Power begins with me essay. Essay on the topic of power. On economic expediency and patriotism

Power and ways to exercise it

Every leader must have certain traits. One of the most important is power. Without it, it is difficult to imagine any leader. Power is the ability to influence other people to bend them to your will.

Using his power, each manager controls the actions of his subordinates, as a result of which work efficiency increases and conflict between employees decreases, order appears. Power is present everywhere: in the family, school class, institute, every organization and in every state.

Today, some confuse the definition of power and aggression or cruelty. But it is precisely without aggression and cruelty that you need to rule over your subordinates. Power is used to achieve their goals and the organization as a whole. If for some reason the power is absent, the consequence of this will be the absence of both order and the organization as a whole.

The basis of power is its source. There are many approaches to the classification of these very sources. All these sources are divided into two groups: those that have a personal basis, and those that have an organizational basis. The first group includes such sources as the power of charisma (the ability of a leader to influence people due to his personal qualities (generosity, kindness, honesty, justice, positivity), due to which subordinates try to be like their leader), expert power (the leader influences their subordinates due to their education and experience), information power (a person who owns some important information is able to manipulate and dominate other people), legal power (leaders who occupy the same positions and formally have equal rights, still have unequal power, since each of them uses this right within the limits of his abilities (and everyone has different abilities)) and its need (the desire to rule, give advice, help, thereby strengthening their reputation).

There is formal and real power.

Formal power is the power of the position, due to the official place of the person occupying it in the management structure of the organization, and is measured either by the number of subordinates who are directly or indirectly obliged to obey his orders, or by the volume of material resources that this person can dispose of without agreement with others.

Real power is power, both positions and the influence of authority. It is determined by a person's place not only in the official, but also in the informal system of relations and is measured either by the number of people who are voluntarily ready to obey this person, or by the degree of his dependence on others.

There are the following types of power:

Power based on coercion. Influence through fear and fear.

Power based on reward.

Charismatic power. The qualities of a leader may simply be attractive to the performer. By itself, charismatic power does not have a stable and long-term character.

Expert power is a more reasonable belief. The performer believes that the manager has the knowledge to satisfy the need. This type of power is less stable than charismatic.

Legitimate authority - in this case, the executive believes that the leader has the right to give orders. It is legitimate authority that can harm an organization.

Personal power is the degree of respect, goodness and loyalty towards its owner by subordinates, based on the proximity of their goals. The main forms of personal power can be expert power, the power of example, the right to power.

The use of power can be implicit. For example, if someone in a meeting announces to everyone: "I have more power, and therefore the rest are obliged to obey me." Thus, he weakens his own power. Ideally, power works when it is used quietly and naturally, without increased attention. The demand for power in all openness can only be demanded by weak and powerless leaders.

The understanding of power and influence is closely related to leadership.

The basis of leadership is the relationship of dominance and subordination, influence and following in the system of interpersonal relations in the group. Leadership is one of the most important mechanisms for exercising power in a group and the most effective.

In terms of direction, power can be positive, creative and negative, meaning the ability to manipulate people, destroy something, or hinder something. Ultimately, such abuse leads to destabilization of the situation.

The authority has an organization:

collective (carried out by the group jointly);

collegial (carried out by one person, taking into account the general opinion).

Leaders use power as a means to accelerate the achievement of any goals. The power itself can be built on personal qualities or on the position held in the organization. Power is a two-way relationship between a leader and subordinates and between a leader and his boss.

There are the following ways to exercise power:

persuasion and participation. Recently, there has been a decrease in the gap in education between the leader and subordinates. Persuasion is the effective communication of one's point of view. Part of the power of the leader passes to the performer. But persuasion slowly affects the object. Participation - involvement in management. Performers are inspired by higher level needs.

Disposition. Management can be thought of as direct leadership. An order is a message transmitted by a leader to a subordinate regarding the content and results of his activities. It includes the statement of a mandatory task, a list of restrictions, instructions on how to complete tasks.

The order, in essence, should:

be in line with the organization's strategy;

be justified and clearly formulated, provided with the necessary material, organizational resources;

allow to check and evaluate the results of actions.

According to the method of issuing orders, they can be oral, written or mixed.

Oral documents (undocumented) are given if you need to quickly solve problems of small or medium complexity and importance. Otherwise, written instructions apply. There are also mixed orders. In this case, orders are first received orally, and then in writing.

According to the form of the order, they can be orders, instructions, assignments, advice. Orders should be inherently consistent with the strategy of the organization; be justified, clearly formulated, feasible, provided with the necessary material and information resources; take into account the individual characteristics of the employee; allow to check and evaluate the results of actions aimed at their implementation. The last requirement, that is, controllability, is perhaps the most important in relation to orders.

Unlike orders, an instruction regulates only the content of the task, leaving the freedom to choose the method of action and deadlines for the performer. The meaning of the assignment is that there is information about specific goals and objectives. Information must be clear and understandable.

Orders can be reinforced by a number of measures to influence the performer: persuasion, appeal to logic, a wish or request, a promise of reward, threats.

When giving an order, it must be borne in mind that most people have a weak perception of the long-term perspective and always start with what is closer and more understandable to them, so the task must be clearly formulated, and the deadlines for its implementation are clearly defined. This allows you to properly distribute forces in the process.

The task should follow logically from the current situation, so that the performer understands well not only its meaning, but also its importance and validity. This is ensured by his comprehensive information in a larger volume than the minimum necessary, which creates additional freedom of orientation, and therefore facilitates the task. For example, if mistakes are made in the formulation of the task, the subordinate will be able to correct them independently.

Studies have shown that the activity to complete the task must be clearly regulated, otherwise the performance discipline is weakened. But in practice, there are certain limits on the number of norms and regulations that the performer is able to take into account, because then they begin to be ignored, regardless of the degree of importance. In addition, an excessive number of instructions causes confusion, errors, and as a result, the emergence of new instructions that further disorganize the work. Therefore, there should be a certain minimum of instructions, complete, thorough, but without excessive detail, not contradicting each other.

Incorrect use of methods of exercising power can give rise to conflict situations.

A conflict is a lack of agreement between two or more parties.

Power is the result of an organizational process that can be understood and predicted. The ability to use tactical and political techniques allows you to reduce uncertainty, increase the dependence of other units, other people, receive resources and overcome strategically unforeseen circumstances, which allows you to strengthen the power of the unit, the leader, which is very important today.

The issue of power needs to be considered in detail, already because the vast majority of the population does not even have a close understanding of what it is. Oddly enough, but there are people who think that they, fools, are the bearers of power, they simply delegate it in democratic elections to all sorts of deputies or to the president himself directly. And the elected only do how they exercise the powers of state power in the interests of voters. They do not sleep at night, they think about the people. Isn't it time to get rid of delusions and understand what power really is?

The phenomenon of power exists only among the human community, forming special social relations. These relationships, like sex, can be natural and unnatural. Let us begin by examining the natural way in which power arises and is exercised.

Power naturally arises when people come together to solve some common problem, for example, to earn money. Such an association in Russia was called an artel. Relationships within the artel are described in fiction, for example, Melnikov-Pechersky, Engelhardt. People elected a leader who, within the framework of the task, had unlimited power. What was the task of the leader? Organization of work, nothing more.

He assigned a task to each member of the artel and supervised its implementation. Moreover, it was his duty to ensure justice, i.e. give everyone the opportunity to earn equal income. And how he uses this opportunity is his business. In passing, we note that no one did someone else's work - everyone worked on his own, allocated to him a site. So it was not easy to lead. The slightest injustice shown by the leader - and he could not only immediately lose his powers, but also seriously suffer.

Of course, the leader received remuneration for his work from the members of the artel. But that was where his privileges ended. For example, in an artel of diggers, the leader, having distributed the work, took a shovel and went to dig his site.

But the leaders enjoyed well-deserved respect and honor, since they always acted for the common good and not everyone could fulfill its functions. But it must be said about ordinary artel workers - they were able to understand what management functions they needed and who could perform them in the best way. Hence such a phenomenon as mutual responsibility, which is expressed by the formula: one for all and all for one.

All of the above is microeconomics. situational decisions. Can there be natural power on the scale of a social system, i.e. society as a whole? And here, from behind a veil of silence, we face the social organization of Russian Old Believers, primarily the Bespopovtsy. According to A.V. Pyzhikov, they accounted for up to thirty percent of the population back in the 19th century and were the most significant financial force of the Russian Empire. And few people know that in this environment, merchants and industrialists acted only as trusted representatives of the respective communities. And who has heard of the social organization among the ofenes? This is also a very large group of the population that lived by its own rules and had a social economy organized on the principles of natural, i.e. acting for the benefit of the people and the authorities responsible to them. Of course, they did not adopt constitutions and did not arrange an ecumenical op every few years, accompanied by debates of candidates for deputies or somewhere else. Any person acquired powers or they were deprived when the need arose.

