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Теория
A short review of the centers of economic thought in the field of agriculture in Europe and other countries (based on the book exchange and scientific correspondence of the Institute of Agricultural Economics)
A. V. Chayanov
Vladislav O. Afanasenkov (publisher), Senior Researcher, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; Junior Researcher, Research Centre for Economic and Social History, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571, Russia. E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract. In 2024, it will be 125 years since the establishment of the Higher Seminary of Agricultural Economics and Policy at the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy, which was later transformed into the famous Research Institute of Agricultural Economics (RIAE) headed in the 1920s by A. V. Chayanov. His article "A short review of the centers of economic thought in the field of agriculture in Europe and other countries", published in the Bulletin of the Research Institute of Agricultural Economics in 1927, is presented for the English-speaking reader for the first time. Chayanov provides a brief description of the most important centers of the agrarian economic thought, including those with whom the Institute managed to establish correspondence and book exchange, and concludes the review with a conditional classification of trends in the science of organizing agricultural production in the 1920s. Certainly, this long list of scientific institutions and research partners was to prove the high importance and usefulness of the Institute for strengthening the prestige of the Soviet science and Soviet Russia in the international arena. However, fate decreed otherwise: in 1928, Chayanov was removed from the leadership position; in 1929, the Institute was reorganized and merged with the Institute of Large-Scale Economy into the Institute for Organizing Large-Scale Economy and Agricultural Economics; in 1930, after the final removal of Chayanov from the scientific staff, this new Institute was transformed into the Collective Farm Institute. Thus, all international contacts were cut off; Chayanov's Institute, which united researchers with different approaches and views on the object and tasks of agricultural economics as a scientific discipline, was destroyed, and Chayanov's materials on international relations, ironically, formed the basis for the future work scenario of the punitive authorities (as follows from Chayanov's interrogations by the Chief of the Secret Department of the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) Ya.S. Agranov).
The English translation of the concept "agricultural economy" used by Chayanov for the field of scientific knowledge is still debatable. According to specialists in the history of economic thought and in Chayanov's works, there are two options: agricultural economics and agricultural economy. It was suggested that the term "agricultural economy" would more accurately reflect the diversity of approaches in the Soviet agrarian-economic thought of the 1920s: general economic theory (applied to agriculture) in its interpretation by the world science of the 1920s; technical and technological (agronomic) approaches to organizing the economy; theory and practice of agricultural policy with an emphasis on its social aspect; accounting and taxation. We should not understand "economy" as anything else than a historical, outdated by the end of the 19th
century synonym for economic science, which in the late 19th — early 20th centuries was abandoned in favor of "economics" all around the world, including in Russia (B. D. Brutskus, N. N. Kazhanov, A. I. Skvortsov, A. F. Fortunatov, etc.). Thus, in 1925, the title of the famous work by G. A. Studensky was translated by the publisher in English as Outlines of Agricultural Economics. In other words, "economics" is just the name of economic science and cannot be reduced to A. Marshall's ideas; therefore, the term "economy" interferes with the correct understanding of Chayanov's text by the English-speaking reader, providing wrong connotations with real economic phenomena — industry and economy.
The text is provided with notes that clarify and supplement facts mentioned by Chayanov. Editor's notes are marked as Ed.
Key words: A. V. Chayanov, Research Institute of Agricultural Economics (RIAE), centers of the agrarian economic thought, Soviet science, international contacts
A. V Chxaayanov A short review of the centers of economic...
DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-4-10-22
In recent years, one of the main tasks of the Institute of Agricultural Economics has been the maximum possible restoration of scientific ties with those foreign centers of economic thought that work on agricultural issues. Such connections, poorly established even before the war, were completely interrupted in the turbulent period of 19141921, and only since 1922, through trips of the Institute's members abroad, extensive book exchange and scientific correspondence, we have gradually managed to contact those scientific institutions in the West that study the same issues. Today, this work is far from finished, but the Institute is already aware of the state of agricultural economics and statistics abroad; therefore, the following short review can give a schematic idea of the state of the world agricultural economics1.
