Martyanov Victor

ADVENT OF CAPITALISM: MORAL COLLAPSE OR MODERNIZATION OF MORAL?

In the article the authors explore the ratio of capitalism and ethics. They demonstrate that the moral collapse connected to the emergence and development of the capitalist world-system was in reality a mere appearance of increasingly growing sphere that was dominated by the principles of capitalist moral at the axiological level. The authors suppose that the moral collapse manifested itself in the permanent failure of efforts to rationally underpin ethical norms rather than in the total defeat of any moral or at least altruistic one. Having examined in details different attempts of moral compensation for capitalism from early to late Modern Age, V.Martyanov and L.Fishman conclude that even the most successful tries led to only temporary effects.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2011-62-3-129-142

Political Modernity Outside Europe: Axiological Unity and Institutional Variety

The political project of Modernity based on the liberal consensus between modern ideologies as a legitimate rationale for capitalism was initially identified by the sociological and political thought only as its European version that is privileged and “canonical”. However, the successful broadening of the political superstructure of Modernity over capitalism outside Europe revealed the unity of the axiological core of the Modernity along with the variety of its institutional models across different world regions. In this article the author argues that the institutional variety of Modernity can hardly be explained by the previous traditions of different societies with their diminishing importance for the contemporary world that were overvalued by the conception of “multiple modernities”. In contrast, one might think of the global unity of the political Modernity based on ideas and values with its institutional diversity being the result of the historically desynchronized embracement by capitalism and the political project of Modernity of different parts of humanity as well as of the permanent transformation and delegitimation of the nation-state system as an initial form of the political Modernity.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2010-5859-3-54-65

THE LONG-RUN FORECAST: IN SEARCH OF THE RUSSIAN AND WORLD FUTURE

The article is devoted to the substantiation of the necessity of fundamental change of the Russian political science problematic focus. Stating that the Russian political science is at a bifurcation point now, V.Martyanov talks about several possible directions of its development. The first one is to be satisfied with the status of “normal” (in comparison to the already existing “universal” patterns) science and by doing so throw itself to playing secondary role and being dependent in its choice of values and goals. The second way is to go into shell interpreting universal as national. The third one is tied to the belief that our political as being specific might become interesting for the rest of the world and therefore, universal, might produce values and goals if not now, then in the future. Martyanov thinks that Russia can no doubt take upon the role of being a generator of new principles of the global Modernity, but only in that case if it offers decisions not as much for itself, but for the humanity as a whole.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2009-55-4-61-74

PARADIGMS OF RUSSIAN POLITICAL SCIENCE

The article distinguishes and analyzes the characteristics of three stages that Russian political science has passed since the time of its official legalization in the 1980s. According to V.Martyanov, at the first stage the main vector of the country’s political science development was determined by non-critical adoption of the body of theories from which Russian social studies had been isolated for ideological reasons. That period was characterized by the domination of methodological and conceptual directions of the transitological theories that postulated the inevitability of transition to “ideal types” of democracy and capitalism existing in developed countries. Disappointment in the efficiency of direct transfer of western institutions onto the Russian soil during the second state put in the forefront the civilizational and nationalistic concepts emphasizing social and cultural specificity of Russia. Finally, the third stage is linked with the theories of globalization, the attempts to overcome the excessive dependence on external intellectual and political imperatives and the search for a new universality of Russia in the post-bipolar world as an organic continuation of its “particularity”.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2009-52-1-167-181

Moral impasse of civilization paradigm.

The article is devoted to a methodological and world-view criticism of the civilization paradigm in modern social science. The authors substantiate the thesis that the civilization paradigm is a politically correct and culture-centered analogue of biological theories of racism, where belonging of a person to this or that race is replaced by civilization identity. They substantiate the conclusion that popularity of civilization theories results from the reaction of social science to the crisis of universality of “liberal consensus” that is the basis of the capitalist world system. The authors defend the position that civilization paradigm is mythological and eclectic.

DOI: 10.30570/2078-5089-2006-43-4-72-87