We cannot ignore the military organization, where today we see a rigid hierarchy of subordination. How is this hierarchy formed under natural authority? Almost the same as in economic activity, but there is also its own specifics. First, if you manage to make a fool of yourself in economic activities, then you will remain hungry, but most likely you will not die. And in a war, you will no longer have time for re-elections and other democratic procedures. You will be killed faster, therefore, the cost of voter error is much higher here. The military leader does not simply determine the place of each in battle. His task is, in the face of active opposition from the enemy, to organize the battle in such a way that his fighters would be in the most advantageous position in terms of the possibility of maneuver, the convenience of using weapons and a host of other factors that make the cost of victory minimal. And here the personal ability to use weapons does not solve much. How to choose a commander? The initial selection takes place in a relatively small group that already has only minimal experience of war. And the main selection criterion is moral. We must be sure that the commander is ready to share with us the common fate that we entrust to him. It is clear that an ordinary fighter cannot assess the leader's competence according to some objective criteria, and here a second factor appears: luck. People follow a successful leader, but if a person has no luck, then there is nothing to talk about. Moreover, in ancient times, people believed, not without reason, that if luck loves the father, then the son can inherit it. Therefore, often the son inherited power, but this was not the law.

It's not like that in the army now. The year 1941 showed that the top military leadership of the country, despite the purges, failed to cope with the task of training and properly deploying military personnel. During the war, this task was already solved by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief himself, as a result of his personnel policy, in the list of commanders of the USSR in 1945, we see completely different names than in 1941. But the criteria for nominating military leaders approached natural ones: the ability to win with little bloodshed and good luck, which is consequence of professional competence. This resulted in the victory. As His Serene Highness Prince Suvorov said, "... good luck, good luck! God have mercy, because you also need skill!"

It seems necessary to look at the war from an economic point of view, considering it as a day job. So we won, no one canceled the holy right of three days to plunder the city, so how to share the booty? Equally, since everyone's life that was at stake has the same value. Of course, some kind of military treasury will be formed, which will remain at the disposal of the prince. I repeat, this is not a princely personal treasury, but a military one.

So, natural power in war and peaceful labor is based on the formula one for all and all for one, which presupposes the unity of purpose of the rulers and the ruled. And such power was once state in Russia. Of course, titanic efforts were expended so that we would lose the memory of that ancient Russian state, but monuments remain, about which below.

Serpent Shafts. This is a colossal engineering structure built by our ancestors south of Kyiv. The scale of the work is such that it is obvious that organized efforts to build them have been going on for centuries. And their remnants were insurmountable for the tankers of the Wehrmacht. Of course, only the state could do this. And now another monument, literary. This is the "Word about Igor's Campaign", which tells us:

The struggle of the princes with the filthy ones subsided, for brother said to brother: "This is mine, and that is mine." And the princes began to talk about the small “this great” and forge troubles for themselves, and the filthy from all sides came with victories to the Russian land.

It is quite clear from the context that the author of the Lay knows that the princes were not always like this. And indeed, the Byzantine chronicles, describing the meeting of Emperor Tsemiskhius and Prince Svyatoslav, are full of bewilderment: Svyatoslav arrives at the meeting with the emperor in a boat, sitting at the oar, like an ordinary rower. He is no different from his warriors, except that the clothes are less worn, which is understandable. And having completed the negotiations, Svyatoslav again took the oar and carried out the commands of the feeder, which was unthinkable for the Byzantines. But for our ancestors, this was normal, just like the fact that under other circumstances the orders of the prince were carried out unquestioningly, up to self-sacrifice. Such relations in society are possible only when the personal dignity of everyone is equally respected, that is, both the prince and the simple warrior are equal in this sense. And the right to power, even unlimited, gives only service to society. To self-sacrifice.

So, I believe, the question of natural power, under which it is the only worthy life for people, has been disclosed enough for further understanding and analysis of the available facts. Let's move on to the power of unnatural or bitch. An explanation is needed here. The term "bitches" was introduced into mass literature by great experts on this issue - A. Solzhenitsyn and V. Rezun aka Victor Suvorov. Since the vile writings of the former are now studied by schoolchildren as compulsory literature, I have the right to believe that I will not offend public morality in any way by using this term and revealing its content.

So, in the "Word" the ancient chronicler tells us nothing more and nothing less than that the Russian princes got involved, which was manifested in the division of the country into rags and their appropriation of rights to the occupied lands. That is, the natural order of power was destroyed. Princes and ordinary people are no longer equal, they are now obliged to the prince, and he has the right to tear three skins from them. And the princely squad is no longer the defenders of the Russian land (which they showed at Kalka and beyond), but a bandit gang serving the prince for a small share of the looted from the roofed population. But to go to a real war - there are no fools, they can be killed there. As for the people, they are now a resource. I consider this kind of power, which has lost its unity with the people, unnatural or bitch. For such power own consumer status

There is, of course, the question: how could this happen? But for us—everything should be clear to you—right before our very eyes, a great country was pulled apart into specific principalities, and they continue to pull Russia apart, since many more principalities can turn out on its territory. If there's something else you don't understand, read on. And a thousand years ago and now the catastrophe was preceded by perestroika - the struggle of the elites for power. Then, as it seems from today, it was the Baptism of Russia. It was after Baptism that the princely power became inherited, and the inheritance itself assumed not only military power, but also the right to land, which was not the case before. Everything is like that of "civilized" neighbors, but they have this right consecrated by the church on behalf of God. So the ancient Russian priesthood also got bored, without it no baptism would be possible. I don’t want to offend either Christians or the actual teaching of Christ, but how many times have the dirtiest deeds been covered up in the name of God?

Now we need to understand how the bitch state functions. So you captured the territory and remained alive and are safe for now. But you can maintain your position only by military force, because the people will simply not feed you without coercion, and there are also neighbors who think that they would certainly manage this territory better than you. That is, the first task is to collect enough resources to maintain a certain military status to protect against competitors and collect tribute. But there is a problem here - your soldiers do not serve the people, but also want to have a consumer status. Ideally, like you. And they are always ready to go to the one who will give more.

Here the Tale of Bygone Years tells us about such a conversation between Prince Igor and his squad:

“The youths of Sveneld dressed up in weapons and clothes, and we are naked. Come, prince, with us for tribute, and you will get it for yourself, and for us.

That is, the squad explained to the prince that the tribute already collected from the Drevlyans was not enough for the lads. Sveneld (one of Igor's governors) collects more and we want the same amount. So who manages whom, the prince of the squad or the squad of the prince? It is understood that if he does not want to go, then they will manage without him. But why do they need such a prince? They need a good one. Well, at least Sveneld. There are many such episodes in history. Then the squad decides that it is not their order to eat on wooden dishes - the prince gives gold. That squad believes that it is too early to conclude peace - we have not yet taken ours in the war. And the princes do everything to please the squad. And do not say that you would have arranged everything differently. The problem is that you have only one source of income - the population. But you cannot rob your subjects until they die out - then the neighbors will simply come and, at best, they will throw you out. And then a saving thought comes - to go to the neighbors yourself. Hence the internecine wars, about which the Lay informs us. And if the neighbors are strong, then why not take the Tatars, Poles, Germans to share? And wasn't it all?

Whether it is possible to satiate the lackadaisical greed of the elite is a rhetorical question. The more you give to the squad, the less they need you. Consequently, buying her devotion or loyalty becomes more and more expensive. In addition, generations change, new ones come to replace the satiated ones, and you or your heirs need to do something again. But you can never do one thing: make your environment serve the people. Well, think for yourself, because the elite exists only for this, in order to rob the people on your behalf. That is, for them, the people are not a subject, but an object. Is it possible to serve an object? Give your life for him? Does anyone ask a cow if she wants to give milk? The answer is obvious. On the other hand, the elite also understand that without them you are nobody and there is no way to call you. And it will rob the population even without you. That is, you are superfluous on this celebration of life.

Except for two important circumstances. Firstly, many monarchs, understanding the situation correctly, try to divide the elite into groups, creating a constant conflict of interests between them, while they themselves act as arbitrators. Thus, the elite is not up to you personally, but here you need to keep your eyes open: at any moment, an elite collusion is possible and you kirdyk.