Limitrophe states
In Estonia, the center of economic thought is the University of Dor-pat: its Department of Political Economy has long been headed by Prof. M. A. Kurchinsky known for his works Land Debt2 and Unions of Entrepreneurs3. Last year he published in Russian the first volume of his course on political economy4, which reminds by its style and direction the courses of M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky and V.Ya. Zheleznov. The Department of Agricultural Economics was
1. This review includes only representatives of the academic science. In the next issue of the Bulletin, the Editorial Board will publish a review of Marxist authors not working in the higher school.
2. Kurchinsky M. A. (1917) Land Debt: Statistics of Land Debt in Austria, Germany, France, Italy and Russia, Petrograd — Ed.
3. Kurchinsky M. A. (1899) Unions of Entrepreneurs: An Economic Study, Saint Petersburg — Ed.
4. Kurchinsky M. A. (1926) Fundamentals of Economic Science. A Course of Lectures. Part 1, Tartu — Ed.
_ 12 headed only in 1926 by the young economist P. Kopp, who defended
his thesis as a monographic description of one large Latvian econ-teopma omy during the war and revolution, tracing its turnover and profitability by year from 1912 to 1921s. It is interesting to note that this thesis was sent by the University of Dorpat for the review to our Institute6. Due to the youth of this Department, we do not know its works on local economy.
In Latvia, agricultural economics is in the same situation. As is known, the Riga Polytechnic Institute, which at one time trained many good Russian agronomists, was evacuated to Petrovskoe-Ra-zumovskoe during the war; in 1920 it was returned to Riga and transformed into a university, but for nationalist reasons the Institute fired most Russian and German scientists led by the famous chemist P. Walden. The teaching staff was formed primarily of Latvians, and the statistician K. Ballod, better known by his pseudonym Atlanticus, the author of the famous book on agriculture of the future7, was invited to the Department of Political Economy and Statistics from Berlin. The Department of Agricultural Economics is headed by P. Starets, a graduate of the Saint-Petersburg Stone Island Courses and a student of B. D. Brutskus. According to our data, in his works Starets focuses on various issues of agricultural cooperation, of agricultural workforce and of the peasant professional movement.
There is greater scientific revival in Lithuania: in addition to the Kovno University, in 1924, in Dotnuve (70 versts from Kovno), the special Agricultural Institute was opened on the basis of the pre-war secondary agricultural school that was transformed into an agricultural academy with two departments — agriculture and forestry. We have recently received its luxuriously published report for 1924-1926, which proves that the young school is firmly on its feet, and its teaching staff is mainly Lithuanians, partly associated with Razumovsky (D. L. Rudzinsky, J. Tonkunas, etc.), partly with Germany (J. Alek-sa, A. Rimka, V. Gaigalatis).
Poland is even richer in economic institutions and works, for instance: 1) the Poznan University — Prof. W. Schramm, 2) the University of Warsaw — Prof. F. Bujak and Prof. W. Stanewicz.
5. Köpp P. (1926) Einfluss der Preis-, Intensitäts-, und Produktlvltätsrelat-lons Verschiebungen auf die Rentabilität der einzelnen landwirtschaftlichen Produkte mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Kriegsverhältnisse (Prof. P. Kopp pöllumajanduse doktorits. Kaja, no. 122, L. 1) — Ed.
6. The review of this thesis was written by Chayanov: Chayanov V. A., Petrik-ov A. V. (1998) A. V. Chayanov under the investigation of the OGPU in the case of the Toiling Peasant Party (1930-1932). Rural Worls, vol. 2, p. 73 — Ed.
