Among economists of the institutional direction, a representative of the Swedish school, the Nobel Prize winner in economics in 1974, should be especially singled out. "for his pioneering work on the theory of money and the theory of economic fluctuations, as well as for his deep analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena" - Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1987).
He was successively a university professor, a government adviser, a member of parliament, a leader of a study group on the study of the social condition of Negroes in the United States, a minister, a bank director, a chairman of a planning commission, and a worker. international organization. Unlike many other Nobel laureates, Myrdal considered himself an "institutional economist". He had significant international prestige, not only as a political figure, but also as an economist who managed to closely link the problems of economic and social policy.
His main works are: The Monetary Balance (1931), The American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944), The World Economy (1956), Asian Drama: A Study of the Poverty of Nations (1968).
Gunnar Myrdal tried to determine the place of social science in common system knowledge. He criticized a purely economic approach to welfare issues that did not specify political goals. According to Myrdal, economists should not be afraid to openly proclaim political beliefs and make them an integral element of research, since economists, as a rule, are inspired not only by scientific interest, but also by the desire to improve society. The great economists have always offered their policy advice (Malthus, Ricardo, Marx, Keynes). The Swedish economist's acquaintance with the work of the American institutionalists strengthened his conviction that the problem of social values ​​is of great importance in economics.
In his early works, Myrdal laid the foundation for the trend that later became known as the Stockholm school of
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roeconomics. He proposed to intensify fiscal policy to overcome the Great Depression. Myrdal spoke in favor of covering the deficit formed during the crisis and depression with a corresponding budgetary surplus during the recovery period following the depression. In fact, the Stockholm school, whose activity was largely due to the work of Myrdal, had a priority in the development of a macroeconomic policy model even before J.M. Keynes " General theory employment, interest and money" (1936).
In the post-war period, Gunnar Myrdal has been researching problems related to the main trends in the development of the modern world. As chairman of a government commission, he emphasized the danger of unbalancing world markets. Myrdal recommended that the Swedish government introduce a planning system. He distinguishes such categories as "program" and "foresight". By "program" he means a proposed or planned course of action, and by "foresight" he means a prediction of future events. At one time, he predicted greater stability in the planned economy and advocated greater trade with the countries of the Eastern Bloc.
In addition to planning issues, Myrdal pays great attention to integration issues. In The World Economy: Problems and Perspectives, the Swedish economist is looking for an answer to the question "Where are we going?". To this end, he explores the main trends in the development of international economic relations and finds out the possibilities for their change. Myrdal notes that in the modern world economy there have been serious changes associated with the collapse of the colonial system. “The world of 1913, like the Athens of Pericles,” writes Myrdal, “was in many respects an exemplary civilization, if we forget the fact that it did not allow the greater part of mankind to its benefits.” Myrdal is looking for the possibility of overcoming world conflicts on the paths of economic integration on a national and international scale.
According to G. Myrdal's definition, "economic integration" is the implementation of the old ideal of equality of opportunity proclaimed by the West." In industrial developed countries Ah, in his opinion, a high degree of national integration has been achieved. This was due to state intervention in economic life. However, there is no worldwide economic integration. Moreover, the author writes, national integration in developed countries has led to increased "international disintegration", the main expression of which is the growth of economic inequality between industrialized and underdeveloped countries.
According to Myrdal, international economic integration is possible if its necessity is recognized and if a "basis of international solidarity" is created. The author believes that international economic
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Relationships must and can be regulated by means of politics. In the absence of conscious regulation, the spontaneous development of the world economy will inevitably lead to a further deepening of disintegration and may even cause world conflict. , . , Myrdal's concept of international economic integration is based on the analysis of cumulative causation, it is based on "the existence of such an interdependence of all factors in a social system, in which any change in any factor causes changes in other factors ... Thanks to the process of interactions., the entire the system receives an impulse to move in the direction of the original change, but going much further than it *- In contrast to the theory of equilibrium, which assumes that the corresponding forces invariably return the system to a state of rest, the principle of cumulative development brings to the fore such processes, which, once started, create conditions for subsequent development. . ., The same principle was used by Myrdal in the study of the problems of the underdeveloped countries of Asia. The results of this work were embodied in Myrdal's book "The Asian Drama: A Study of the Poverty of Nations", which gained great fame, in which a sociological concept was put forward of the reasons for the backwardness of the countries of this region, low standard of living, lack of sufficient progress.
According to his concept, all the disasters of these countries are mainly due to the dominance of archaic, outdated institutions and views that permeate the entire system of social, economic and spiritual life. Myrdal criticizes numerous theories of "economic growth" proclaiming the principle of "automatic change" in the social life of peoples in the process of technical and economic modernization of the economy. From the point of view of the author of the Asian Drama, all segments of the population of South Asia are characterized by a lack of a sense of responsibility for observing elementary labor discipline, accuracy and punctuality. Superstitions are still strong, there is no quick reaction to everything new and adaptation to it. The desire to experiment, ambition, enterprise, and initiative are not developed. In the psychology of the population, obedience to the authorities prevails, and the ability of the population for collective action is low. All this paralyzes technical and economic modernization, reduces its effectiveness and, consequently, leads to an increase in the gap between the level of advanced and backward countries.
Myrdal believes that it is critical to successful technical and economic development has a fundamental change of backward social and political institutions. Only by taking measures simultaneously and in parallel with technical and economic modernization to get rid of outdated views that dominate the psychology of the people, can progress be made. He sought to prove that only deep reforms in the field of control over population growth, distribution of
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lands suitable for cultivation, as well as in the field of health and education, can lead to the rapid economic development of the countries of Southeast Asia and the solution of acute social problems in the region.
Assessing the role of political institutions in terms of their participation in this process, the author comes to the conclusion that the "soft governments" of the countries of this region are too weak to overcome what he calls "the cumulative forces of poverty."
Thus, on the basis of extensive factual material, Myrdal tries to set forth the principles of a new, as he says, "trial theory" of development and to determine the correlation of factors that ensure the elimination of backwardness through the transition to all-round progress. Myrdal's conclusions and assessments gave grounds to call him a "cheerful pessimist", referring to the combination in his ideas of the traditions of liberalism of the 19th century. and socialist theories with very pessimistic assessments of contemporary development. At the same time, the idea of ​​conscious “social control” over the economy, which is characteristic of the entire institutional and sociological direction, was transferred not only to the national, but also to the planetary, intercountry level.