Examples: Peter III, Paul I, Nicholas II. Secondly, there are external, as they say now, “partners”. They can support the monarch, like Napoleon Paul I, or they can support some elite group, like England in this case. The case ended in patricide, as we know. So do not envy the monarchs - they have their own professional problems, and their power is very limited. For example, after the death of Peter I for a whole century, power in Russia passed to the guard, which decided who would sit on the throne.

Thus, we must finally understand that the real bearer of power is not the monarch, but the elite. And since the elite is not homogeneous, the question of its ability to set goals in the interests of the whole society is nonsense. The elite is united by another goal - maximum consumption with minimum responsibility. But the resource of consumption is always limited, and the number of the elite is only growing. Hence the inevitable competition of elite groups (clans), which results in coups d'etat, as in February 1917. The people never make revolutions! But sometimes there are revolutions from above.

A striking example here is Ivan the Terrible, whose role in history is deliberately reduced to the extermination of approximately 5,000 boyars and their lackeys. But it was he who created the Russian state. It was he who became the first sovereign of the entire people, and not the main elite. It was his zemstvo reform that freed the people from the boyars and gave them real self-government. The economic effect was enormous - there was a resource for a multiple increase in the army, as a result of which the country's territory expanded explosively.

And without any serfdom. During the decades that he ruled, the Russian people formed as a community that was able to defend the country in 1612. In Novgorod there is a monument to the Millennium of Russia. Find Ivan the Terrible on it. And what kind of hysteria erupted in the media after the installation of a monument to him in Orel? The elite understands well who belongs to her and who does not. But are there many such sovereigns in the history of the country and how did they end up?

However, all of the above is only a historical background to the main thing, i.e. characterization of bitch power. What are its main features?

The basis of such power is the capture of a resource and the establishment of control over it. Anything can be understood as a resource - people, land, intellectual property rights, etc. Anything for which you can charge a fee. The resource is captured by force or deceit, never by agreement.

1. The mechanism for exercising power is the distribution of a resource for acquiring devotion, or at least the loyalty of the elite.
2. There is a constant struggle between the representatives of the elite for the possession of the resource.
3. Any ruler, regardless of the existence of constitutions or laws, exercises his powers strictly within the framework of maintaining a balance of interests of the elite clans.
4. The interests of the people themselves are always in last place and are taken into account only to the extent of insuperable necessity. That is, a cow needs to be fed and provided with shelter for the winter, at least somehow.

Actually, this could have ended, but the question remained open, why does bitch power take precedence over natural? It's all about the scale of the managed system. If you gather even inveterate scoundrels in a small group somewhere in the taiga or on a desert island, then the natural order of power will very quickly be established, in which the goals and result of management will be obvious to the governed, and the remuneration of managers will be adequate to the socially useful result.

But if you manage millions of subjects? How to establish natural authority among them? You must come up with some new ways of managing, ensuring transparency of goal setting, responsibility and rewards for managers. Have you presented the scale of the task? Now let's play this game. You are the ruler, not constrained by any laws. And so, with the best of intentions, you quickly executed the entire elite and began a management reform. And something began to turn out, i.e. The people have definitely supported you. However, here your neighbors on the planet, who really did not like all this, have gathered some kind of sacred alliance to protect civilization and are preparing to declare war on you. What are you going to do?

It is obvious that first of all it is necessary to save the country. But the new control system has not yet been created and practically tested. And then you will inevitably take control of all significant resources and appoint a new elite, which will owe its appointment to you, and not to the people. Her professionalism will be limited and questionable, but you will inevitably encourage her, forgiving mistakes and mistakes and allocating some resources to her. You will shoot someone, but they will be completely frostbitten.

You need to prevent or win the war, but there is no time. That is, the bitch model of power will be reproduced due to circumstances that will leave you no other decision. But now the war is over, you won. It is possible to return to reforms, but now there is one problem: does your elite already need such reforms? Now they have everything, but what will it be like after the reforms? After all, the very idea of ​​commensurate their remuneration with the result achieved is criminal for them!

It should be added to the above that for the elite the issue of maintaining their consumer status is of paramount importance. So that people do not understand what is happening, you need to cover up your real activities with something. And here it is rightly said that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels. For fools, I am not writing about patriotism, but about the fact that it is most often used to cover up the dirty and unsightly deeds of power. The second thing the elite is concerned about is limiting the level of public education. There is no need to give examples here, everything is obvious. Well, the third and most reliable way to maintain the status quo is the swindling of the people themselves, i.e. change in his moral orientation. And here it is simply impossible not to give such an example.

As I wrote above, Russian merchants and industrialists from the Old Believers did not own property and money, but managed it. And the funds were very significant. That is, when a merchant died, it was not at all necessary that the business passed to his sons. Immediately, another merchant could appear - a millionaire, as if from nowhere. And Emperor Nicholas I, far from the worst of the Russian emperors, found out about this. As an intelligent person, he understood that one more or two generations, and these Old Believers would acquire such strength that they would want and receive political power.

And he set them a condition: either go to Orthodoxy (which is a mortal sin for the Old Believers) and then all your capital will be inherited by your children, or leave the merchant guilds within a year. What the merchants did, guess for yourself. And who did not guess, read the works of A.V. Pyzhikov.

The question of whether it is possible to return from a twisted state to a human one, I leave for independent reflection and discussion. As well as about what kind of power is in Russia today and whom it serves, what it sees as its goal. I, taking into account the discussion, will write about this next post. And first I recommend to see (who has not seen) my old work

On economic expediency and patriotism

The question of economic feasibility arises when it is necessary to evaluate certain events that have already taken place or when planning some actions.

Immediately, we note that economic feasibility can be assessed subjectively and objectively. For example, a seller and a buyer can evaluate the result of a transaction that has just been completed in completely different ways. Therefore, one should first determine the economic entity, and only then talk about the economic feasibility or effectiveness of its activities.

Let's take the simplest economic entity - subsistence farming, peasant or handicraft, led by the head of the family. Obviously, such an economy will function strictly within the framework of its own, subjectively formed goals, because it is the ability to set goals independently that distinguishes the subject from the object. Obviously, for a particular economic entity, the question of economic feasibility does not arise at all - all his actions (in the absence of mental health problems) will be strictly expedient.

The foregoing is enough for an important conclusion: any economic activity requires goal setting, i.e. planning and assessing the compliance of the actual state of affairs with the plan at all stages of the production process. And people have always understood this, from time immemorial, as well as the fact that goal-setting or planning can be of different quality:

1. The plan is carried out without significant deviations;

2. The implementation of the plan fails due to the fact that some objective factors (circumstances) were not taken into account in it. They are divided into two groups:

The first is the circumstances that could and should have been taken into account when developing the plan. Failure to take them into account means only one thing - the incompetence of managers.

The second is the circumstances that could not be taken into account when planning the economic process, for example, the fall of a meteorite.

But here it should be noted that the development of civilization reduces the list of such circumstances. For example, floods can be protected by a dam, and droughts can be protected by an irrigation system. Over time, experience is gained and errors in planning are minimized - i.e. appears predictability result, which characterizes the professionalism of management. However, it is obvious that the control function is a derivative of intelligence, and it is different for everyone. Thus, even at the most primitive level of development of a personal natural economy, the decisive factor in its success is not so much physical strength as intellectual potential. Russian landowner A.N. Engelhardt emphasized that the success of the peasant economy in Russia, other things being equal, is primarily due to the ability of the owner to plan, mainly long-term, for several years. But, as readers should note, starting with expediency, we have come to the issue of economic efficiency, since they are inextricably linked. That is, efficiency is management quality criterion economic activity. The objectivity of this criterion in the personal economy can not cause any doubts - the harvest, calculated in the fall. This is a kind of coefficient of performance (COP), as in technology, expressed by the ratio of labor and result. Moreover, the desire to increase the efficiency of one's own labor is natural for a person, already because no one wants to spend their lives only on work. And it seems self-evident that no one will create problems for themselves by destroying the environment or building expensive to maintain and useless facilities for life. All this is indisputable for a personal household, where the owner has economic subjectivity, which manifests itself not only in the independence of goal-setting, but also in personal responsibility and for the results of your work. But there is one more circumstance without which economic subjectivity is impossible. This is information about the production process and its results, which the owner possesses in its entirety and accumulates year after year, enriching personal experience. However, the trouble with individual (family) farms is that the carrier of information is only consciousness. And to transfer your consciousness even to children is a big problem. In addition, a person's memory is limited and some experience is lost, some facts are not stored in memory at all, as a result they are not systematized and do not receive proper understanding. And so for thousands of years - like grandfathers, great-grandfathers, without any noticeable development.