7. Atlanticus (1898) Ein Blick in den Zukunftsstaat. Produktion und Konsum im Sozialstatt, Stuttgart — Ed.
Scandinavian countries and Holland
13
Of the five states in this section, we have not yet established any re- a. v chxaayanov lations with Finland and Sweden. According to the well-known aca- A short review demic directory Minerva (lists of all scientists in the world; in 1927, it of the centers of was published in 4 volumes instead of 1 volume before 1923), in Swe- economic... den, there are two special agricultural institutes — in Alnarp-Uppsa-la and the Higher Forestry School in Stockholm.
In Norway, the center of agricultural economics is the Higher Agricultural School (Norges Landbrukshoiskole) in Aas near Oslo. Prof. P. Borgedal's works are based on the long-term studies of peasant economies and on the statistical processing of peasant accounting records. These studies are based entirely on the Swiss works of E. Laur, and F. Korovin's article pays sufficient attention to these Norwegian works8. Prof. Borgedal is not old but already highly respected in his country; he has just published a large study Intensity Problem in Norwegian Agriculture (Intensitetsproblemet i det nor-ske Jordbruk)9.
In Denmark, agricultural economics is led by Prof. O. H. Larsen, the Head of the special Institute of Agricultural Economics in Copenhagen and a member of our Moscow Institute of Agricultural Economics. According to our employees who visited Copenhagen, Prof. Larsen has indisputable authority in the issues of organizing Danish economies, and his Institute has an exclusively practical direction, including consultations on organizing individual farms. Prof. Larsen has published relatively few works, and his main work is periodically published under the title Undersogelser over Landbrugets Drifts-forhold, Periodiske Beretninger — this is a collection of reports on the Danish economy profitability, which are based on the accounting records of several hundred peasant economies and are not less academic than Laur's works.
In Holland, we are in correspondence mainly with Prof. D. van Bloom from the University of Leiden, who studies the development of socialism and is very interested in Russian authors' ideas in this field. According to him, agricultural economics in Holland was headed by Prof. Koene, who had a whole school of students and conducted extensive research of peasant economies. However, during the war Prof. Koene died, and no one came to take his place.
8. Korovin F. (1927) Today's accounting records of peasant economies abroad.
Bulletin of the Research Institute of Agricultural Economics, no. 1—2, pp. 79—82 — Ed.
9. Borgedal P. (1926) Intensitetsproblemet i det norske Jordbruk, Fredrikshald — Ed.
14
Germany and German-speaking countries
теория Germany has always been a classic country of agricultural economics and maintains this reputation. The German science of agricultural organization, once highly developed by A. D. Thaer, J. H. von Thu-nen and T. A. von der Goltz, is supported with sufficient success by F. Aereboe and T. Brinkmann. Certainly, it is not possible to provide even the most general outline of the German agricultural economics in 15 universities and 5 special agricultural institutes; therefore, we will focus on 6 leading academic centers.
The most northern one is Koenigsberg. Its university's Department of Economics is headed by Prof. W. Preyer, a graduate of the Moscow University, who published two works on Russian issues — on the peasant land lease and on the Stolypin's land reform10. Prof. Preyer is a member of the Reichstag and a politician; his works primarily address issues of agricultural policy; a few months ago, he was in Moscow and spoke at the plenum of our Institute. A. Mitscherlich is even of greater interest among the Koenigsberg scientists. He is the Head of the Department of Agriculture; however, his works consider primarily the law of diminishing marginal utility in agriculture, which he defined in a technical sense and added to its development a lot of new and original ideas.
Another northern center of agricultural economics is Breslau in Silesia — the Institute for the Science of Agricultural Work headed by Prof. R. Krzymowski and uniting a large group of the academic youth. Krzymowski is the author of two quite paradoxical, controversial but attention-grabbing books — Philosophy of the Peasantry and Philosophy of Agriculture, and the latter has been recently published in Russian by our Institute". Among his colleagues, we should note W. Radetzki, A. Haase and H. Metzner, who study the labor question in agriculture, issues of the German self-supply with agricultural products, and so on.
