Ideas and Ideals

The artcile considers the Max Weber's interpretation of the interrelations between economy and religion. The concept of «elective affinities» which played one the central roles in explaining complex correlations between the material culture and the religious experience is in the focus. The article argues that Goethe's famous novel «Die Wahlerwanschaften» (1809) and various critical replies do help to understand better the logic of Weber’s essay “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” (1905). In addition, this interpretation gives an opportunity to show the formal similarities and the content differences of the role of Protestantism and Old Belief (Schism of the Russian Orthodox Church) in the economic modernization of Europe and Russia.

The author analyses the tendencies of the discipline formation such as philosophy of economy. The author hypothesizes that it was impossible to form autonomous philosophical-economic knowledge in Russia of the 18-th century. The prerequisites of philosophical and economic trends in Russia were investigated in the article as well as the history of scientific rational thinking formation within the framework of religiously-utopian discourse in the 18-th century Russia. According to the basic thesis of the article the philosophical-economic discourse could not be formed in Russia of the 18-th century because of the absence of cultural pre-conditions. The economic aspect was included into the religiously-utopian context, the author states the fact, that cultural space was not prepared to accept the economic ideas and concepts. Nevertheless, there was a need in scientific economic thinking able to specify the way of modernization of economy inspired by historical transformations of Peter I, who generated competition with the European states in such areas as: trade, military business and shipbuilding.

In the article the author attempts to describe the phenomenon of the hidden meaning of advertisement as the object of understanding, special attention is paid to cognitive and information aspects. The author treats the term ‘implicitness’ as components that are not explicated in the external structure of the advertised message, but they embody the inner essence of the advertised message. The author identifies the components of implicit information comprising the advertised message: presupposition and implication. It was concluded that the hidden meaning of the advertisement may be goal-oriented (when it was purposefully generated by the subject of the advertising) and spontaneous (when it occurs independently of the will and desire of the subject of promotional activities, including the effect of associated and inducible images, which emergence in the minds of consumers has been unplanned). Another important feature of the advertised message, in addition to having a hidden meaning, is its repetitiveness. These features contribute to the fact that the recipient in the process of perception and decoding of the advertised message will generate new meanings because of the subjectivity of perception. In other words, due to the combination of these properties, it becomes possible to realize the full potential, concluded in advertising communication.

After the collapse of the USSR the Post-Soviet republics had to build foreign policy connections actually from scratch. First of all the young states sought to establish the relations with the most developed countries. In the article are shown the main directions of economic cooperation of the Federative Republic of Germany and Republic of Belarus at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. Germany having the most developed industrial base in the European Union and RB which preserved the economic potential of the Soviet period, actively collaborated in the trade and economic sphere. It was important for Germany to learn the earlier closed market, and for RB to find the partner in Europe for promoting their production, attracting investments and technologies. The basis of the economic relations of the parties was formed by arrangements of the first half of the 1990th. Thus diplomatic interaction of two countries was complicated because of criticism by the leadership of Germany of an internal political course of Belarus. Economic cooperation had asymmetric character that was reflection of specifics of economic development of two countries. Germany delivered to Belarus high degree products of processing, and in exchange received semi-finished products and resources which went, including transit from Russia. The German firms succeeded in questions of investment cooperation and in formation of joint ventures on the territory of Belarus. Opening the market, RB couldn't resist the companies from Germany. The balance of trade surplus was always in favor of Germany that also points to unequal character of the bilateral relations and to a set of problems which don't allow the Belarusian economy to compete with the German.

This article focuses on the causes of inflation emergence in Russia and the factors causing its growth and decline. The inflationary process in Russia can have a dual effect, as in any other country. If inflation grows without any control then it can lead to economic chaos. On the other hand, if the inflation is under control, it may intensify the economic state of the market. Every country uses its own methods of money circulation regulation. Russia also uses special methods to influence the inflationary process at the current moment. These methods are based on the instruments of monetary policy.

At the round table the theme "Siberia as a megaregion" was discussed which had first been announced at the Krasnoyarsk forum. A number of problems are analyzed, starting with the geographic boundaries of Siberia, and thus identifying the geopolitical settings of the mega-region. The depth of historical time was discussed, as well as the common history, and the problem of coexistence of different peoples. Besides, the problem of comparison of different megaregions, and the problem of their correlation with states was considered. What can be seen as the commonality, the identity of the mentality of the population of megaregion? The difference was discussed between megaregion and macro-region, which is primarily determined economically. Specifically was considered from different aspects the problem of the center of the gravity of megaregion with respect to Siberia. The role of innovation in the energy sector was analyzed as the key of a gradual transition from oil and gas to coal. Focusing on demographic and economic issues the participants related, in particular, to the programmes of complex development of Siberia, which were quite badly performed, and on the geopolitical consequences of current trends of population migration to the European part of Russia.

The author considers the problems of efficiency and quality of management in the socio-economic systems at all levels and also argues that the efficiency of management depends on the quality of management, which implies a compliance with established standards. The author substantiates the new paradigm of management of sustainable development of socio-economic systems.

In the proposed article a comparatively novel concept of megaregion has been offered in modern analytical discourse, i.e. by economic, socio-cultural and geopolitical dimensions. The megaregion has been interpreted as the combination or constellation of the regions, close to each other by territory and history, i.e. Space and Time. Different concepts of the megaregion have been observed, i.e. a) geographical and geopolitical determination b) megaurban actual trends c) socio-cultural diversification, consolidated in the “frame” of the megaregion. First of all, and mostly, the work is correlated with the exact enormous by its space and resources the megaregion Siberia, which, according to the world classification spreads from the Urals up to the Pacific Ocean. Conceptual analysis of any megaregion suggests it to be carried put by the temporal (historical) and special (geographical) squares and along three axes — economic, socio-cultural and geopolitical ones. Without doubt, it’s important to investigate organizational, governing and legal institutions in the context of the megaregion, but this ought to be the subject of the next article.

Energy in the framework of national economies and megaregions’ moving forward appear to be a meaningful factor of industrial development since the First Industrial Revolution at the end of XVIII-th century. In the article the attention is mostly paid to the dynamics of the industrial and energy exploration of Siberia megaregion, which supposes five significant stages: early one (the end of the XIX century – beginning of the XX century), intensive (between the 1930—50s), mature industrialization (1960—1980s), deindustrialization (the 1990th years) and new industrialization (2010—2030s). It’s demonstrated, that these very processes were rather ambiguous, i.e. the change of the leaders in sources of energy, the difference in approaches to the use of foreign technologies, the diversity in demand on well-trained labor force and engineering knowledge, the race between manufacturing and energy on the economic landscape of Siberia. Retrospective analysis is important for assessing the priorities for new industrialization in the Siberia megaregion, which is necessary to make up on the basis of advanced manufacturing and not only follow the well-known actual advantages of the megaregion as the possessor of the abundant natural resources and previous years accumulated the industrial capacity on the basis of located in Siberia different enterprises, i.e. military, nuclear, space, etc.

Agricultural statistics data are analyzed through supplementary types of sources, which provide a critical look at the key statistical sources – agricultural census in 1916, 1917 and 1920. The cross-sectional analysis of statistics, record keeping and narrative material have enabled the author to conclude that the growth of agricultural production in Siberia during the World War I, as it is drawn from well-known statistical sources, can hardly be considered reliable, with the production growth still rising according to some indicators even during the Civil War.