It is well known that the efficiency of an economy based on the social division of labor far exceeds the economy of isolated private farms. But without the formalization of information about economic activity (planning and collection of information about the current state of the economy), no social economy is possible. Even large peasant families inevitably broke up into separate farms, as evidenced by A.N. Engelhardt. To formalize economic information, it is not enough to be able to write and count. Economic information is a system of interrelated objective indicators. Why interconnected? Because all indicators describe a single process and its results. And this requires a method or methodology for systematizing information that reflects the relationship between economic objects. This methodology and the information collected on its basis unambiguously characterizes the achieved level of quality in economic management. Namely, the quality of management is the main factor of its effectiveness. It is very easy to prove this thesis. Here are two Soviet leaders of agriculture - Ivan Khudenko and Magomed Chartaev. One raised labor productivity by 20 times, and the other by 64 times! But in fairness, it should be noted that Khudenko was not allowed to turn around and was quickly removed, and then imprisoned on trumped-up charges. However, here we are not interested in the fact of Brezhnev's repressions, but in the importance of the management factor in terms of its influence on the efficiency of an economic entity. In the examples given, this factor is key, since no investments or new technologies were used (especially in the case of Khudenko, who got the result in one season). And one must understand that they achieved their results without computers, on the Soviet technological base, in enterprises lagging behind against the general background. They created their own methodology and based on it - their own information systems that function perfectly without any computers. I write about computers specifically for those who think that computers solve something. No, they only quickly calculate the data entered by people according to the algorithms embedded in them. But the methodology is primary.

People who are far from practical economics may not understand what I am talking about above. Consider a simple and illustrative example. We have the simplest ZU-2 installation, consisting of two KPVT machine guns. The goal is to shoot down the plane. The shooter must aim taking into account the course of the aircraft, altitude and speed. When the target changes the motion parameters, the aiming problem is solved anew. It is clear that different arrows will solve the problem with different success. But we need to achieve the same probability of hitting the target by each shooter, since only then can we guarantee the reliability of the anti-aircraft cover of the protected object. What needs to be done for this? To begin with, to exclude subjective assessments in determining the elements of the movement of the target by the shooters, for example, install a radar and organize data transmission to all shooters. But they still aim differently. Then we must equip the installation with a guidance device and organize a direct transmission of target designation from the radar to it. And now, instead of the ZU-2, we got the Shilka. And the qualifications of the gunner are of little interest to us, more precisely, we have changed his tasks and qualification requirements. But the main thing here is that without formalizing the guidance algorithm, nothing will work out for us. And this is a mathematical model. But models can also be different! And if the model is crooked, then no programmers and the best computers will help us, the shells will fly into the white world, and enemy aircraft will freely do their dirty work!

The projectile always hits where it was pointed. And it's the same in economics. As a result of any economic process, you always get exactly what you did, no more and no less. If the shell hit the friendly, then it is not the shell that is to blame, but the gunner. And if the economy is falling all the time, then that is how it is managed.

In a social economy, the labor of people must be so organized that the result is better than the labor of all of them, but each working on his own. And this was well understood in very ancient times, carefully documenting economic activity, which is evidenced by a huge number of archaeological finds: clay tablets from Mesopotamia, papyri of Egypt, and so on. The meaning of documentation is to take into account all the factors affecting production, improving the predictability of the process. However, both in antiquity and today, the basis of the social organization of labor is slave labor. Slavic not in the legal registration of the status of a slave, but in the sense of the lack of subjectivity of persons engaged in productive labor. Just like the slaves of antiquity, modern hired personnel are not economically subject, primarily due to the inability to assess the economic feasibility and effectiveness of their work. And everything else follows from this, including legal inequality and economic exploitation. This applies not only to hired personnel, but also to business owners. They certainly have certain privileges, but in the conditions of the so-called "free market" they cannot perform the goal-setting function with proper quality, simply because they can never be sure of the solvency of the market. Of course, they plan production, reduce costs, invest in new technologies - but all this does not guarantee success (planned profit), since the lack of solvency in the consumer market at any time can destroy any business and it is not a fact that destroyed technologies and competencies will ever will recover. That is, the market, from the point of view of private business, is a kind of permanent risk factor, absolutely not amenable to any forecast. How can goal-setting be carried out in a situation of uncertainty of effective demand? Only according to the principle of the game of toss - guessed right or not. But even here questions remain: if you guessed correctly, then by what percentage? That is, the demand was 100 units, but they planned to produce and produced 58. What is the efficiency of the enterprise and the country's economy as a whole? Let's sum it up in a nutshell:

1. In the absence or uncertainty of goal setting, the evaluation of the effectiveness of the economic process does not make sense.

2. Evaluation of the efficiency of the economy is possible only if there is objective economic information about the goals and results of a particular economic process.

Let us now look at the economy of the state as a territorially and legally isolated production complex. Should the state power act in the interests of the whole society or only in narrowly corporate, own, considering the territory as a cash cow?

From the Constitution of the Russian Federation, for example, it follows that the government must act in the interests of the country and the entire people. But somehow they forget about the secret protocol to the Constitution. So, if the government acts in the common interest, then it must somehow think about what it (the common interest) represents. And thinking, formulate goals. And they can be of two types: first, economic development and ensuring the security of the country and citizens. Secondly, all kinds of entertainment. Well, people should have fun. Fun is a necessary thing, but in Russian conditions, economic development should certainly be a priority. Therefore, there should be at least one person in the government who understands what economic expediency and efficiency are on a national scale. Whether there are such people there is a rhetorical question. From the text above, it should already be clear that goal setting in the economy must be specific, i.e. expressed in a system of objective economic indicators. Should these indicators be public? Certainly, but how else? People should understand what their work is aimed at and see the results achieved. Well, where is this data? In the USSR, annual statistical collections were published, and every five years, the main directions of the country's development for the next five years. And now what prevents you from posting this information on the Internet, with open access? Just don't talk to me about Rosstat. First, there is no data on goal setting. None. Secondly, Rosstat data has never been credible for a simple reason - there is no source data. I repeat: Rosstat has NO WHERE to get reliable information about the objective economic situation of the country (I ask you not to offer financial statements, who are interested in the reasons - you are here). Thirdly, Rosstat information is not systematized; the data is presented disaggregated, causal relationships, as, for example, in the intersectoral balance, cannot be traced. Well, the last thing that completely destroys any trust in Rosstat is its subordination to the Ministry of Economy. To write what the authorities need and not be clever. This is the same as in an enterprise to subordinate the accounting department to the planning department. You can subdue, the paper endures everything, but how then to understand why there is no money?

Everything about any economic entity and its ability to manage can be understood from the analysis of what information it consumes and what it generates. The foregoing is enough to understand that the government of the Russian Federation simply does not need any objective economic information. Well, if you feel like it, Rosstat will draw exactly what is needed at the moment. The only document that can hardly be attributed to planning is the state budget. But this is more of a cut sheet, since the allocation of funds for certain purposes is never accompanied by specifics - what exactly should be done with a clear economic motivation. This excludes any responsibility for the expediency and efficiency of spending budget funds. The amount of allocated funds is directly proportional to the influence of a particular clan. Do you need examples? You are welcome. Rusnano has existed for 10 years with all the reorganizations, and what is the result?

Word to the auditors of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation:

For 2007-2012, the expenses amounted to more than 196 billion rubles. Over 5 years, 6 billion rubles were spent on administrative and economic needs, 5.3 billion rubles on staff accommodation (purchase and repair of part of the building), 4 billion rubles on consulting and expert services, 560 million rubles on security, and 560 million rubles on transport. 850 million rubles. 7 billion rubles were spent on wages and social benefits, the joint venture calculated. Labor costs per person from 2007 to 2012 increased from 65 thousand rubles to 593 thousand rubles, or more than 9 times. … At the time of the audit, there were no documents confirming the effectiveness of the investments made. … A number of transactions carried out at the expense of investments have signs of laundering and legalization of funds, obtaining unjustified tax benefits, underestimating taxable income, unjustified receipt of VAT refunds from the budget during export-import operations.

And what, Chubais was removed from his post? In the same fat years, the Skolkovo project was muddied. And what has been achieved? But even if there were some results, where is the industry in which these achievements can be introduced? The Russian one is slowly but surely dying, so Skolkovo is working for the Western one? Or in Chinese? Well, where are the numbers, where are the public reports of responsible persons?

