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The Third and the Fourth industrial revolution in CEE countries: towards multistructural nature of economy or the large-scale reorganization?
Третья и Четвертая промышленные революции в странах ЦВЕ: путь к многоукладности экономики или всеобъемлющей реорганизации?
Lobanov, Mikhail
Abstract In the second half of the 2010s the vision about the nature of the modern transformations of the global economy organizational structure began to be largely determined by ideas of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR) and the onset of the “second machine age”, which did not bypass the scientific community in the CEE countries. Adherents of the FIR theory claim about the beginning of the era of universal prosperity, characterized, among others, by such features as rapid development of human capital and the elimination of international and inter-regional disparities in the level of economic development. It is noteworthy, that some experts point to the haste and excessive optimism regarding the timing of full-scale implementation of the FIR technologies in the everyday life and begin to shift the timeframe of its active phase by 2030-40th. Returning to the issue of convergence, we urge not to discount geo-economic monocentric models, which have repeatedly proved their viability at various stages of the functioning of the world economy. Uncertainty in the “bright future” for all slips into the topics of forums and conferences held in the countries with emerging markets: many of them are devoted to the risks of lagging behind the pace of FIR technologies implementation by the leading countries and the danger of a new round of catching-up development for the global periphery and semi-periphery. It seems to us that the CEE region is no exception to the rule. First, the economies of most CEE countries are based on branches and industries which are relevant to the Second Industrial Revolution, and partly – to the Third Industrial Revolution (its elements, incidentally, began to manifest relatively recently – at the beginning of the 21st century). Thereby, doubts arise about the belief of the FIR theory followers about rapid transformation of the sectoral and spatial structure of the economy, and there is also a question about the prospects of coexistence and possible links between the elements of the three economic structures (multistructural nature of economy). Secondly, if we admit the assertion about the futility of creating imitative national models within the framework of the FIR, then it is not difficult to predict new challenges for the CEE countries, traditionally based on the principles of adaptation of imported technologies and know-how. Thirdly, in many leading developed countries the key factor limiting the spread of FIR is the quality of labor resources (e.g., the ability for virtually continuous retraining), and its main risk (which was typical, by the way, for all industrial revolutions) are inevitable crises on labor markets due to the release of surplus labor. It is obvious that in the countries under consideration this potential problem may manifest itself with all the urgency. Fourthly, the development of such areas as biotechnology and artificial intelligence a priori carries the risks of going beyond the existing norms of morality and ethics. Thus, in relatively conservative Eastern European societies it could face active resistance. And finally, fifthly, local networks of competitive small enterprises embedded in global value chains are not sufficiently developed in the region (not to mention the level of innovative activity of SMEs). It is assumed that it is the systems of innovative small firms, characterized by the decentralization of management and implementation of the Internet of Things technologies (IoT), that will determine the configuration of the FIR.
ruski
2020
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