Aleynikov, A. V., Osipov, I. D. Government and Entrepreneurship in Russia: Experience of Historical and Cultural Analysis of Institutional Trajectories. Article 2

Abstract: The present article continues the discussion of historical and cultural peculiarities of the genesis of Russian entrepreneurship at different levels of the business-government-society relations. In the previous article, the authors viewed the reasons of disharmony between entrepreneurship and political authority. Based on the analysis of rich historical materials, the authors prove the Russian government itself creates certain obstacles for the development of private enterprises. In pre-revolutionary Russia, the close connection between entrepreneurship and state authority had rather questionable consequences. The main target of the economic strategy and the main success criterion was the absorption of someone else’s property instead of establishment and efficient management of one’s own property. Excess richness and power at certain periods of Russian history created obstacles for formation of self-identity of the Russian entrepreneurial class in general. The problem of formation and development of the Russian model of relations between business and government can be well understood through the analysis of particular cases by using the integrated cultural and historical approach. This approach involves the system method, i.e. viewing entrepreneurship as a part of a big institutional and socio-cultural system. The problem is being analyzed at the two levels, the level of the ‘reality’ and the level of the ‘actual practice’. The archaic form of government, the institution of support, defined the development of entrepreneurship. Formation of some kind of ‘incomplete property’ even of the major Russian entrepreneurs, dependence of economic agents on the government and government as the main access to resources significantly slow down the processes of social, economic and political development of the society.

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