Well, about the industry, since we mentioned it. Here is the SSJ 100 project. In the development of an aircraft consisting of 60% of imported components (according to some estimates, 80%), such money has been pumped that will never pay off, even if Poghosyan's dreams come true in terms of sales. In the meantime, the GSS company is increasing losses from year to year. And the more aircraft sold, the greater the loss. All state corporations that could have been forced to buy this plane have already bought it. That's it, bankruptcy is inevitable if budgetary injections are not repeated. My question is: who will pay for the banquet? Again the population, who else?

And finally, because of which I decided to write this post - the program "Digital Economy". The cut was just frank, nothing embarrassing. No specific, objectively verifiable goals are indicated at all. I am silent about the assessment of the overall impact of this program on the country's economy - we do not accept this, as well as being responsible for the results. Here is what I. Ashmanov, not the last person in the IT industry of the Russian Federation, thinks on this topic:

…the digital economy is not independent, it serves the real economy. Of course, computers make it easier to do business, work with public services, etc. It would seem that this should reduce jobs, but new jobs appear that serve digital processes.

For those who don't understand. The digital economy does not produce anything by itself. But information technology can raise the efficiency of the real economy. But is such a task set? No, no one says so. A project for the sake of writing off budget funds, which will quietly exist as long as the money is allocated. The money in the budget will run out and the project will die without bringing any benefit to the country.

What the authorities of the Russian Federation understand by the digital economy is clearly visible on the Platon system. The official cover for cashing out is taking care of the roads. Well, let's put ourselves in the place of people who really want to improve the condition of Russian roads. So, the roads need money. First question: how much? Obviously, some standards for the construction and operation of roads are needed here. Not a question, there are specialists, they have developed it. According to the standards, the required amount was determined to maintain roads in good condition. Now the question is where to get the money? The answer is obvious - from those who ride on the roads. How to take? Yes, in fairness, who travels more - he pays more, i.e. we include road tax in the price of fuel, we cancel the transport tax. And if a pensioner on his “penny” in the spring reaches the dacha, and in the fall to the garage in the city, then he will pay a penny. And the one who constantly drives trucks will pay well. Administering this collection is as easy as shelling pears, and therefore we will reduce the number of tax officials. And they found money for the roads, and the officials were reduced. Economically sound solution. It would seem, what else? But no, that's not how we do it. According to the Vedomosti newspaper:

The launch of "Platon" ... amazingly accurately reflects the traditions and customs of the Russian government - making decisions in favor of businessmen and government agencies close to it no serious economic justification, with unobvious benefits for the economy and obvious benefit to those receiving state money..

But for 13 years, the system operator will earn at least 10.6 billion rubles a year just out of thin air. And the fact that even the Central Bank of the Russian Federation estimated the increase in inflation from the introduction of "Platon" at 10-20 percent does not interest anyone. Apparently, they liked the idea and decided to expand and deepen the digitization of the economy - in the same way.

This list of "brilliant economic decisions" of the Russian government can be continued for a long time. After all, even juvenile justice was brought here solely for the purpose of cutting budget money. I'm not talking about what the Ministry of Culture spends money on.

But there is another approach to organizing the digital economy, again I. Ashmanov:

…… if we carelessly and uncritically develop the digital economy, it will be owned and run by US supercorporations. After all, today we already work on their processors, use their smartphones. If we want to create a developed and secure digital economy, we need a full line of proprietary technologies. It is possible to develop the digital economy in Russia in such a way as to radically reduce dependence on the United States in 5 years.

But does the government of the Russian Federation think about it? Before lunch they think about what else to cash out, and after lunch - to which offshore to send. But was it not so in the Khrushchev-Brezhnev USSR?

Recently, much has been written about the OGAS project by V.M. Glushkov, who, as many believe, could have prevented the collapse of the USSR. Maybe he could, but at the same time, all publications on this topic focus the reader's attention on the technical side of the issue, i.e. telecommunications systems and computing power. Wherein meaning of the project remains hidden for the reader, which is why I consider it necessary to tear the veils. Initially, Glushkov's project was called the Unified State Network of Computing Centers (EGSVTs), which implies the presence of at least 20,000 computing centers in the country. These are large enterprises, ministries, as well as cluster centers serving small enterprises. Characteristic was the presence of a distributed data bank and the possibility of addressless access from any point of this system to any information after automatic verification of the authority of the requesting person. Communications had to be carried out via broadband channels. That is, the Internet and blockchain, in modern terms. At that time it was an advanced solution, but that's not the point. Word to V.M. Glushkov[i] :

In addition to the structure of the network, I immediately found it necessary to develop a system of mathematical models for managing the housekeeper in order to see regular flows of information. I told Academician V.S. Nemchinov, who at that time was seriously ill and was lying at home, however, received me, listened to me and, in principle, approved everything.

Then I presented our concept to M.V. Keldysh, who approved everything except moneyless settlement system of the population, but without it, the system also works. In his opinion, she would call unnecessary emotions, and should not be confused with planning at all. I agreed with him, and we did not include this part in the project. In this regard, I wrote a separate note to the Central Committee of the CPSU, which surfaced many times, then disappeared again, but no decision was ever made regarding the creation of a cashless settlement system.

Did everyone understand what Glushkov wanted? He wanted replace the leading role of the party with well-known mathematical models, disclose to the public all economic information and even cancel money. And this is in 1962! Why he was not shot immediately is a mystery to me. The point, obviously, is the insufficiency of the previous purges of the KGB, but its strengthening by party cadres has already begun. But let's go further. The project was considered by the commission under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, about the results - Glushkov:

Unfortunately, after the consideration of the project by the commission, almost nothing remained of it, the entire economic part was withdrawn, remained just the network. The seized materials were destroyed, burned, as they were secret. We were not even allowed to have a copy at the institute. Therefore, we unfortunately we can't restore them..

V.N. began to object sharply to the whole project as a whole. Starovsky, head of the CSB. His objections were demagogic. We insisted on such a new accounting system so that any information could be immediately obtained from anywhere. And he referred to the fact that the Central Statistical Administration was organized on the initiative of Lenin, and it is coping with the tasks set by him; managed to get assurances from Kosygin that the information that the Central Statistical Service gives to the government is enough for management, and so you don't have to do anything.

Enough has been said so that those who are able to think can understand the following:

1. V.M. Glushkov and his colleagues developed a mathematical model for managing the cashless economy of the USSR, and the country had a chance to go into absolute separation from the West. However, all developments were not only not accepted, but also DESTROYED the then Marxist clique in power.

2. Then the OGAS project appeared - the castrated project of the EGSVTs, in which the authorities agreed to leave the iron, but destroyed its meaning.

3. The OGAS project was never implemented, and if it had been launched (and the project cost was 20 billion Soviet rubles, with the USSR’s annual military budget of 18 billion), it would have been a waste of people’s money and accelerated the collapse of the Union.

The saddest thing is that she herself was destroyed methodology, i.e. management model. I, as a person who developed a similar model, is generally very sorry - it would be something to compare my own with. Or don't do it at all. But one way or another, we cannot evaluate the model of Glushkov and his unknown colleagues today. But we can see with what determination the Marxists destroyed the future of the USSR for the sake of their petty selfish interests. After all, the material well-being of the then head of the CSB or even the general secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU is simply incomparable with those of Dimon, for example. And here we must understand that the Russian government will do anything to preserve its position, without thinking about the consequences that could lead to another collapse of the country. Russia's resources are great, but not infinite.

There are many smart analysts who, looking at how the data centers of the Federal Tax Service and telecommunications networks are being built, make thoughtful conclusions that the government has some far-reaching economic plans and based on the information collected by the tax services, more efficient management will be carried out. economy, almost planning. Obviously, these analysts have never held tax records in their hands and have a poor idea of ​​what is at stake. All these activities are only the development of the budget of a certain clan grouping. Tax reporting does not contain managerially significant information at all, and accounting - even more so, since all accounting reports in the Russian Federation are unreliable. Why - I already gave a link to a detailed analysis of the problem. Equally, the scam with the digital economy is another PR cover for drinking budget funds, nothing more.

To understand the actions of the Russian authorities, one must imagine a one-day firm that exists solely on the proceeds of money laundering. A specialist comes to this firm who proposes to introduce information technology (whether paper or electronic), which will make all financial flows transparent, and the predictive power of economic planning almost absolute. I hope everyone understands where this specialist will be sent? And so the Russian Federation, from the point of view of the groupings in power, is a one-day firm. The economic feasibility and effectiveness of any budget spending is considered solely in terms of the amount of rollback to offshore.