Section 2. The period of dominance of neoconservatism (late 70s-early 80s)
Chapter 6
Period of the 70s. was, in the figurative expression of the English economist J. Robinson, the time of the “second crisis of economic theory” in the West in the 20th century. It was meant that the first crisis during the years of the Great Depression struck primarily the neoclassical trend, the concept of "non-intervention of the state in the economic life of society. The stage of the 70s was difficult for all schools and trends. But when they talk about" the second crisis" of economic theory, imply, first of all, the crisis of Keynesianism, or the concepts of state influence on the economy through aggregate demand.
The external forms of the crisis were quite obvious. These included, first of all, the disappointment of government and business circles, the most general public in Keynesian methods state regulation. The latter played an important role in the economic prosperity of the West in the 1950s and 1960s, but then they began to fail after failure and clearly lost their former effectiveness. To external forms The crisis also includes a sharp weakening of the influence of Keynesian ideas in the process of teaching economic theory. And in scientific research itself, Keynesianism, which had previously been the focus of fundamental truths for many, was increasingly becoming an object of fierce criticism.
What are the reasons for the end of the "age of Keynesianism" in the economic theory of the West?
The main one, of course, was the general deterioration of the economic situation in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1973-1975. The Western world has experienced the most severe cyclical downturn in the entire post-war period. As a result, after the "silver" 50s and "golden" 60s. economic growth rates in the 70s dropped significantly. At the beginning of the next decade, the economies of the most developed countries were hit by another cyclical crisis of 1980-1982. In terms of the depth of the fall in the main macroeconomic indicators, these recessions were significantly inferior to the "great crisis" of 1929- 1933, but far exceeded all post-war recessions.Meanwhile, the tools of neo-Keynesianism (theories of economic growth, the concepts of cycle and counter-cyclical regulation, etc.) were associated with maintaining a stable dynamic balance and aimed, in particular, against the negative consequences of cyclical fluctuations.
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The revival of deep crisis recessions meant the undoubted discrediting of the specified tools.
Another reason seems to lie in the theoretical weaknesses of Keynesianism related to the impossibility of finding an effective antidote to galloping inflation. The surge in price growth in the West was directly provoked by the "oil shock" of 1973, that is, a multiple increase in world oil prices in connection with the well-known decision of the OPEC member states. But the foundations for an accelerated inflationary process were laid even earlier. Many economists saw their origins in the practice of deficit financing, carried out for a long time by the governments of a number of countries (in the USA, for example, the “Keynesian” administrations of J. Kennedy, L. Johnson), as well as price manipulation by monopolies.
The policy of deficit financing, drawn up on the recommendations of the Keynesians, was aimed at stimulating economic growth by increasing government spending. The inevitable budget deficit was recommended to be covered by government loans. Ultimately, as Keynesians well understood, this was bound to lead to inflation. But they supposed, firstly, to keep the latter under control and, secondly, to use it as an additional generator of effective demand (in conditions of inflationary price growth, albeit a small one, everyone tends to turn their savings into real consumption or investment). For a time, this policy was effective; however, by the mid-1970s inflation finally got out of control, which gave the opponents of the Keynesians a good reason to accuse them of ignoring the danger of inflation, of ignorance of the laws of the monetary sector of the economy, neglect of monetary development factors, etc.
An additional reason for the crisis of Keynesianism was the inability of its adherents to explain the phenomenon of stagflation, that is, a combination of cyclical recession and high unemployment, on the one hand, and inflation, on the other. Stagflation, having barely emerged at the end of the 1960s, in the next decade became a permanent frame of crisis processes (before this milestone, overproduction of goods in crisis years was accompanied by a general fall in prices).
For most Keynesian theorists, the interpretation of the relationship between inflation and unemployment was built in accordance with the Phillips curve1: the economy faces both evils at the same time, and one of them can only be reduced at the expense of the other. Higher inflation was supposed to be the price of low unemployment. According to Keynesian views, the policy of "big public spending”was supposed to support economic growth, and tactical tasks -
1 The English economist A. Phillips belonged to the neoclassical direction, but the conclusions of his work were actively used by the Keynesians.
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choice between more inflation and less unemployment
mouth) can be solved by choosing the optimal point on the Fil-
lipsa. -
Nadele in the 70s. prices rose simultaneously with unemployment, and therefore there was a simultaneous increase in both unemployment and inflation. As a result, not only the strategic, but also the tactical tools of Keynesianism were compromised.
The main reasons for discrediting the Keynesian direction should also include the lack of concepts among its leaders that could explain the crises of the world economy and formulate programs for their settlement. It is known that periodic recessions in the 70s. accompanied by the so-called structural crises: energy, raw materials, environmental. But to explain them, Keynesianism, which operated with the laws of demand, not production, did not have any theoretical baggage at all. As for the global monetary and financial crisis (it began earlier than others - back in the second half of the 60s), the Keynesian doctrine was directly related to its initiation. The very concept of introducing institutions of supranational regulation and, in particular, giving the dollar the status reserve currency, was formulated at the Bretton Woods Conference (1944), the decisions of which were sustained in the spirit of Keynesianism. For many years, the Bretton Woods system worked very effectively, ensuring the accelerated development of international settlements. But, starting from the second half of the 1960s, the chronic US budget deficit (which, as you know, was fueled by large government spending), coupled with the general deficit in the balance of payments, did their job: the dollar turned from the most powerful currency into a very unstable currency, began its massive dumping by the governments of foreign countries, the US gold reserves were rapidly declining, and in 1971 President R. Nixon announced the cessation of the exchange of dollars for gold. This meant the collapse of the previous system of the gold-currency standard, and in fact the entire Bretton Woods system, after which another avalanche of reproaches fell upon the Keynesians as the initiators of this system.
Failures of the theories of economic dynamics and counter-cyclical regulation, accusations of provoking inflation, inability to explain and find a cure for stagflation, crises of the world capitalist economy - any of these negative factors would be enough to undermine the authority of the most influential theory. But in the history of Keynesianism, all these negative factors in the 70s. acted simultaneously, reinforcing each other many times over. As a result, Keynesianism lost its role as the leading trend in the economic theory of the West and was forced to move to second positions. The question of who will occupy the theoretical Olympus was not resolved for long. Even within the framework of the "Keynesian age" (from the end of the 50s), the process of reviving neoclassical theory unfolded in the United States - the so-called