It goes without saying that both scientific centers are significantly inferior in importance to the third one — Berlin, where W. Sombart, L. J. Bortkevich, E. F. Schumacher and others work at economic departments. Certainly, in the agricultural perspective, of all Berlin scientists F. Aereboe, the head of the current European science of agricultural organization, should be put in first place as the author of major books on the basics of agricultural organization and land evaluation; recently he has significantly expanded the scope of his research
10. Preyer W. D. (1914) Die russische Agrarreform, Jena — Ed.
11. Original edition: Krzymowski R. (1919) Philosophie der Landwirtschaftslehre, Stuttgart. Russian edition: Krzymowski R. (1927) Development of the Basic Principles of Agricultural Science in Western Europe. Transl. from German by L. K. Soldatov with an additional article by A. V. Chayanov, Moscow — Ed.
and focused on general economic issues and current policy (customs duties). Aereboe is the Head of the special Institute of Economic Organization, he has hundreds of students and teaches at the Agricultural College in Berlin; his work is supported by Prof. O. Auhagen from the Department of Political Economy. Both speak Russian and are quite familiar with Russian works^.
At the University of Berlin, Prof. M. Sering founded the Research Institute for Agriculture and Settlement. Despite his old age, he is full of energy, continues to work tirelessly on issues of internal colonization of Germany, edits a series of works on agriculture and agricultural markets after the war and has recently taken an active part in the debate about customs duties on agricultural products, having published a book on this topici3. Among his colleagues, we note F. Schlomer.
The fourth and last major center of agricultural economics is the Agricultural Academy in Bonn: its rector is T. Brinkman, and its most brilliant and original student is F. Aereboe. Last year our Institute (Brinkman, like Aereboe, is a full member of our Institute) published Brinkman's book in Russian^. His ideas about the organization of agriculture are well known in our country, which frees us from the need to present them.
In addition to the centers of agricultural economics, we should mention some centers of the general economic thought. Today the largest economic forces are concentrated in Freiburg (Prof. K. Die-hl and Prof. G. von Schulze-Gaevernitz teach at the departments of political economy) and in Heidelberg (A. Weber and E. Lederer)iB. Lederer is the Editor of the Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik and is considered the most left-wing academic economist.
Among other academic institutions of Germany, we should mention the Institute for the World Economy in Kiel, which has been relatively recently founded by Prof. B. Harms and is the largest economic institute in Europe in terms of equipment and material resources. Its huge library (300,000 volumes), a collection of newspaper clippings on all economic issues of the world economy and the well-published journal Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv make the Institute of Prof. Harms an institution of global importance.
Undoubtedly, we should also include institutions of Austria and Switzerland in German science. In Austria, the head of agricultur-
A. V Chxaayanov A short review of the centers of economic...
12. F. Aereboe considers A. S. Ermolov one of his teachers, especially due to his book on agricultural systems: Ermolov A. S. (1879) Organization of Field Economy. Systems of Agriculture and Crop Rotation, Saint Petersburg.
13. Sering M. (1925) Agrarkrisen und Agrarzölle, Berlin — Ed.
14. Brinkman T. (1926) Economic Foundations of Organizing Agricultural Enterprises. Transl. from German by L. K. Soldatov; with a Preface by A. Chayanov, Moscow — Ed.
15. E. Lederer was the Chairman of the Commission for Socialization of the German National Economy in 1918.
_ 16 al economics is G. Vogel, who also heads the agronomic section of
the engineers' trade union, which is in some ways similar to the ag-teopma ronomic section of our Union of Agricultural and Forestry Workers, and he is very interested in issues of agricultural assistance. In Switzerland, everything is still focused on E. Laur, the creator of accounting statistics and the author of a course on agricultural economics, which has been recently published by our Institute^. The key undertaking of his life were annual studies of the profitability of Swiss agriculture based on the accounting of many thousands of peasant income-expenses books. These studies have been conducted for almost 30 years and serve as a model for all other research in this field.
