in the compositions “The Captains”, “The Conquistadors’ Way”, etc.) in comparison with the Nietzschean “superman”. For Nietzsche, his slogan ‘God is dead’ did not mean the exaltation of man, but merely stated the overabundance of the individual in every personality. In this case, Gumilyov adhered to the idea of “transcendental man”, which implied the unity of Man’s natural essence in synthesis with supernatural (higher, i.e. spiritual) origins. This was the purpose of this article. Analysis of Gumilyov’s poetic and publicistic works argues in favour of the proof of the philosophical idea of “transcendental man”, which was later developed in N.A. Berdyaev’s philosophy of personalism. Both Russian philosophers and writers defended the idea of a creative and free Man, capable of self-assertion. Self-affi rmation of Man for them is inextricably linked with the ability to Self-knowledge. But it should be noted that the views of Berdyaev and Gumilev on the role of society and the state in human life had certain differences.

The subject of the article is neopragmatic aesthetics; its formation, methodological foundations and specifi city of the object of research. To reveal the stated goal, the author turns to the works of the American philosopher Richard Shusterman, who most consistently and clearly substantiates his philosophical position. The American philosopher, despite the strong infl uence of the analytical school, restores the connection with pragmatism, with the aesthetics of John Dewey, points out the dead ends and problematic points of the analytical approach. The article presents the evolution of American philosophical aesthetics with an emphasis on the transitional stage from the analytic tradition to a neopragmatic one. It is shown that Shusterman’s attempt to get rid of the “Platonic stigma” in the philosophy of art is carried out at the expense of criticizing analytic aesthetics. Thus, Shusterman makes critical arguments about the established habit of identifying art in its multivariate manifestation with the notion of “high” fi ne art associated with the sublime and true art. Shusterman shifts the focus of attention from the problem of defi ning art to the analytics of aesthetic experience, which allows him to transform aesthetics into somaesthetics - a body-oriented, practical philosophical discipline. The author concludes that Shusterman’s concept of somaesthetics emerges in a polemic with fundamentalist foundations in aesthetics, namely, the tradition of distinguishing objects, works of art from what is not, i.e. defi ning art. The author notes that a key fi gure for the formation of the theoretical basis of somaesthetics was Shusterman’s acquaintance with the position of Noel Carroll, who moves from the search for the essence of art to the investigation of the internal standards and motives of art. Schusterman, picking up on this strategy, affi rms his anti-essentialist position. In polemics with his colleagues, he shifts and rethinks the problem fi eld of aesthetics, declaring war on “Platonism,” criticizing the Greek philosophical tradition, to which we owe the fact that practical activity has become valued much less than theoretical activity. Along with this, the author concludes about Shusterman’s sophistic strategy and logic of thinking, citing arguments from the work of postmodernist researcher Barbara Cassin.

The subject of research in this article is the artistic practices of modern Russian Germans, implemented within the framework of the cultural festival “German Sloboda”. It is proved that festival artistic practices belong to the “culture of ethnos” (according to V. G. Babakov’s classifi cation), that is, they are a combination of ethnic and externally introduced components. The latter are the artistic practices of postmodernism, such as performance, happenings, environment and their varieties. The scientifi c novelty of this work is the consideration of the traditional culture of Russian Germans in the context of artistic forms, methods and techniques of modern times. The objectives of the work include: an analysis of the artistic practices of the cultural festival of Russian Germans “German Sloboda” from the point of view of correlating ethnic content and modern forms of its presentation, as well as the development of the above-mentioned artistic practices in the history of the festival. To achieve the set goals and objectives, a historical-genetic method is used, which allows us to trace the relationship between ethnic traditional and modern innovation in artistic practices, as well as a structural-functional method that demonstrates the artistic practices of modern Russian Germans as an integral part of their spiritual culture. As a result of the analysis of the artistic practices of the cultural festival of Russian Germans “German Sloboda”, a conclusion is made about the culture of modern Russian Germans as a synthesis of the immanent and transcendent, as a combination of following the sociocultural experience of previous generations – traditions – and the desire of the current generation for changes – innovations. The “culture of ethnos” of modern Russian Germans is in the stage of modifi cation and transformation of its forms, creative experimentation, search for an individual-personal beginning with constant reliance on the collective traditional experience of the past. The seven-year history of the cultural festival of Russian Germans “German Sloboda” clearly demonstrates the active use of postmodern artistic practices, in which art leaves traditional spaces (galleries, museums, concert or theater halls) and conquers new spaces that are not necessarily associated with art.

One of the effective and affordable ways to organize recreation and leisure in modern conditions is considered to be mass tourism, which is infl uenced by global trends: globalization, informatization, geopolitics. In the article, based on generalizations of the approaches of domestic and foreign researchers, an attempt is made to give a detailed defi nition of the term “mass tourism” and to specify its phenomenon through the justifi cation of its distinctive features: the number of consumers (mass), motives and goals, the infl uence of technological progress, industrialization and scaling of the tourism business. The authors highlight factors contributing to the development of modern tourism, including: accessibility, globalization, marketing and advertising, political situation, economic stability, digitalization and conceptual approaches to the emergence and development of mass tourism: the theory of consumer society, the theory of mobile sociology, “quality tourism” and etc. Among the general principles of modern mass tourism, the authors highlight: the commercial principle of a balance of interests, taking into account the global problems facing humanity, the active socialization of tourism. Particular attention is paid to the issues of periodization of the formation of mass tourism in the historiography of various countries; description of the modern understanding of mass tourism, taking into account its infl uence on national socio-economic systems; determining the main directions for the development of mass tourism in the domestic market of tourism services, taking into account rapidly changing external conditions and factors, which made it possible to identify the main and most popular types of tourist activity.