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the so-called "neoclassical counteroffensive"; In the 70s; neoclassical, vedo
our ChikageKoy "school of M. Friedme" and skillfully took advantage of having shown
pissed off by weaknesses Keynesian theory and began to actively push Keynesy
antsev in expert councils under governments. At tbm-they deployed
active Propaganda "of the ideas of" free enterprise "and acquired
have a huge impact in academia. When in 1979 In the elections in
Great Britain was defeated by the conservatives led by M. Thatcher, as "as
the chief adviser and expert of the British government was; invited
Named after M. Friedman.
symbolic freedom of private business and non-interference in the economic
life of the "state of the state ^ - was" compiled by the advisory ^administrative1
apiarat R. Reagan (US President since 1980).
Christian) recipe quickly spread to other countries * West.
"Milestone f 979^-1|980pg, when the neoclassical Direction Received, so
say, official government recognition, and should, apparently, "
consider the time of revenge for neoclassicism:,:
Shepeduyushchy period of the 80s. commonly referred to as the "Expansion of neocon
servatism." Non-conservatism "is a broader concept1 than neoclassical
sika, it constitutes the general ideological platform of modern
neoclassical direction.: "";
In the United States, the leading "think tanks" of neo-conservatism, ism, and the "new right" were the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Institute for Contemporary Studies, the Tuver Institute* for War, Revolution, and Peace, the American Security Council, the Committee on the Present Danger, and etc. It was in these organizations that they actively worked out the concepts and ideas that were put in the core of the ideologies and policies of "Reaganism" and "Reaganomics".
Neoconservatism literally means a course towards preserving old values ​​in new conditions. The foundations of the worldview of neoconservatism, which require restoration, are strong monogamous families, religion, patriotism (often bordering on nationalism). In the economic sphere itself, the neoconservatives insist on the restoration of such values ​​as economic freedom and private property in full; market regulation, free enterprise system. To popularize such demands, the speeches of R. Reagan himself often used the image of the first settlers of the United States - the pioneers of the Wild West. They went forward without expecting anyone's help, relying only on their energy and diligence, did not depend on anyone, and everything they "produced" was appropriated by themselves. A person dependent on no one - and became, according to neoconservatives, typical of Americans, determined the prosperity and greatness of America.
However, as neoconservatives argued, the policy of "liberal presidents, especially such as F. Roosevelt and J. Kennedy, with their orientation
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her to the "welfare state", that is, to support the forces
weak, began to gradually undermine the foundations of the American
times of life. Played a significant role in this negative process, for me
neoconservatives, Keynesian doctrine. Keynesians are always
they called for an increase in public expenditures, acted under the slogan
"big government". But "big government" is also big
taxes. As a result, according to neoconservatives, the economy is inflicted with a double
harm: firstly, in the field of regulation, the private entrepreneur
was either directly replaced by a state bureaucrat, or was forced
obey him (and this led to a drop in efficiency); second, about
aggressive taxation took into the treasury a significant share of
entrepreneurial profits, which sharply reduced incentives for private business
carried.
However, increased taxation not only reduced the carrot, it, as neoconservative theorists have emphasized, greatly weakened the stick. Previously, when a person could rely only on himself, he knew that he had to work hard and hard. Now the state collects taxes from the industrious, successful and wealthy to help the socially weak. As a result, the latter begin to rely not so much on themselves as on outside help (unemployment benefits, preferential medical care, food stamps, free breakfasts at schools, etc.). As a result, social dependency develops, labor discipline is undermined, the phenomena of absenteeism are growing, the consequences of drug addiction, drunkenness, etc. affect work.
The crisis events in the economies of Western countries, starting from the mid-1970s, neoconservatives just explained by the undermining of old values ​​(freedom of enterprise, the market, private property), and they saw a way out of the crisis in their full-scale restoration. It is no coincidence that neo-conservatism turned its gaze to neo-classical economic theory, which always proceeded from the fact that any economic decisions should be formed in a market where free competition reigns.
The government's programs of neo-conservative policies also matched the analysis of the crisis of causes. The main guidelines were: a reduction in the volume of state regulation, a greater emphasis on the regulatory role of the market and private business. The scale of state intervention in the economy is specified, as is known, by two indicators: the volume and specific gravity of state property, as well as the share of the gross national product redistributed through the state budget. The reduction of the volume of state property, the program of re-privatization were declared as primary tasks in the economic program of Thatcherism. In the USA, pain
See more: US: conservative wave. M., 1984. S. 22O-221.
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shogo public sector did not exist, so the focus of the so-called Reaganomics was tax reform: the total amount tax revenue it was supposed to be reduced by about 30%, and mainly due to tax incentives for the wealthiest Americans. Military spending - in the light of the tough international course - Reagan Chyukrat did not propose to reduce, on the contrary, it was planned to increase them significantly. And since the need for a balanced budget was declared in order to combat inflation, the latter was expected to be achieved through draconian cuts social programs. Many of them were either canceled altogether or transferred to the jurisdiction of individual states as part of the “new federalism” programs.
Reaganomics sought to achieve a balance of government revenues and expenditures with a reduced amount of both. Thus, the share of GNP redistributed through the budget should also have been reduced, that is, the activity of the state in the field of indirect economic regulation should have decreased. The philosophy of moderate taxes and cuts in social programs has guided virtually all Western governments influenced by neo-conservative theory.
It is impossible not to see that, with all the costs and extremes, neoconservatism contained a number of realistic propositions: criticism of the excessive tightening of the tax pressure, bureaucracy, etc. economic regulation to the market and competition. Important ideas were expressed about the incentive system: in order to be effective, it had to become not only visual, but also very tough.
At the same time, as time has shown, not all provisions of neoconservatism
turned out to be suitable for practical implementation. In particular, contrary to
to the demands of many neoconservatives, a mixed
the nature of the economy of developed capitalist countries, where, along with reg
market regulators actively use state regulators,
including using Keynesian methods. In many countries it is known
significant, although less than before, role continues to be played by the state
private property. The system of social protection, social
guarantees also remains a constitutive element of the modern
capitalism, although the neoconservatives managed to achieve a suspension of growth
social spending. .
All these restrictions, however, cannot deny the obvious fact: at the turn of the 70-80s. in most developed countries with market economy there was a shift to the right in both ideology and social policy. The neoclassical direction of economic theory serving this shift turned out to be dominant for some time. However, it was no longer the same neoclassicism, knocked out of the saddle by the Great Depression,
ten"

