Journal archive

The periodical press has started voicing more and more critical remarks regarding the governmental anticrisis program for 2009. The criticism concerns the overlimit additional financing of the car indus¬try and the military industrial complex, high customs duties on separate products, the administrative regulation of the banking and financial sectors, and, finally, de facto refusal to change the key points in the structural politics. According to the author of the article the main reason for such deviations from the implementation of the stated long-term strategy for creating an effective market environment in the socially oriented economy is not only the lack of the competitive capacity but rather the obvious neglect of the notion at all levels (production, business, market of capitals, management decisions etc.). The steps declared in the anticrisis program and taken by the authorities are analyzed in the article from the point of view of their influence on the creation and destruction of the competitive environ¬ment in the Russian economy.

Конкуренция играет ключевую роль в экономической системе современной России. Конкуренция сохраняет равноправное положение участников экономических отношений — обеспечивает продавцам и покупателям свободу выбора. В условиях конкуренции покупатель имеет возможность выбрать из нескольких или многих продавцов необходимого ему товара. Такая же возможность имеется и у продавца — добровольно решить вопрос о географическом месте, времени и условиях предложения своей продукции. Конкуренция является необходимым условием существования, фундаментом всей рыночной системы — позволяет цене выполнять координирующие функции, служить индикатором наличия излишков или дефицита. Рынок существует только при наличии конкуренции. Конкуренция контролирует эффективность частного предпринимательства — заставляет структуры, неэффективно использующие имеющиеся ресурсы, покидать «поле экономической игры». Конкуренция — залог повышения эффективности бизнеса и экономического роста государства.

The process of economic globalization makes Russian enterprises not only exist in a tough competitive environment in the domestic as well as in the international markets, but also opens wide perspectives in front of the most effective of them. The practical activity of Russian companies in the sphere of their internationalization has extended in the recent ten years. Nevertheless the financial crisis revealed the ineffective character of strategies in those national companies (for the most part raw materials companies) which operate in foreign markets, thus it once again proved the existence of negative characteristics in the present day Russian economy. The article is aimed at finding ways to increase the competitive capacity of Russian enterprises in the process of their entering the foreign market.

The article offers an author's, based on the geoeconomic paradigm approach to the understanding of the competitive capacity of a region in the conditions of the new world economic system and the main mechanisms for its realization. Among the mechanisms the author mentions — the institutional mechanism (the formation of transregional companies), the structural mechanism (an industrial region is viewed as a local center of world economy), the management mechanism (the introduc¬tion of geomarketing), the technological mechanism (the stages of integration into internationalized reproduction processes). The use of the geoeconomic notions (including «economic boundaries of an activity, «foreign economic links») will allow regions to develop an appropriate mechanism for the implementation of «Strategy — 2020» in the sphere of foreign economic activity, thus putting Russia among the leading world powers.

The article offers the method of enterprise competitive capacity evaluation based on Michael Porter's value chain concept. The method is aimed at evaluating competitive capacity based on value action inside a firm. The evaluation process suggests expert examination as well as the use of questionnaires.

The journal continues to publish Professor Rais Akhmetovich Fatkhutdinov's textbook «Organization's Competitive Capacity Management. The second topic is devoted to the concept of competitive economy worked out by the author. The theory is based on the leader upbringing philosophy, economy and knowledge management that lead to the overall increase of process quality in all areas and branches, the growth of innovative activity and competitive capacity of the managed objects. The author of the article carried out mathematical and statistical research and a multifactor international analysis of 146 competitive factors in 125 countries (WEF data) that were valid in 2006. The research showed that the most vulnerable areas in the Russian competitive capacity is the institution of power.

There exist a number of attempts to explain the reasons for a rather difficult financial and eco¬nomic situation that the world economy has been facing and there also exist a lot of attempts to cope with it. For instance, in the middle of October 2008 the information agency Bloomberg published «The Financial Conditions Index» that covers indices of the money, stock, and bond markets. This index showed such an unprecedented decrease that analysts remembered «the black swan effect» to account for the situation in the world markets. The authors of the article are inclined to think that as a matter of fact a crisis of moral values lies at the heart of the global system crisis that grasped the world economy. The priority to become rich for all strata of the society from low classes up to the establishment turned out to be the basis of the process that can «blow up» not only the foundations of the world financial system but also cause more serious problems in the social order.

To continue the discussion of the article «The Essence of Competition** the editors of the journal publish Sergey Gennadievich Svetunjkov's, a famous Russian scientist's opinion on the reasons why Friedrich von Hayek's article convincing one to reject the model of «the perfect competition» did not make economists come to the same conclusion. Why 60 years after its publication do the majority of contemporary authors of text-books and scientific publications use «the perfect competition» as some benchmark inherent in the perfect market economy, and on its basis work out idealized models that contrast reality, and consider them perfect?

The discussion on Friedrich Hayek's work «The Meaning of Competition** initiated by the journal rose vivid interest among representatives of the modern competition theory. We would like to remind our readers that in «The Meaning of Competition» Hayek scrupulously and critically analyzes one of the basic notions of the neoclassical economic — the notion of «perfect competition^ Hayek opposes the dynamic understanding of competition worked out by the Austrian school to the static one ac¬cepted by neoclassic representatives. In his opinion the notion of «perfect competition» however paradoxical it may sound excludes any competitive activity. The theory of «perfect competition^ Hayek warns, is not only far from reality but very often it turns out to be a source of bad practical recommendations (such as to obligatory standardize products etc.). In the form of an open discussion the editors publish D. E. O'Grafov's ideas on the implementation of Hayek's theory in the modern conditions.