CAUSES AND NATURE OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONTRADICTIONS OF THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR IN TRANSITIONAL ECONOMIES

• Main Author: Olga Shulga
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Izdevnieciba “Baltija Publishing” 2016-11-01
• Series: Baltic Journal of Economic Studies
• Subjects: contradictions; agricultural sector; transformation economy; nature of contradictions; causes of contradictions; imperatives
• Online Access: http://www.baltijapublishing.lv/index.php/issue/article/view/149/156

Today the state of the agricultural sector in most economies in transition is disappointing and caused by unresolved social and economic contradictions in its development, which in the transformations only worsened. Therefore, to develop effective agricultural policies to address the existing contradictions in the agricultural sector, it is needed to find their nature and causes and development. This is what will resolve current contradictions and predict the natural course of development of agrarian relations in the future. The subject of the investigation – nature and causes of economic and social contradictions of the agrarian sector in transitional economies. To clarify these issues there were used methods such as dialectic, systemic and structural, analysis and synthesis, unity logical and historical approaches, induction and deduction, etc. The aim is to find out the nature of economic and social contradictions of the agricultural sector, their causes and development in transitional economies. Based on these methods, it is found that a contradiction is an internal source of development, and causes of changes and development of the contradictions are inherent within it. That means that the contradiction is a process that is changing, evolving itself, as its domestic activity and through interaction with the struggle of opposites. Accordingly, the economic and social contradictions in the development of the agricultural sector are of objective nature. Mistakes in the actions of agrarian relations do not generate new conflicts, but only reinforce the negative side of contradictions inhibiting its solution. This is due to the fact that every contradiction has its objective course of development and natural solutions through new quality reproduction with the peculiar contradictions of development. The subjective factor can only help or hinder solving contradictions, lead to a partial solution of contradictions. Errors are mostly subjective and complicate the process of identifying and resolving contradictions. Reasons for contradictions in the agricultural sector can be divided into two groups: objective (generated by the struggle of opposites) leading to the solution of contradictions of the previous system and the emergence of new contradictions inherent in the future system; objective and subjective, which because of the dominance of the subjective factor at the stage of resolving contradictions lead to the preservation of the previous system contradictions, increase their negative side, and to the emergence of problems and difficulties in resolving existing contradictions. The development of the agricultural sector is determined by imperatives (conditions and directions of action of agrarian relations), which can be divided into the following groups: social, economic, national, historical, technological, informational, cultural, international, religious, political. Development of contradictions is inextricably linked with the development of economic systems and elements of the structure. After all elements of the economic system and its structure are the opposite, being in contradiction with itself and with each other. In developing economies, as well as the development of contradictions, stages of development are taken place. There are two common stages in the development of economic systems caused by cyclicity – rising stage of development (from the emergence to the peak) and the descending phase of development (from the peak to its decay). Rising stage of the life cycle stage of the economic system includes the origin, formation stage and stage performance. The downward phase is defined by stages of destruction of an integrated economic system, collapse and disappearance. These stages of development of economic systems are in close contact with the stages, phases of contradictions. Transitions from one state to another economic system are based on the transformation processes that change the internal state of the system. Transformation processes can occur both evolutionary (accumulating changes that are in the process of transformation) and revolutionary (under the influence of subjective factors) through reforms, which are the adjustment of individual elements of the system without changing its foundations.