Well, now is the time to talk about patriotism as a national idea proposed by V.V. Putin. Can people who set themselves the task of developing the country transfer its monetary system and customs policy to external management? I mean the "independence" of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation from the government and the entry of the Russian Federation into the WTO. In addition, would a patriot reduce the consumption of his fellow citizens by buying unsecured foreign government bonds, strengthening the economy of a potential enemy? I somehow imagine patriotism differently.

I consider myself a patriot of my country, which was called the USSR not so long ago. And when they destroyed it, they destroyed my country, and the fact that no one answered for it gives me a certain spiritual discomfort. After all, the procedure can be repeated. Russia is definitely my country. But as a patriot, I do not want to have anything in common with modern Russian statehood, by which I mean the system of state administration of the Russian Federation.

As a patriot, I believe that an economic management body should be created in the country that is capable of:

1. Formulate the goals of the country's economic development, expressing them in objective economic indicators, accessible to the understanding of all citizens.

2. Regularly publish reports on the achievement of goals in plan-fact format.

3. Ensure the rationality of spending budgetary funds through proper economic justification of public spending and effective control over their implementation.

4. Ensure the publicity and accessibility of all economic information for any citizen of the country with appropriate guarantees of its reliability.

And if the implementation of this task is hindered by the current Constitution, then it is patriotism that requires changing it or adopting a new one.

This is the only way we, as patriots, can stop the collapse of the country and direct it to the path of development. But there are problems here that cannot be solved by changing the personal composition of the government. The fact is that, in addition to a small number of patriots, Russian society largely consists of lackeys, for whom, as Saltykov-Shchedrin said, the Fatherland is always His Excellency. And everything suits them anyway, there are enough crumbs from the master's table. But these people are not so many.

The main problem was identified more than two thousand years ago, which is clearly written in Plato's Dialogues, who even then drew Socrates' attention to the strange beliefs of sheep, according to which they, the sheep, and their shepherds have the same goals. As can be observed in nature, the sheep have not changed a bit since then and continue to believe that the shepherds need them not just for meat and wool, but for something sublime. These sheep (and there are millions of heads, which can be seen from the results of the elections to the State Duma) are the basis and foundation of power. But which of the sheep is a patriot? True, some Russian rams consider themselves smarter than others, for example, Ukrainian rams. But on what is such a judgment based?

So, in my opinion, Russia deserves exactly the kind of government it has. And there is no one to be offended with, except for themselves. To live worthy of people, you must first become people. And take responsibility for the fate of the Motherland.

The task of a patriot is to ensure the economic prosperity of his own country. And the more patriots there are in Russia, the faster this task will be solved. But a patriot must be economically subject, i.e. to understand what he wants himself, what is good for the country, and what is harmful, to be able to formulate his demands on the authorities, and this requires mass economic literacy. As Lenin taught, every cook should learn govern the state. But to persons holding public office and unable to clearly justify the economic expediency of their decisions, society has the right to ask the Stalin question: Are you a fool or an enemy of the people? Officials understand this and really dislike Joseph Vissarionovich.

Which is directly related to the stated topic. It remains to answer the question in the title of the article. Power is the practically realizable ability to govern. It is always authoritarian and does not require laws for its implementation. But management is always subjective, and therefore the power is different.

Oh terrible, unprecedented grief!
We have angered God, we have sinned:
Lord yourself a regicide
We called.A. S. Pushkin, “Boris Godunov”
Pushkin conceived "Boris Godunov" historical and political tragedy. The drama "Boris Godunov" opposed the romantic tradition. Like a political tragedy, it addressed contemporary issues: the role of the people in history and the nature of tyrannical power.
If in "Eugene Onegin" a harmonious composition appeared through the "collection of colorful chapters", then here it was masked by a collection of colorful scenes. Boris Godunov is characterized by a lively variety of characters and historical episodes. Pushkin broke with the tradition in which the author lays a proven and complete thought as a basis and then decorates it with "episodes".
With "Boris Godunov" and "Gypsies" a new poetics begins: the author, as it were, sets up an experiment, the outcome of which is not predetermined. The meaning of the work is in posing the question, not in solving it. The Decembrist Mikhail Lunin recorded an aphorism in Siberian exile: "Some writings convey thoughts, others make you think." Consciously or unconsciously, he generalized Pushkin's torture. Previous literature "communicated thoughts." Since Pushkin, the ability of literature to "make one think" has become an integral part of art.
In "Boris Godunov" p41 je tragedies are intertwined: the tragedy of power and the tragedy of the people. Having before his eyes eleven volumes of "History ..." Karamzin!, Pushkin could have chosen a different plot if his goal had been to condemn the despotism of tsarist power. Contemporaries were shocked by the unheard-of courage with which Karamzin portrayed the despotism of Ivan the Terrible. Ryleev believed that it was here that Pushkin should look for the theme of the new work.
Pushkin chose Boris Godunov, a ruler who sought to win the love of the people and was not alien to statesmanship. It was such a king that made it possible to reveal the regularity of the tragedy of power, alien to the people.
Boris Godunov in Pushkin cherishes progressive plans and wants the people well, but to realize his intentions he needs power. And power is given only at the price of crime - the steps of the throne are always in the blood. Boris hopes that the power used for good will atone for this step, but the unerring ethical feeling of the people makes him turn away from "King Herod." Abandoned by the people, Boris, contrary to his good intentions, inevitably becomes a tyrant. The crown of his political experience is a cynical lesson:
The people do not feel mercy:
Do good - he will not say thank you;
Rob and execute - you will not be worse.
The degradation of power, abandoned by the people and alien to it, is not an accident, but a regularity (“... the sovereign occasionally / Informers interrogates himself”). Godunov senses danger. Therefore, he hurries to prepare his son Theodore to rule the country. Godunov emphasizes the importance of science and knowledge for the one who rules the state:
Learn my son: science cuts
We experience fast-flowing life -
Someday, and soon maybe
All areas that you are now
Depicted so cunningly on paper
All by the hand will get yours -
Learn, my son, and easier and clearer
Sovereign labor you will comprehend.
Tsar Boris believes that he atoned for his guilt (Dmitry's death) by the skillful management of the state. This is his tragic mistake. Good intentions - crime - loss of popular trust - tyranny - death. Such is the natural tragic path of power alienated from the people.
In the monologue “I have reached the highest power,” Boris confesses to the crime. He is completely sincere in this scene, as no one can hear him:
And everything is sick, and the head is spinning,
And the boys are bloody in the eyes...
And I'm glad to run away, but there's nowhere ... terrible!
Yes, pitiful is the one in whom the conscience is unclean.
But the path of the people is also tragic. In portraying the people, Pushkin is alien to both enlightenment optimism and romantic complaints about the mob. He looks with the eyes of Shakespeare. The people are present on stage throughout the tragedy. Moreover, it is he who plays a decisive role in historical conflicts.
However, the position of the people is contradictory. On the one hand, Pushkin's people have an unmistakable moral instinct - its spokesmen in tragedy are the holy fool and Pimen the chronicler. So, talking in a monastery with Pimen, Grigory Otrepiev concludes:
Boris. Boris! Everything trembles before you
No one dares to remind you
About the lot of the unfortunate baby -
Meanwhile, a hermit in a dark cell
Here a terrible denunciation against you writes:
And you will not leave the court of the world,
How can you escape God's judgment?
The image of Pimen is remarkable in its brightness and originality. This is one of the few images of a chronicler monk in Russian literature. Pimen is full of holy faith in his mission: diligently and truthfully to capture the course of Russian history.
Let the descendants of the Orthodox know
Native land past fate,
They remember their great kings
For their labors, for glory, for good -
And for sins, for dark deeds
The Savior is humbly begged
Pimen instructs the young acolyte Grigory Otrepiev, advising him to subdue his passions with prayer and fasting. Pimen admits that in his youth he himself indulged in noisy feasts, "the fun of youth."
... Believe me:
We are captivated from afar by glory, luxury
And female sly love.
I have lived long and enjoyed much;
But since then I only know bliss,
How the Lord brought me to the monastery.
Pimen witnessed the death of Tsarevich Dimitri in Uglich. He tells the details of what happened to Gregory, not knowing that he planned to become an impostor. The chronicler hopes that Gregory will continue his work. In Pimen's speech, folk wisdom sounds, which puts everything in its place, gives everything its strict and correct assessment.
On the other hand, the people in the tragedy are politically naive and helpless, easily entrusting the initiative to the boyars: "... that is what the boyars know, / Not like us ...". Meeting the election of Boris with a mixture of trust and indifference, the people turn away, recognizing in him "King Herod". But he can oppose the authorities only with the ideal of a persecuted orphan. It is the weakness of the impostor that turns into his strength, as it attracts the sympathy of the people to him. Resentment against the criminal government degenerates into a rebellion in the name of an impostor. The poet boldly puts the people into action and gives them a voice - A peasant on the pulpit:
People, people! To the Kremlin!
To the royal chambers! Go!
Knit Borisov puppy!
The popular uprising won. But Pushkin does not end his tragedy with this. The impostor entered the Kremlin, but in order to ascend the throne, he must still commit murder. The roles have changed: the son of Boris Godunov, the old Fyodor, is now the “persecuted baby” himself, whose blood, with almost ritual fatality, the impostor rising up the steps of the throne must shed.
In the last scene, Mosalsky comes out onto the porch of Boris's house with the words: “People! Maria Godunova and her son Theodore poisoned themselves with poison. We saw their dead bodies. (The people are silent in horror.) Why are you silent? Shout: long live Tsar Dimitri Ivanovich!”
The sacrifice has been made, and the people notice with horror that he placed on the throne not an offended orphan, but the murderer of an orphan, the new king Herod.
The final remark: "The people are silent" says a lot. This phrase symbolizes both the moral judgment on the new king, and the future doom of another representative of the criminal government, and the impotence of the people to break out of this circle.