which at one time so convincingly criticized D * s. M;K?ynS..L70th years. Neoclassicism itself has changed a lot, it has creatively modernized its analytical apparatus, adapting it to the needs of practice.
Within the framework of the updated neoclassical direction, new schools arose, and above all - monetarism, supply-side economics, the school of rational expectations (new classical theory).
In addition, the liberal tradition, which opposes state intervention in economic life, has been enriched by the formation economic schools, in many respects disagreeing with the postulates of neoclassicism. There is a kind of opposition to the neoclassical trend within modern liberalism. These theories include, first of all, the latest concepts of the neo-Austrians and, to an even greater extent, the new institutional theory, or neo-institutionalism.

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Economic ideas of Gunnar Myrdal

Introduction

A comprehensive study of economic doctrines is impossible without knowing the essence of the theory of the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal.

Gunnar Myrdal, Nobel laureate in 1974 (together with Friedrich von Hayek), made an enormous contribution to economics in the 20th century. Murdel is considered one of the largest scientists in the field of economic analysis. He was one of the first who, from a scientific point of view, began to approach the problem of uncertainty and risk in microeconomics, advanced Wicksell's theory of the interest rate and cumulative processes, introduced a lot of new concepts into the science of economics, which have already become generally accepted.

Gunnar Karl Myrdal is the Swedish economist of greatest renown, he was "... successively a university professor, government adviser, member of parliament, head of the study group on the study of the social situation of blacks in the United States, minister, bank director, chairman of the planning commission and employee of an international organization .. .". Probably, it was precisely this diverse experience that prompted him to consider from philosophical and sociological positions some of the prejudices that can be found in economics. True, this desire manifested itself at the very beginning. scientific activity Myrdal, as evidenced by his book "The Role of the Political Factor in the Development of Economic Theory". Among all the works of Swedish economists, it stands out with a particularly thorough study of the philosophical side of economic doctrines. Myrdal sought to find the true place of social science in the general system of knowledge: as a result of this, his main ideas were thoroughly permeated with considerations of methodology. He expressed doubts about the correctness of a purely theoretical approach to problems of well-being, when political goals are not indicated: by avoiding frankly formulating their value system, modern authors only make it difficult to distinguish between science and politics. Such value judgments form the basic political elements of economic theory. To believe that political convictions can be excluded or subordinated to some system of alleged "important principles" is, according to Myrdal, to harbor illusions. Political opinions should be openly proclaimed and made an integral element of the study.

Develop Myrdal's theoretical ideas

Carl Gunnar Myrdal (December 6, 1898 – May 17, 1987) was born in the small village of Solvarbo in Central Sweden, the son of Carl Adolf Myrdal, a railway employee, and Sofia (nee Carlson) Myrdal. His childhood life family farm strongly influenced his economic and political philosophy as an adult, a philosophy he once called a combination of "Jeffersonian liberalism and Swedish peasant democracy

In 1919, K. G. Myrdal entered Stockholm University and in 1923, having become a certified lawyer, opened his own practice. The following year, he married a Stockholm student, Alva Reimer, who, under the name of Alva Myrdal, later became a world-famous sociologist, a member of UNESCO and often helped her husband in social and political work.

Not fully satisfied with his work in the field of jurisprudence, Myrdal returned to Stockholm University, where he studied economics under Knut Wicksell and Gustav Kassel. After receiving his doctorate in 1927, he was appointed teacher political economy. The day before the 1929 stock market crash, Myrdal arrived in the United States of America as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. Observing the economic and social crisis of the Depression period, Myrdal was imbued with the desire to somehow influence economic policy.

In 1933, after spending an academic year in Switzerland, he returned to Stockholm University, where he spent most of his academic life. He served as head of the university's department of political economy and finance. Many years later, in 1961, he was appointed professor of international economic relations at the university and became the founder and director of the Institute for World Economic Studies.

Myrdal became interested in "pure" economic theory in the period 1925-1933. It was then that in his doctoral dissertation "Problems of pricing in conditions of economic shifts" ("Prisbildningsproblemet och Foranderiig ieten", 1927), he investigated how the expectation of uncertain market conditions in the future affects the behavior of companies at the microeconomic level. Myrdal's formulation of this problem anticipated many studies of risk and uncertainty.

In 1931, in an article published in the Swedish economic journal Ekonomisk lidskrift, the scientist further developed Wicksell's theory of the interest rate and cumulative processes. In this work, which appeared in English in 1939 under the title "Monetary Equilibrium" ("Monetary Equilibrium"), he introduced the concepts of "ex ante" ("expectation") and "ex post" ("implementation") into economic analysis. ): "ex ante" refers to the expected value of a given economic variable; "ex post" - to the realizable (or actual) value of this variable.