Romanesque countries of Europe
We have much less data about the Romanesque countries of Europe: we know absolutely nothing about the state of agricultural economics in Belgium and Spain; in France, we exchange books with Prof. Ch. Gide and A. Aftalion, i.e. non-agricultural economists. We know that the head of the French agricultural economics is Prof. H. Hetier, but we were unable to establish permanent correspondence with him.
In Italy, the head of agricultural economics is still Prof. O. Bor-diga — an 8o-year-old venerable scholar. Most recently, he has published the fifth edition of his course on agricultural economics, which amazes with its old pre-Goltz research methods and with its almost complete ignorance of the contemporary German and English works". We have not yet found any younger agricultural economists. Our most interesting Italian book exchange is with statisticians (Prof. U. Ricci, Prof. A. Mariotti, Prof. G. Zingalli, Prof. C. Gini). In Rome, the International Institute of Agriculture, the world center for agricultural statistics, is of great interest to us. Its statistical, legal and some other reports are an essential guide for any researcher of world agriculture.
Countries of Eastern Europe
When considering the state of agricultural economics in the Slavic and all Eastern states of Europe, we should first focus on Czechoslovakia. In Prague, the scientific work that interests us is headed by Prof. V. Brdlik, who has conducted expeditionary budget and accounting studies of peasant economies for years. He is the head of the
16. Laur E. (1925) Introduction to the Economics of Agriculture. Transl. from German by L. K. Soldatov; with a Preface by S. S. Bazykin, Moscow — Ed.
17. Bordiga O. (1926) Trattato di Economia Rurale: i Fattori della Produzione Agraria, Portici — Ed.
special research institute and the Editor of the monthly journal Agricultural Archives that publishes not only economic but also technical articles. Of all scientific centers of Europe, Prague is the most influenced by Russian economists, as can be seen from a very complete review of the Russian economic works, which was published in this journal (Prof. Brdlik is a full member of our Institute).
In Bulgaria, before the Tsankov's coup d'état, the Department of Agricultural Economics in Sofia was headed by Prof. I. Mollov, a graduate of the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy, if we are not mistaken. We have no information about the situation in recent years and about the situation in Romania and Hungary.
Therefore, to conclude our review of continental Europe, we will focus on Greece with its intensively working and making the best impression circle of economists which is headed by Prof. D. Kalitsuna-kis in Athens. He is the editor of the economic journal that pays great attention to both general theoretical issues (articles on A. R.J. Tur-got) and the results of special studies of Greek economy, providing excellent references and reviews. In addition to Kalitsunakis, we should mention the young agrarian economist C. Evelpidis, who published in French several works on rent and agrarian relations in Greece.
A. V Chxaayanov A short review of the centers of economic...
England
Having completed our review of the continent, we can move to England with its great and very fruitful revival of the agrarian thought, which is strange enough. The center of this revival is the special Research Institute of Agricultural Economics founded by Prof. C. Orwin at the Oxford University in 1913. This Institute, not only in its name, but also in its structure and research topics, more than any other is similar to our Moscow Institute. This Institute is headed by Prof. Or-win, whose works on cost calculation and general accounting in agriculture provided him with a strong scientific reputation, and has 6 full-time members, including A. Bridges, W. Peel and F. Prewett, 7 junior researchers and 11 graduate students (8 juniors and 3 seniors). Their numerous works are based on the microanalysis of agricultural areas and specialized research, on the compilation of an agricultural atlas of England, on the analysis of areas of commercial attraction, cost of agricultural products and labor organization, and on the study of the sugar beet economy, i.e., topics on which our Institute is currently working. In addition, we find in these works some issues that we have not considered yet but that will certainly require our attention in the future, such as the analysis of the economic effect of agricultural education and scientific research in agriculture or the study of the role of the owner's personality in organizing a farm. The Institute's report mentions 29 publications, of which 6 are major works and the rest are articles.