A police officer gets paid to catch criminals. It is issued to a firefighter for extinguishing fires. The plumber takes money for high-quality repaired pipes. Salary in any profession depends on the volume, quality of work and the time for which it was done. Simply put, from the productivity of human actions.

However, there is a profession of an official in the world. And here, in my opinion, the salary does not always depend on productivity. The first Chancellor of Germany, Otto von Bismarck, spoke on this subject: “Officials are drones who write laws according to which a person cannot live. ... Now, if the salary quota of bureaucrats fluctuated up and down depending on the standard of living of the people, then these fools would be less they wrote laws, but they would have thought more.
And I agree with him. And, although Bismarck lived about two centuries ago, his words have not lost their relevance today. The job of officials is to create good living conditions for the citizens of the country. It turns out that the better people live, the happier they are, the higher the salary of the employee. True, in society often do not adhere to this rule. If we take Russian officials as an example, they do almost nothing for the people of the country. The standard of living in the state is low. All goods are imported from abroad, therefore, they are more expensive than if they were produced in the country. Average salaries are about 36,000 rubles a month, which is enough to pay for utilities, buy food, and dress modestly. And many have even less! With all this, there is a lack of jobs, and the unemployment rate in Russia at the moment is 5.2%. Taxes go up every year. Medicine leaves much to be desired. Especially free, but for better treatment, again, you have to pay. And even budget-funded higher education is far from accessible to everyone, due to the lack of places in universities. You can't even talk about pensions. How citizens live in such conditions remains a mystery.
Officials in this situation in the country feel more than good. Their salary varies from 62,000 to 200,000 rubles per month. For example, the average salary of firefighters in Russia is 45,000 rubles per month. It is not even close to the minimum wage for civil servants. Although some risk their lives in the fire, saving people, while others sit in their chairs and “skillfully” lead the country.

There is another curious fact. Soon there will be a holiday of national unity. On November 4 and 7, the state will spend 200 million rubles to disperse clouds in Moscow. Media reports about it. Is it better to invest this money in clouds than in public medicine, education, the economy, what do you think? There is also a project under which Russia will invest 6 billion rubles in Abkhazia by 2019. The government of our country has forgiven a debt of $20 billion to African countries, $240 million
Kyrgyzstan, 30 billion dollars to Cuba. And one gets the feeling that our government is more worried about other countries than about the inhabitants of their own state.

But this is Russia. I am glad that there are countries in the world where ordinary people live well, and the government really cares about the people. So the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, the ruler of the Emirate of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum said: “The role of power is to create an environment in which people are able to realize their dreams and ambitions, and not such an environment that provides the authorities with control” . And, indeed, people in this country have the opportunity to make their plans and dreams come true. At birth, a child receives up to 100,000 dollars and a plot of land on his account, citizens do not pay any taxes to the state and at the same time have free higher education and world-class medicine. Great, isn't it!?
The people of the country will live with dignity only when the salaries of state officials depend on the quality of the work they perform.

Performed by a student of 10 "B" class of university classes at UlSPU, Alexander Ostriychuk. 2017

Kyrgyz State Technical University named after Iskhak Razzakov

Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences

in political science

on the topic: Power and freedom

completed by: Askarbekov Aris,

Art. groups РРТ-1-08

checked:

Bishkek 2010

Introduction. 3

Freedom. 5

Conclusion. thirteen

References. fourteen

Freedom and power are two concepts that have a vital meaning in public and international political life. They always balance among themselves, and violations of this balance lead to unpleasant political, social and other events.

The concept of freedom at all times had many interpretations and was used in a variety of meanings. We can talk about freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of choice. Freedom can be associated with all human values, whether it be economic independence, self-determination of nationality or the choice of work. It was such a frequent use of the words “freedom”, “independence” that made the political theorist Bernard Crick say: “The concept of freedom is of such great importance that we can hardly formulate it with any precision, trying to attach all universal human values ​​to it.”

Power is the ability of one subject to control another subject. It is known from history that power has always existed, and it has always belonged to a small, certain circle of people. Meanwhile, all people without exception strive to rule, but not everyone has a place in the pyramid of power. Most go to this, first of all, for the sake of easy money, for the sake of obtaining unlimited powers, giving the elected representatives of power the opportunity to satisfy their own desires and ambitions. That is why people striving for power, and especially for the highest echelons of power, are ready to invest their own money in order to then protect and increase their wealth. This happens constantly, in a vicious circle, and ultimately boils down to the fact that a person seeks to earn money to gain power, and, gaining power, he seeks to increase money in order to further use it to increase his own power.

But both power and freedom have certain limits of their impact. Somewhere the power forbids too free expression of will, and somewhere, on the contrary, freedom does not allow the power to intrude on universal human values.

Freedom can be perceived in different ways, especially in our time. A person is free to choose something he likes, to believe in any known religion, to engage in various sports, as well as to elect his own candidate and even to be elected to power structures, to take citizenship of another country. All of this is in keeping with social norms. Freedom can be further subdivided into smaller parts, such as the sovereignty of the state, the independence of society, the freedom of the individual.

The origins of freedom are usually sought in the ancient Greek city-states and the Roman Republic. At the same time, as one modern admirer of antiquity noted approvingly, freedom in these states was combined with an imperial conquest policy. The freedom of one's own state by no means excluded the denial of the freedom of other states. The concept of freedom also included freedom from despotic power - such as the master had over his slave. Comparison with despotic power is important for understanding ancient ideas about freedom, according to which freedom was primarily determined by the status of a person: a free person and, as opposed to him, a slave. The state of freedom implied a whole range of opportunities for a person, in particular, the ability to own slaves. To be free meant the opportunity - and even the obligation - to participate in political life.

The pronounced political aspect of the concept of freedom in the ancient world contrasts sharply with modern views, which emphasize the freedom of the individual from political control and interference. For the Greek, freedom seemed quite compatible with the power of society over the individual, if this power is exercised in accordance with the law, and not at the will of a despot. Similarly, the meaning of freedom was seen primarily in its usefulness for society, and not in its significance for the individual.

Christianity made a much sharper distinction between politics and personal freedom. In Christian ideology, freedom, as St. Augustine is free will. Such an understanding of freedom was extremely important - it connected freedom with an individual, more precisely, even with his spirit. But it was limited freedom. For, although later the idea of ​​the freedom of the spirit became even more complete, for many Christians it fully coexisted with the lack of physical freedom. The soul can be free even when the body is in chains. Freedom of the soul and equality before the Lord go hand in hand with the need for political power over sinful people.

The dominance of Christian ideology in medieval Europe, however, did not exclude the development of more diverse, ambiguous concepts of freedom generated by life itself. Let us mention the freedoms that English monarchs guaranteed their subjects in the coronation oath. These were privileges and benefits for the church, large feudal lords, and later for urban communities. They included exemption from a number of taxes, as well as preferential rights in legal proceedings.

