Natural Evolutionism of Russian Economic Analysis

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2014 in the subject Sociology - Economy and Industry, grade: PhD student 4th year, , course: Economic theory, language: English, abstract: The article introduces an analysis of economic research method in Russian thought. The analysis made on the basis of a concise historical overview seeks to identify particular features of economic research method in Russia, trace their origin, put them into a wider context of economic theory progress, to assume a possible direction of further development of Russian 'indigenous' approaches to economic research. The following conclusions have been drawn. Economic methodology in Russia does have particular traits grounded in its Weltanschauung and a singular path of historical development. This methodology had been developing over decades, in pre-revolutionary Russia and then in USSR till Russia's transition to market economy, when ideas of mainstream economic theory started to be thoroughly scrutinized and assimilated. It is apparent to some observers, though, that this assimilation in many respects remains the official rhetoric, while the 'indigenous' approaches remain to exist and be used somehow implicitly. At the same time these approaches show some similarity with 'Western alternative' to economic orthodoxy, the evolutionary economic theory, which has been developing for the last 30 years. Thus, in regard to perspective of Russian economic analysis development it is suggested a comparative study of the evolutionary economic theory methodology and the Russian approaches to economic analysis with its characteristic viewpoint and conceptual apparatus undertaken as part of a more general reassessment of core concepts and methods of mainstream theory.