These two terms are of decisive importance in the theory of economic dynamics developed in Stockholm in the 1930s. Consumers or companies (so-called economic actors) base their decisions on "ex ante" values ​​of economic variables (eg expected prices). Thus, in the process of establishing economic equilibrium, they influence the implementation of "ex post" variables (for example, actual prices).

Myrdal's ideas laid the foundation for what later became known as the Stockholm School of Macroeconomics. He wrote "The Economic Results of Fiscal Policy" ("Finanspolitikens ekonomiska verkningar", 1934), which contains suggestions on how to intensify fiscal policy to overcome the Depression. In this work, he advocated that, in order to maintain public confidence, government deficits generated during the Depression would be covered by a corresponding budgetary surplus during the recovery period following the Depression. In fact, the Stockholm School, driven largely by Myrdal, had developed models of Keynesian policy even before the publication of John Maynard Keynes' The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. ").

After Myrdal took part in the work of several government committees, in 1935 he was elected to the Swedish parliament. Spouses Myrdal jointly participated in the development of the population policy in Sweden. In their work "The Crisis of the Population Problem" ("Kris i befolkningsfragan", 1934), the reasons for the decline in the birth rate in Sweden were investigated and put forward in this area a kind of New Deal, which offered an intensive housing policy and the payment of subsidies large families. Many of their recommendations were implemented over the following decades. In addition to measures encouraging married couples to create large families, the authors advocated universal sex education for high school students in order to reduce unwanted pregnancies. The result was that around the spouses Myrdal there were sharp disputes and they became the target for witticisms of numerous satirists.

When Myrdal visited the United States in 1938 to give a series of lectures at Harvard University, he was approached by the Carnegie Corporation to lead a large group of investigators studying the "Negro problem." The trustees of the corporation commissioned "a comprehensive study of the condition of the Negroes in the United States, which must be carried out with complete objectivity as a social phenomenon." Accepting this order, Myrdal and his group, which included Ralph Bunche, prepared the study "An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy" ("An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy"), which was published in two volumes in 1944 and considered by many to be one of the most significant studies of race relations in America.

In this work, Myrdal rejected a purely economic approach and analyzed the sociological, political, historical, legal, and institutional underpinnings of white behavior towards black Americans and equally black reactions to racism. The "American Dilemma" has not only shaped relevant academic thought, it has also had a profound and lasting impact on public policy. Careful scrutiny of the state of discrimination in education, for example, had a major impact on the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, which upheld the principle of "separate but equal" education and outlawed racial segregation in public schools.

Myrdal returned to Sweden in 1940 after the Nazi invasion of Norway, but was sent to the United States in 1943 as economic adviser to the Swedish embassy. In 1944, he published his famous book "Varning for Fredsopti mism" in which he predicted serious economic hardship after the end of the war, especially in the United States. As chairman of the government's economic commission, he stressed the dangers of continued stagnation and imbalance in world markets. Given these circumstances, and taking into account the imbalance of Sweden's industrial structure, he recommended the introduction of an elaborate system of government planning. He also predicted greater stability in the planned economy of the Eastern Bloc and advocated for increased trade with it.

As a free and independently speaking economist, Myrdal was never a reliable social democrat, could not submit to political discipline. In 1947, he left the government and accepted the post of Secretary General of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), a division of the United Nations. There he created an independent economic secretariat, whose reports enjoyed a high reputation. After completing his work at ECE in 1957, he joined his wife, who was in India as Ambassador of Sweden, and began a 10-year study of the problems of the underdeveloped countries of Asia (he did not recognize the term "developing" in relation to these countries) . The result of this research was the publication in 1968 of the book Asian Drama: An Inquiry Into the Poverty of Nations.

The central thesis of this three-volume work was that only deep reforms in the areas of population control, agricultural land distribution, health care, and education could lead to the rapid economic development of the countries of Southeast Asia. Moreover, Myrdal concluded that the "soft governments" of the countries in the region were too weak to overcome what he called "the cumulative forces of poverty." According to Myrdal, foreign aid from the West, which can play an important role in a number of special cases if it is properly directed, will, on the whole, be only an auxiliary factor. The book received a positive response for its non-partisan approach and encyclopedic richness of factual material, despite the fact that the conclusions flowing from it seemed too pessimistic compared to those contained in the "American Dilemma".

Myrdal's speech at the Stockholm Conference on Vietnam in the late 1960s was filled with the same pessimism about the conditions prevailing in Asian countries. Critically evaluating American policy, he stated that the main obstacle to Vietnam's self-determination was "American aggression, which caused a general uprising of the Vietnamese people." He argued that even if Southeast Asia were threatened by a communist takeover, communism could not have exacerbated the appalling economic and social conditions in the region in the same way.

Myrdal's international influence was colossal because he was one of the few Nobel Prize-winning economists who dealt with economic and social policy and achieved excellence in a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences.

According to Myrdal, an economist who does not take into account the impact of political and social forces on economic events is dangerous. In his book Against the Stream: Critical Essays in Economics (1973), he criticized economists for declining attention to the moral basis of economic theory. For example, he argued that the belief that competitive markets("the invisible hand" of Adam Smith) are characterized by "optimality", justified if distribution problems are ignored.

The 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics was awarded to Gunnar Myrdal together with Friedrich von Hayek "for fundamental work on the theory of money and economic fluctuations and a deep analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena." In 1975, when Myrdal gave his Nobel lecture, the sense of pessimism in it, already expressed by him in the Asian Drama, sharply increased. In the speech, he criticized the United States for tying the foreign aid program to its own narrow national interests. He stigmatized the West's "conspicuous consumption," which he saw as contributing to the poverty of the "Third World."