However, it was only in the 16th-17th centuries that the idea was formed that all citizens should have equal freedom. The spread of ideas of freedom went hand in hand with the development of states and was partly a reaction to the centralization of power. It was also associated with a new interpretation of the concept of rights, which won the minds of politicians and philosophers. This relationship is clearly demonstrated by the American Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed that “all people are created equal and all of them are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”, among which freedom is named.

As the need for freedom spread and deepened, the need to define the boundaries of freedom became more and more urgent. The difficulty is to find a way to ensure freedom and at the same time not let it degenerate into permissiveness. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant saw the only solution to this problem in the sphere of morality, morality. According to Kant, freedom in essence is, first of all, independence, i.e. independence, free will, the ability to manage oneself. This does not mean doing whatever you want, but it means making laws for yourself. Kant believed that the basic moral law is this: a person must develop for himself those norms of behavior that he considers desirable for everyone else.

The English utilitarian John Stuart Mill developed a different, but no less significant direction. He distinguished between "the actions of a person that concern only himself" and "the actions that concern other people." With regard to the former, a person's freedom should not have any restrictions, even if by these actions he harms himself. The freedom to act that harms others must be limited. Adhering to this principle, society should not interfere, much less forbid a person to get drunk. At the same time, it should punish him for lawless acts committed while intoxicated - but precisely because they are lawless, and not because they are committed while drunk. By making this distinction, Mill sought to limit a new kind of tyranny, the tyranny of public opinion, which seeks to conform to its standards in all spheres of behavior.

With regard to freedom and democracy, we have established that democracy is one of the ways, technological methods of limiting freedom. But, more importantly, we have established that freedom without restrictions is incompatible with other essential values. Such as: economic stability, order, justice, the survival of civilization, but simply humanity in the understanding of a civilized member of society. Freedom must be limited. And any restriction of a person's freedom is a manifestation of the power over him of another person or society as a whole. The desire for power is the desire to increase one's freedom at the expense of power over others.

On the other hand, in each of us, along with the need for novelty, there is an uncontrollable, physiologically determined desire for a minimum of order in everyday life. This prompts us to accept the restriction of freedom - power, to put up with it to certain limits. Power is an aspect of all human relations without exception. Therefore, it is inevitable, and its presence in itself (without taking into account specific manifestations) is neutral - there is neither good nor bad in it. Power manifests itself at all levels: in the family, in economic and state structures. The mother, who restrains the escaping child so that he does not get hit by a car while crossing the street, uses her power over him. A boss who hires, pays, fines, or fires a subordinate. Not to mention the police and other state power structures. All of them limit the freedom of people subject to them. To what extent are they limited? To what extent do they have a right to do so? How do they use it? To what extent is this right expedient and meets the understanding of people who are restricted in their freedom? These questions determine the life of society and its members. They can never be considered settled once and for all, their solutions vary in time and space in the history of mankind. Moreover, changes in these decisions are a defining part of the history of civilization.

What gives power to one and subjugates the other? Where do power and authority come from? There are many sources of power. Power is the opposite of desire. Ever since human desires have diverged, anything that can satisfy them has become a potential source of dominion. A drug dealer who can refuse to sell a "dose" has power over the addict. If a politician wants to get votes, then those who can provide it will get power. And yet, among the myriad possibilities, three sources of power are the most significant: violence, wealth, and knowledge (possession of information)*. Each of them takes on different forms in a game called "power". Violence, for example, does not have to be used - very often the threat of its use is enough to achieve concession or consent. The threat of violence is always hidden behind the law, the violation of which is fraught with punishment.

Under certain conditions, each source of power can be converted into another. A weapon can get you money or snatch secret information (knowledge) from the victim's mouth. Money can buy you information or weapons. Information can be used both to increase wealth and to strengthen (more advanced weapons) troops. And what's more, all three can be used at almost all levels of society - from the home to the political arena. A parent can use force, cut pocket money (or add money as an incentive). But it is most effective, using the appropriate knowledge and technology, to form children's values ​​in such a way that the child will "want" to obey. In politics, the state can imprison or torture a dissident, financially punish those who criticize it (the state), or pay for support. It can also manipulate truth to create agreement.

Thus, whatever instruments of power are exploited by the ruling elite or individuals in their private relationships, power, wealth and knowledge remain the main levers. They form a triad of power. Of course, not all changes and shifts in power are the result of the use of these tools. Sometimes power changes hands as a result of a combination of natural events. The powerful head of the family may die. A separate topic is the role of chance, a chance in the distribution of power in society. But, if we talk about purposeful human actions and what makes people and entire societies succumb to the wishes of those in power, we again face the fact that in its most blatant form, power uses violence, wealth and knowledge (information) to force people to act in a certain way. way, limiting their freedom or completely depriving it. These restrictions on freedom, by the way, are not always evil - they are often socially necessary.

The possibilities for violence are limited. Even when it “works,” violence breeds resistance. Victims and survivors are waiting for the first opportunity to strike back. The main weakness of brute force lies in its absolute inflexibility. Violence can only be used for punishment. Power built only on the threat of violence is low-quality power. Wealth is a more convenient tool. The strength of a thick wallet is significantly multi-faceted. Instead of just intimidation or punishment, fine-grained rewards can be offered—payments and rewards in cash or its equivalent. At the same time, the threat of deprivation of these payments also works. Wealth can be used both positively and negatively, it is much more flexible than strength. It gives power of average quality. But it is not omnipotent either.

The highest quality power comes from the application of knowledge, the use of information. This is not just an opportunity to slap or intimidate poverty, not just an opportunity to do it your way, to force others to do what you want, even if they prefer otherwise. High-quality power achieves its goal with minimal use of power sources. Knowledge can be used to make the other party "love" your (beneficial to you) life organization scheme. You can even convince a person that he himself came up with this scheme for his own benefit. Power is limited in all practical applications. There is a limit to the application of forces if we do not want to destroy what we must force to capitulate or protect. The same is true for wealth. Not everything can be bought with money, and at some point even the fattest wallet is depleted.

Knowledge is the most versatile of the three sources of power. It can be used to punish, reward, persuade, and even change. It can turn an enemy into an ally. Knowledge also serves to increase wealth and power, and crucially, unlike bullets and budgets, knowledge cannot be spent. On the contrary, it accumulates and in any case increases the effectiveness of the implementation of power functions, minimizing the use of violence and the expenditure of wealth. Of course, maximum power is available to those who, in the right place, are able to apply all three tools, competently combining them with each other, alternating the threat of punishment and the promise of reward with persuasion and quick understanding. Skilled power players know how to use and balance the resources of power.

The relative importance of sources of power varies historically. In the early stages of the development of civilization, direct violence (not its threat, but its implementation) played a decisive role. The one who is stronger simply ate the weak. Then, with the advent of "agrarian civilization" this trend continued. The ancient Greeks, having captured other cities, robbed them and turned the captives into slaves, after which they taxed the surviving townspeople with tribute, forming their wealth. The Roman Empire was built on the same principles, although the power functions of wealth became more and more noticeable. Carthage had to be destroyed not so much because it posed a real military threat (Hannibal's campaign is an exceptional case), but because it had the largest merchant fleet of that time and owned two-thirds of the world's grain.

"Industrial civilization" has practically equalized and made violence and wealth interdependent, even changed their order to "wealth and violence", since it turned out to be practically impossible to have a powerful, well-armed army without having the means to do so. The size of the army is of secondary importance. One of the reasons for the collapse of the USSR, which exhausted its economic resources in the arms race, is precisely in such a collision. Today's super-industrial (or post-industrial) civilization is changing preferences. Whatever the gulf between the millionaire and the beggar, a much deeper gulf lies between the armed and the unarmed, between the educated, well-informed person and the ignorant, confident that he is sufficiently informed.

In the United States and other "post-industrial" countries today, the main source of wealth, and hence military power, is not just advanced industrial production and agriculture (they can be localized in any part of the globe), but knowledge - dominance in the field of science and information technologies. Hence the financial ability to maintain and equip the most powerful army in the world. From here, new problems appear, without the awareness of which it is impossible to ensure the stability of power and the economy, to exclude or at least mitigate the coming crushing shocks.

From all of the above, we can conclude: the government will always restrict freedom, and freedom will be torn from the tenacious hands of power. And this balance will be maintained until someone decides to dominate others in order to increase their portion of freedom. Surprisingly, a person seeking power over others, seeks freedom for himself.

1. Lev Neimark. Power and Freedom. Internet resource. 2009.

2. Dale Carnegie. Public performance. Krasnoyarsk, 1990.

3. F. Niebel, Ch. Bailey. Seven days in May Political novel. M. Progress, 1990.