_ 18 Of equal, if not greater, interest is a completely new similar institute in Aberystwyth. Its leader, the student and former assistant of теория Prof. Orwin, Prof. A. W. Ashby, in his programmatic article on research work, distinguishes two directions in agricultural economics — household economy and national economy. He proposes to use for the former the accounting, statistical, experimental method of stationary observations, and to study the social economy of agriculture as a national-economic phenomenon with the geographical, statistical, descriptive method. Within each direction, Ashby and his colleagues published a significant number of works in the thick Welsh Journal of Agriculture, which, despite its 'local level' and due to its reputation, can claim one of the first places in agrarian-economic sciences.
The third English center of agricultural economics is the University of Reading: its group of economists is currently preparing a regular three-month bibliographic journal specializing in agricultural economics and related disciplines.
We know nothing about Ireland, because after the death of Prof. G. H. Oldham in 1926 we are not aware of his successors.
To continue our review of the English-speaking countries, we should move from England to North America.
The United States of North America
Certainly, in a short review, it is difficult to present in detail and in full the work of four dozen universities and many large experimental stations conducting research in the field of agricultural economics. V. Osinsky in his book On the Agricultural States of North America (Moscow, 1926) provides a very detailed overview of agricultural America, and we advise the interested researcher to read it. Thereby, we will focus on the most important centers which founded scientific directions.
In first place we should put Prof. G. F. Warren in New York and the venerable scholar Prof. R. Ely in Wisconsin. Prof. Warren, the author of the basic manual on farm organization and of the textbook on laboratory classes18 on farm organization, the editor of a number of journals and books, heads a department at the Cornell University and can be considered the teacher and leader of many dozens of economists and agronomists in the eastern states. In most cases, the works of Prof. Warren's circle present an analysis of the object under study in both economic and technical perspectives, and economic tables are placed next to photographs.
In addition to the works of Warren, who is increasingly focusing on the market influence on farm organization, we are very interested
18. Warren G. F., Livermore K. C. (1910) Laboratory Exercises in Farm Management, New York — Ed.
in the works of E. G. Misner, the professor of farm organization at the Cornell University. His works on cattle breeding and the cost of milk, based on the accounting analysis of hundreds of farms, are classic in the field of farm organization, despite a certain paucity of methodological techniques (there are almost no groupings). The works of another Warren's colleague, W. J. Myers, on territorial organization are also of great interest, just like the collective work on the six-year development of accounting records for the State of New York.
The second center is the oldest American school of agricultural economics of the venerable Prof. R. T. Ely, whose Institute in Wisconsin trained a galaxy of economists and agronomists in the central states. According to Osinsky, Ely is a supporter of small family farms. Recently, his Institute has been transferred from Wisconsin to Chicago and joined by three leading agricultural economists in America (H. C. Taylor, E. Morehouse and B. Hibbard), which makes this Institute the most powerful scientific center of the American agricultural economics in terms of personnel. Taylor is the newest theorist and the author of Agricultural Economics, one of the most classic books on the theory of agricultural economy. Morehouse and Hibbard are younger but have already received well-deserved fame: the former — for his works on the theory of agricultural economics, the latter — for his course on organizing the economy.
In addition to these two major centers, we should mention the huge statistical and economic research of the Department of Agriculture in Washington, especially the works of O. E. Baker Geography of the World's Agriculture™ and World Wheat Production and of some other employees.
Among the agrarian economists working in other American cities, the following ones are of great interest: 1) Prof. K. Butterfield in Massachusetts, the founder of the World Agricultural Society; 2) Prof. E. Nourse in Ams, the author of the book on American agriculture, which was published by our Institute2°; 3) Prof. T. Carver from the Harvard University, the oldest theorist of agricultural economics; 4) Prof. E. Moore in New York, the author of the book on yield cycles2i. All works of these authors are very detailed and very original.
A. V Chxaayanov A short review of the centers of economic...
Other American states
We have even fewer scientific connections with Central and South Americas, whose center of science and culture is the central South
19. Finch V. C., Baker O.E. (1917) Geography of the World's Agriculture, Washington — Ed.
20. Nourse E. G. (1924) American Agriculture and the European Market, New York (in 1925 was published in Russian in Moscow) — Ed.