As a scientist, Gunner Myrdal became famous both at home and abroad. While working at Stockholm University, he was also in 1973, 1974. visiting researcher at the University of California, and the following year, an honorary visiting professor at New York University.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Myrdal also shared with his wife Alva the Peace Prize of the German government (1970). He was a member of the British Academy of Sciences. the American Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded over thirty honorary degrees from European and American universities.

Work description

The essence of the theory of the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal. Develop Myrdal's theoretical ideas. Components of Myrdal's economic theory: the theory of equilibrium, the idea of ​​cumulative development.

… businessmen have to work their way through the jungle of administrative discretionary measures

G.K. Myrdal became widely known as a prominent economist, Nobel Laureate in Economics (1974) together with F.A. von Hayek "for his seminal work on the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for his profound analysis of the interdependence of economic, social, and institutional phenomena."

Gunnar K. Myrdal was born on December 6, 1898 in Gustafs in central Sweden. He graduated from Stockholm University in 1923 with a law degree and continued his studies at the Faculty of Economics. In 1927 he received his doctorate in economics, in 1928 he became a professor at Stockholm University, and in 1933 he became head of the department of economics. In 1935 he was elected to the Riksdag (governing body), in 1938 he led a group of scientists in the United States to study the situation of blacks, in 1943 he was appointed adviser to the Swedish Embassy in the United States. He was the chairman of the economic commission under the government, in 1947 he became the executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Europe. In 1957, he settled in India, where his wife Alva Myrdal, a diplomat, politician and writer, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982, worked as an ambassador, and began to study the economies of developing countries. Subsequently, he worked at Stockholm University (since 1967 as an honorary professor), lectured at many universities around the world, and was engaged in active scientific and social activities. Winner of the F. Seidman (1974) and Veblen-Commons (1975) awards. He considered himself an "institutional economist".

Known as the creator of the Stockholm school of macroeconomics (or the institutional sociological direction), whose ideas echoed Keynesianism. He dealt with the problems of monetary balance, demography, racial relations in the United States, the economy of the Third World countries, the integration of world economic systems, and the problem of poverty. Myrdal is the author of the concept of "cumulative causality", he also owns the widely used distinction between ex ante (planned) and ex post (realized) savings and investments.

Even before the publication of J. Keynes' book "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (1936), Myrdal suggested using fiscal policy tools to overcome the Great Depression. It was his work that was used in Sweden to develop macroeconomic policy.

Myrdal also tried to determine the place of the social sciences in the general system of knowledge, advocating the combination of economic and political aspects.

In the period after the Second World War, Myrdal was engaged in the study of world markets. In particular, in the book "International Economics: Problems and Prospects", he advocated the development of international economic integration based on the analysis of cumulative causation.

In his three-volume monograph Asian Drama: A Study of the Poverty of Nations, Myrdal studies the countries of South and Southeast Asia - India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, etc.

Myrdal's assessment of the state of the economy and statehood of developing countries as a drama reflected their real position in the world economy. The crisis of hopes for the rapid overcoming of backwardness led to the depreciation of known theoretical approaches. Enduring underdevelopment began to be perceived as a drama, and not as a quickly overcome evil, in the center of which were "the peoples of South Asia themselves, and above all the intelligentsia."

Myrdal considered the attempts of Western scientists to transfer the realities of a developed society to an underdeveloped society untenable. In practice, this leads to the creation of an enclave economy of a Europeanized type, which cannot provide deep and comprehensive transformations as a whole.

Industrialization did not change the position of the broad masses of the working people. Myrdal criticized the main factors of the theory of growth: technology as a decisive component of overcoming underdevelopment, the market, strengthening state regulation. In fact, these factors have led to an increase in technological dependence, the disintegration of the economy, the growth of corruption and state bureaucracy.

As chairman of a government commission, Myrdal recommended that the Swedish government introduce a planning system.

Although in all countries, according to Myrdal, planning tended to "develop towards social and economic radicalism, but its actual application did not lead to a decrease in economic inequality and a weakening of the concentration of economic power." Officials in the regulation of the private sector more often used the right of their own discretion, rather than established rules. Under such conditions, "businessmen have to work their way through the jungle of administrative discretionary measures." However, they always found a common language with the authorities, which deprived them of the incentive to increase productivity and improve production processes.

Therefore, Myrdal also critically assessed the theory and practice of "socialism" in developing countries. He drew attention to the fact that in these countries they chose the doctrine of socialism, which does not contradict local traditions. And although demands were sometimes put forward to replace private property with state property and expand state regulation of the economy, in practice everything came down to replacing a handful of foreign entrepreneurs with local ones.

Myrdal saw the main reason for underdevelopment not in the lack of foreign investment, but in the underutilization of labor resources. People are not interested in their work, they work poorly and little. In most countries, contempt for simple physical labor has not been overcome. Therefore, in order to eliminate backwardness, he proposed changing the system of compensation for labor costs in order to provide the population with food and thereby stimulate more productive labor.

Changing the national labor resources, according to Myrdal, is impossible without a radical reconstruction of the traditional society, which is connected with the vital interests of the ruling strata of the population. In particular, a deep agrarian reform is required, but the landowners do not allow it. Therefore, he spoke out in support of any social forces that are already capable of ensuring a real increase in the labor contribution of an unemployed or underemployed workforce.

Myrdal considered the regulation of market economy to reduce the negative manifestations inherent in the market, to ensure social protection of the population and the formation of a society of "general welfare".

According to Myrdal, the system of social protection of the population provided for the implementation by the state of a whole range of measures:

• - ensuring a high living wage for all members of society,
• - providing material assistance to the poor by withdrawing privileges from the rich,
• - creating conditions that allow you to earn money by any means that do not contradict the law,
• - creation of conditions that ensure the satisfaction of a high level of needs of citizens in development, education, medical care, etc.,
• - protection of civil and political rights and freedoms,
• - ensuring the environmental safety of members of society,
• - protection from political persecution and administrative arbitrariness,
• - creation of a favorable socio-psychological climate both in society as a whole and in its individual structural formations,
• - ensuring maximum stability of public life.

