Some patterns of the transfer of economic ideas between Russia and the West

Abstract

There is a certain pattern existent in the interrelations of Western and Russian economic thought. It consists of import of Western ideas, their modification under the influence of specific Russian factors, and following influence of modified theories on the Western thought. Among such factors are the special emphasis on social questions and moral norms, the emphasis on spiritual, non-material world, the importance of the peasant question, the great influence of Marxism, a marked mathematical and statistical inclinations of Russian economist and the unique experience of building a centrally planned economy.

Keywords:

• World history of economic thought
• russian economic thought
• cultural factors in the development of economics

JEL CODES:

• B10
• B20

Acknowledgements

This text is based on the Presidential lecture delivered at the 25th ESHET Conference in Padua, June 2022. The author would like to express his gratitude to four anonymous reviewers for highly useful corrections and comments but remains fully responsible for the final text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Well-known explorations of these peculiarities were given by Pribram (1983), Perlman and McCann (1998). Concerning the Russian style of economic reasoning, we may name the works by Peter Klyukin (2014) and François Allisson (2015).

2 In Russian there exist two words denoting truth: “pravda” and “istina”. The first one has moral overtones whereas the second refers more to cognitive aspects. Possoshkov apparently combined the two (istinnaya pravda) to strengthen his expression.

3 Storch was born in a German family in Riga which at that time was a part of the Russian Empire. He studied in German Universities, wrote mostly in French and German, but his entire career developed in Russia where he reached highest positions in civil service and in the Academy of sciences.

4 See the detailed treatment in (Schumann 1997).

5 Exactly due to this complex style Russian censors decided to give the permission for publication of Capital. Volume I, they did not consider this book to be dangerous. They made a big mistake: Marxist ideas successfully replaced terrorists’ bombs.

6 See Ehrlich (1960).