21. Moore H. L. (1923) Generating Economic Cycles, New York — Ed.
_ 20 America Gulf with neighboring Buenos Aires, La Plata and Montevideo. In Uruguay and Argentina, there are professors of economics теория and agronomy (Prof. T. Amadeo, Prof. E. Acevedo, Prof. T. Arano);
however, according to the available data, only Prof. Arano in Buenos Aires has an excellent scientific reputation. Among his works, his attempts to develop a theory of agricultural cooperation are of particular interest to us.
As for Central America, we can mention only Prof. E. Martinez Lopez in Tegucigalpa (Honduras) with some interesting treatises on the economic geography of his little-studied country22.
In the Pacific Ocean, we should mention first the University of Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands, whose Head of the Department of Economics is Prof. R. Adams, conducting primarily sociological rather than economic analysis of agriculture and focusing on the village and everyday forms of rural life. The depth of his analysis is evidenced by his good knowledge of the foundations of our land community.
Other countries
Unfortunately, we have not yet established any permanent relationship with other Pacific countries. From the academic directory Minerva we know about large scientific centers in Australia, on the island of Java and even in Bangkok (Siam), but we achieved nothing else than the formal exchange of letters.
Therefore, we will focus on Japan. There are two large centers of economic science — at the universities of Tokyo and Kyoto. At the University of Tokyo, mainly general economic issues and problems of industrial economics are studied. Last year the University published a special collection of works of its Faculty of Economics in English, apparently for distribution abroad. The Kyoto University is much closer to us: for three years there is the special Research Institute of Agricultural Economics which has done very little yet but attracted a significant group of scientists (Prof. D. Hashimoto, Prof. H. Tana-hashi and young scientists C. Isobe and T. Sugino). This University's journal published a review of our Institute's works, a detailed critical essay on the family theory of peasant economy and an article on our theory of cooperation. Unfortunately, we do not know Japanese and cannot read Japanese works sent to us through book exchange.
At the end of this review, I would like to mention India and South Africa. In India, there are some universities, agricultural schools and experimental fields. The directory Minerva provides a number of names associated with teaching economics and agronomy; however, we have a more or less complete impression only about Prof.
22. See, e.g.: Martinez López E. (1919) Geografía de Honduras, Tegucigalpa — Ed.
K. M. Shah in Bombay, who published articles on agricultural economics in English journals, and about Prof. P. Banerjes, who heads a department in Calcutta and published a detailed description of Indian agriculture as a book in the above-mentioned series on post-war agriculture, which is edited by Prof. Sering.
In South Africa, there is a modest scientific center at the University of Johannesburg: its Prof. R. A. Lehfeldt sent us his works on the economics and cost of corn.
Certainly, this is not a complete list of large and small centers of scientific thought, studying agricultural economics in foreign countries. We had neither time nor space to tell our readers about the basic ideas, issues and methods of the listed agronomists and economists — this would require writing a book. However, in general, there are two main traditions: on the one hand, the German tradition coming from the Goltz' school and the historical school of German economists, which focuses primarily on the economic analysis of the phenomenon under study, also describing its historical genesis. This approach is based on the methods of the classic Betriebslehre's studies of large capitalist-oriented economies, which under the influence of E. Laur were later applied with some changes in the studies of peasant economies. On the other hand, there is a completely different tradition in the Anglo-Saxon countries, which fundamentally combines technical and economic analysis, almost ignores the genesis of the object under study and strives to make its works highly specialized, goal-oriented and applied. In other countries, there are different combinations of these two traditions.