Myrdal's concept became the theoretical basis for the activity of the most radical part of the petty bourgeoisie. On its basis, a strategy for meeting basic needs was developed, recommended by United Nations experts to the free countries.

The works of the Swedish economist and sociologist Gunnar Myrdal are widely known throughout the world. Among the many complex and urgent problems of our time, the main place in his work is occupied by the problems of uneven social and economic development on a planetary scale, the problems of development of the countries of the so-called “third world” that have freed themselves from colonial dependence. He considers the problem of industrialization to be central. Myrdal calls nationalism a necessary and decisive factor for its solution. He is convinced that the ratio in the distribution of material wealth and production resources between the countries of the rich "North" and the poor "South" is getting worse - the poor are getting poorer, and the rich - richer. He sees the reason for the growing gap between poor and rich countries in the “circular and cumulative impact of industrialization. Primitive social and living conditions for the population, low labor productivity, poor organization of production and the massive poverty caused by all this scare away foreign investors. Lack of investment leads to lack of development and increasing poverty. As a result, a circulus viciosus (vicious circle) is formed, from which the underdeveloped countries cannot get out on their own (circular impact).

The world market, including the capital market, is unable to restore the balance between "North" and "South". Quite the opposite: capital tends to flow where there is already a high level of industrialization and the necessary social and technical prerequisites and conditions for its successful application have been created. Thus, the industrialized regions receive further development. The gap between industrialized and developing countries is widening (cumulative impact).

The current situation in developing countries, Myrdal emphasizes, is the position of catching up, latecomers, it seems much more difficult than the position of European countries or the United States on the eve of the industrial revolution. The process of industrialization and modernization in developing countries is accompanied by completely different social conditions than those that existed in Europe in the 18th century. Therefore, it seems absolutely improbable that economic development in the countries of the Third World, without the necessary measures of state intervention, will reach the present level of highly industrialized countries.

Myrdal is convinced that it is with the help of nationalism as a unifying and mobilizing idea that it is possible to create the preconditions that make it possible to break the vicious circle of poverty and "underdevelopment". He recommends measures of central regulation aimed at the purposeful and planned transformation of the social structure and necessary beliefs in the minds of the population. Without a new value orientation, without a new professional and work ethic, without a new social system that includes a system of education, all attempts at industrialization in developing countries are doomed to failure.

Thus, G. Myrdal and his supporters (K. Davis) are convinced of the need to create and implement with the help of the state a new “secularized” 1 creeds based on feelings of nationalism, as a necessary condition for mobilizing the population of the countries of the "Third World" for industrialization. Nationalism, Myrdal believes, can become the engine of industrial development. However, political stability and the strength of the position of the ruling social and political elite are of decisive importance. In developing countries today, as it was earlier in Russia and Japan, authoritarian government measures are necessary, which should create the preconditions for industrialization. Talcott Parsons 2 even proposes to establish here an "educational dictatorship." Only a planned and controlled reorientation from the population's traditional value and religious ideas to modern, secularized, that is, rationally oriented values ​​creates the preconditions for their modernization in these countries. Without such a reorientation, the social and economic development of these countries will not be successful.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gunnar Myrdal
Gunnar Myrdal
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Biography

Gunnar was born in 1898 in a farming village in Sweden.

In 1938 he was invited to the USA, where during four years heads the Center for the Study of American Negroes at the Carnegie Institution and writes the book The American Dilemma. Negro Issues and Modern Democracy" (1944).

In 1945-1947 he was the Minister of Trade of Sweden. In 1947-1957 he worked as the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

In 1960-1967 he was professor of world economics at Stockholm University.

Actively opposed the Vietnam War. He was a co-founder and chairman.

A family

Myrdal's 1939 Monetary Equilibrium introduced a systematic discussion of expectations into pricing analysis, and the distinction between ex ante and ex post, that is, between planned and actual values, has since become the standard of macroeconomic theory.

Awards

For his achievements in science he was repeatedly awarded:

• 1970 - together with Alva Myrdal, the International Peace Prize from the government of Germany
• 1975 - Bronislav Malinovsky Prize
• 1975 - Veblen-Commons Award from Association for Evolutionary Economics.

Bibliography

• Myrdal G. World economy. Problems and prospects. - M.: Foreign Literature, 1958 (Eng. An International economy, problems and prospects, 1956)
• Myrdal G., Polssov R., Ekstrem T. Sweden and Western Europe. - M.: Progress, 1964.
• Myrdal G. Modern problems of the "third world". - M.: Progress, 1972.
• Myrdal G. Increasing interdependence of states and failures of international cooperation / / MEiMO No. 5, 1980.
• Myrdal G. Monetary Equilibrium, 1939.
• Myrdal G. The Political Element in the Development of Economic Theory, 1956.
• Myrdal G. Asian drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, 1968.

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Literature

• Carlson A. Swedish experiment in population policy: Gunnar and Alva Myrdali and the interwar population crisis / transl. from English. - M.: IRISEN, Thought, 2009. - 312 p. - Series "Sociology". - ISBN 978-5-91066-030-8, ISBN 978-5-244-01120-3.
• Myrdal Gunnar Karl // Morshin - Nikish. - M. : Soviet Encyclopedia, 1974. - (Great Soviet Encyclopedia: [in 30 volumes] / ch. ed. A. M. Prokhorov; 1969-1978, v. 17).