A. V Chxaayanov A short review of the centers of economic...
Краткий обзор центров экономической мысли в области сельского хозяйства в Европе и других странах (по материалам книгообмена и научной переписки Института сельскохозяйственной экономии)
Александр Васильевич Чаянов
Публикатор — Владислав Олегович Афанасенков, старший научный сотрудник Московской высшей школы социальных и экономических наук, младший научный сотрудник Научно-исследовательского центра экономической и социальной истории Российской академии народного хозяйства и государственной службы при Президенте РФ. 119571, Москва, пр-т Вернадского, 82. E-mail: [email protected]
Аннотация. В 2024 году исполняется 125 лет с учреждения при Петровской сельскохозяйственной академии Высшего семинария сельскохозяйственной экономии и политики, из которого впоследствии вырос знаменитый Научно-исследовательский институт сельскохозяйственной экономии (НИИСХЭ). Широкую известность Институт получил благодаря А. В. Чаянову, руководившему им в 1920-е годы. Впервые для англоязычного читателя публикуется перевод его статьи «Краткий обзор центров экономической мысли в области сельского хозяйства в Европе и других странах», вышедшей в «Бюллетене Научно-исследовательского института сельскохозяйственной экономии» в 1927 году. Чаянов дает краткую характеристику важнейшим
22 центрам аграрно-экономической мысли, в том числе тем, с которыми Институту удалось наладить переписку и обмен литературой. Обзор завершается условной клас-РИЯ сификацией направлений науки об организации сельскохозяйственного производства в 1920-е годы. Очевидно, предполагалось, что столь длинный перечень научных учреждений и исследователей-партнеров будет свидетельствовать о принципиальной важности и полезности НИИСХЭ для укрепления престижа советской науки и Советской России на международной арене. Однако судьба распорядилась иначе: в 1928 году Чаянов был отстранен от руководства; в 1929 году Институт был реорганизован и объединен с Институтом крупного хозяйства в Институт организации крупного хозяйства и сельскохозяйственной экономии; в 1930 году, после окончательного устранения Чаянова из штата научных сотрудников, Институт был преобразован в Колхозный институт, и все международные контакты были оборваны. Чаяновский институт, объединявший представителей разных подходов и взглядов на предмет и задачи сельскохозяйственной экономии как научной дисциплины, был фактически уничтожен, а материалы Чаянова о международных связях по злой иронии легли в основу будущего репрессивного сценария карательных органов (судя по материалам допросов Чаянова начальником секретного отдела ОГПУ Я. С. Аграновым).
Дискуссионным является вопрос о переводе на английский язык используемых Чаяновым применительно к области научного знания понятий «сельскохозяйственная экономия» и «экономия земледелия». Полемика со специалистами по истории экономической мысли и творчеству Чаянова выявила два возможных варианта: agricultural economics и agricultural economy. Высказывалось предположение, что agricultural economy позволит точнее передать разнообразие подходов в советской аг-рарно-экономической мысли 1920-х годов, включавшей и общую экономическую теорию (в приложении к сельскому хозяйству) в современном для мировой науки 1920-х годов смысле; и технико-технологические (агрономические) подходы к организации хозяйства; и теорию и практику аграрной политики с акцентом на ее социальной стороне; и счетоводство и таксацию. Не нужно понимать «экономию» как нечто большее, чем исторический, устаревший к концу XIX века синоним экономической науки, от которого в конце XIX — начале XX веков начали отказываться в пользу «экономики» по всему миру, в том числе в России (Б. Д. Бруцкус, Н. Н. Ка-жанов, А. И. Скворцов, А. Ф. Фортунатов и др.). Заголовок известной работы Г. А. Студенского, изданной в 1925 году, был продублирован издателем на английском языке как «Outlines of Agricultural Economics». Иными словами, еconomics — не более чем обозначение экономической науки в целом и не сводится к фигуре А. Маршалла, и использование слова «economy» воспрепятствует правильному пониманию текста Чаянова англоязычным читателем, создавая неверные коннотации с реальными экономическими явлениями — отраслью и хозяйством.
Текст снабжен примечаниями, уточняющими и дополняющими факты, изложенные Чаяновым.
Ключевые слова: А. В. Чаянов, Научно-исследовательский институт сельскохозяйственной экономии (НИИСХЭ), центры аграрно-экономической мысли, советская наука, международные связи