Links

Notes

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An excerpt characterizing Myrdal, Gunnar

“Well, let him watch it,” Stella whispered softly. And I'll show you what happened next...
The wonderful vision of quiet family happiness disappeared... and instead of it another one appeared, cruel and frightening, promising nothing good, let alone a happy ending.....
It was still the same white-stone city, and the same house already familiar to us... Only this time, everything around was on fire... Fire was everywhere. A roaring, devouring flame burst out of broken windows and doors, and embraced people rushing about in horror, turning them into screaming human torches, which created a successful living target for the monsters chasing them. With a squeal, women grabbed the children, trying to hide with them in the basements, but they did not escape for a long time - after a short time, the laughing monsters dragged them, half-naked and screaming desperately, outside to rape them right on the street, next to the corpses of their little children that had not yet cooled down. .. From the soot spreading everywhere, almost nothing was visible ... The air was "clogged" with the smells of blood and burning, there was nothing to breathe. Crazed with fear and heat, the old people hiding in the basements climbed out into the yard and immediately fell dead under the swords of terribly whooping, rushing around the city on horseback, bestial wild people. All around you could hear the roar of hooves, the sound of iron, and wild cries, from which the blood ran cold...
Before my eyes, like in a movie, terrible, heart-chilling images of violence and brutal murders flashed by ... I could not calmly look at all this, my heart literally "jumped" out of my chest, forehead (as if I were in a physical body!. .) was covered with cold perspiration, and I wanted to run wherever my eyes looked from this terrifying, monstrously ruthless world ... But, looking at Stella's seriously concentrated face, I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I forced myself to look further.
We ended up inside the same house, only now everything in it was completely smashed and destroyed, and in the middle of one of the rooms, right on the floor, lay the dead body of a kind nanny ... Heartbreaking female cries were heard through the broken windows from the street, everything was mixed up in a terrible nightmare of hopelessness and fear ... It seemed that the whole world had suddenly gone crazy for some reason ... Immediately we saw another room in which three men, leaning heavily, tried to tie a fair-haired wife, escaping from her last strength, to the handles of the bed knight Harold... And his little son was sitting right under the same bed, clutching in his tiny hands, too big for him, his father's dagger and, closing his eyes, whispered something intently... No one in all this crazy turmoil, no attention I didn’t pay attention to him, but he was so strangely and “immovably” calm that at first I thought that the baby, from all this horror, had a real emotional blow. But very soon I realized that I was mistaken ... As it turned out, the child, simply, with the last of his strength, tried to get together for some, apparently very decisive and important step ...
He could freely reach out to any of the rapists, and at first I thought that the poor kid, still thinking in a completely childish way, wants to try to somehow protect his unfortunate mother. But, as it turned out, this tiny, scared to death boy was in his still childish soul a real son of a knight, and managed to draw the most correct and only conclusion at that terrible moment ... and decided on the hardest step in his short life ... Somehow, finally, having gathered himself, and softly whispering "Mom!", he jumped out, and with all his childish strength .... slashed his poor mother with a heavy dagger right on the tender neck of his poor mother, who was already in no way could not save another, and whom he wholeheartedly loved with all his childish heart ....
At first, in a “violent” excitement, no one even noticed what had happened ... The little boy quietly crawled into a corner, and apparently having no strength for anything else, sat frozen, indifferent to everything, and with eyes widened with horror, he watched how right in front of him , from his own hand, his kind, best in the world, affectionate mother passed away from life ...
Suddenly, this terrible vision disappeared somewhere and again shone around, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, Stella's bright and joyful world ... And I, unable to recover from the nightmare I had seen, tried to keep in my memory a pure image of this wonderful, brave little boy, and did not even notice that I was crying... I felt tears flowing down my cheeks, but for some reason I was not a bit ashamed...
“I won’t show you further, because it will be even sadder there ...” Stella said upset. “But we found them, they’re all right!” Don't be so sad! – here same again, shaking off sadness, she chirped.
And poor Harold was sitting on a sparkling stone she created, stroking a purring red dragon with one finger, and was very far from us, in his cherished world, in which, for sure, they were all still together, and in which his unfulfilled dream lived very realistically .. .
I felt so sorry for him!.. But, unfortunately, it was not in my power to help him. And, honestly, I really wanted to know how this extraordinary baby helped him ...
– We found them! Stella repeated again. – I didn’t know how to do it, but my grandmother helped me!
It turned out that Harold, during his lifetime, did not even have time to find out how terribly his family suffered when dying. He was a warrior knight, and died before his city was in the hands of the "executioners", as his wife predicted.
But, as soon as he got into this, unfamiliar, wondrous world of "gone" people, he could immediately see how ruthlessly and cruelly the evil fate dealt with his "only and beloved". After that, like a man possessed, for an eternity he tried somehow, somewhere, to find these people, the most dear to him in the whole wide world ... And he searched for them for a very long time, more than a thousand years, until one day some, completely unfamiliar, sweet girl Stella did not offer him to "make him happy" and did not open that "other" right door to finally find them for him...
- Do you want me to show you? - again suggested the baby,
But I was no longer so sure if I wanted to see something else ... Because the visions she had just shown hurt my soul, and it was impossible to get rid of them so quickly to want to see some kind of continuation ...
“But you want to see what happened to them!” - confidently stated the "fact" little Stella.
I looked at Harold and saw in his eyes the complete understanding of what I had just experienced unexpectedly.
– I know what you saw... I watched it many times. But now they are happy, we go to look at them very often... And the "former" ones too... - the "sad knight" said quietly.
And then only I realized that Stella, simply, when he wanted it, transferred him to his own past, just like she had just done it !!! And she did it almost effortlessly! .. I didn’t even notice how this wonderful, bright girl began to “attach” me to herself more and more, becoming for me almost a real miracle, which I endlessly wanted to watch ... And which I didn’t want to leave at all ... Then I knew almost nothing and didn’t know how, except for what I could understand and learn myself, and I really wanted to learn at least something from her, while there was still such an opportunity.
- Come to me, please! - Stella, suddenly saddened, whispered softly, - you know that you still can’t stay here ... Grandmother said that you won’t stay for a very, very long time ... That you still can’t die. But you come...
Everything around suddenly became dark and cold, as if black clouds suddenly covered such a colorful and bright Stella's world...
“Oh, don’t think about such a terrible thing! - the girl was indignant, and, like an artist with a brush on the canvas, she quickly “painted over” everything again in a bright and joyful color.
- Well, is it really better? she asked rather.
“Could it be that these were just my thoughts?..” I didn’t believe it again.