At the initial stages of the industrial revolution, as is known, the capital-intensive and material-intensive type of development of the industrial sector prevailed. The creation of infrastructure, railways, etc. predetermined the rapid growth of the extractive industry, the growth rate of which in 1880-1913 confidently exceeded the growth rate of manufacturing industries. Therefore, up to the Second World War, international trade was dominated by raw materials, which accounted for 64% of trade turnover in 1880, 59% in 1913, and 55% in 1938. The exchange was carried out by homogeneous, standard goods, which differed mainly in price. The predominantly price-based nature of competition also gave rise to the corresponding type of monopolies-cartel, syndicate, trust. By manipulating production volumes, they sought to establish monopoly prices. Market impulses were deformed, and to a large extent the crises of the first third of the twentieth century were associated with monopolistic practices. Since the source of monopoly profits was also the consumer's income, a significant part of non-monopolized producers opposed industrial monopolies. Antimonopoly legislation was introduced and applied with some success1 .

The activity of industrial monopolies is usually evaluated negatively. However, it should be noted that they have become the most important tool for the transition to intensive development methods. The second technological revolution (based on the introduction of the electric motor and internal combustion engine) could only occur with the rapid development and diversification of heavy industry. The mechanism of market competition alone could not redistribute resources in favor of heavy industry. This role was played by monopolies and / or the state.

The similar work of creating, distributing, and making widespread use of the third technological (communication) revolution seems to be now being completed by TNCs. At the same time, the state is actively participating in it in China. The external similarity between the situations served as one of the reasons for the article offered to the reader.

BETWEEN THE STAGES OF MONOPOLY DEVELOPMENT

In the colonies and dependent countries, industrial monopolies held very strong positions, since even the legislation on monopolistic practices adopted in the Soviet Union

This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant N 03 - 06 - 80328.

¹ Thus, in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, there were 78 firms, each of which controlled more than 50% of production in its industry, including 8 full monopolists.

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in metropolitan areas, it was not applied to them (India, Indonesia). A broad anti-monopoly coalition of local producers could not be formed here, since a significant part of the monopolies operated in export industries, and therefore were directed not so much against local as against foreign consumers.

During the second technological revolution, which lasted for almost the entire first half of the twentieth century, important and controversial changes occurred in the relationship between market and monopoly practices. First, the revolutions in Russia, China, and Mexico, and the emergence of state capitalism in Turkey, Thailand, and a number of Latin American countries have limited the very market sphere and competitive space in world trade. To this must be added the restrictions on competition imposed in the fascist countries. Secondly, several hundred new branches (sub-branches) of industry have emerged - mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, rubber engineering, chemistry, etc. Their products were distinguished by novelty, design features, and quality, and therefore price competition receded into the background. Third, the improvement of technologies led to a reduction in the consumption of raw materials and fuel per unit of production. The share of raw materials and homogeneous standard products in world trade began to decrease. Price competition persisted, but its role in the global market space declined. Accordingly, industry monopolies gradually died out. By the early 1950s, there were virtually no full monopolists left.

Industry monopolies were replaced by multi-industry concerns. The formation of this type of organization was associated with the struggle against industrial monopolies of non-monopolized producers, administrative restrictions of the former, as well as the competitive advantages of concerns due to the combination of production and faster introduction of innovations; the development of world trade and mass international capital migrations played a role, which undermined the established monopolies. Concerns became the main form of industrial organization in developed countries already in the interwar period, and the crisis of the early 1930s also contributed to their spread.

In the British colonies and dependent countries with strong positions of British capital (China) back in the 70s of the XIX century, a peculiar form of monopolies appeared-management agencies. They increased the profits of English companies and made it easier to export them to the mother country, curbing the formation of national entrepreneurship. In India, the first multi-industry concerns appeared at the beginning of the XX century, while in other developing countries and China, their overwhelming mass was formed much later - after the former colonies and semi-colonies achieved political independence.

There are several main features of this form of organization. First, indirect control over property (financial control) is usually supplemented by technological cooperative relationships of the group's enterprises. Due to the reduction of costs in both production and circulation, the efficiency and profitability of operations are noticeably increased. Secondly, since a multi-industry concern operates in several industries, in each of which it does not control the market, the monopoly is replaced by an oligopoly. In turn, the emergence of an oligopoly entails the restoration of competition. Elimination of market deformations causes acceleration of production and product range renewal. For a multi-industry concern, technical innovations are becoming the most important means of maintaining market positions, and the resulting technological rent turns into one of the main sources of additional profits. But the very maintenance of technological rent requires huge changes-

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signals for scientific research. Therefore, a scientific division becomes an integral part of a multi-industry concern. Mass innovation also seems to have contributed to the high rates of economic growth in the world in the 1950s and 1960s.

However, the full revival of free competition did not occur during this period. The fact is that its renewal often led to a change in the production profile of concerns, replacing direct competition with indirect competition. For example, in the production of television equipment, where several concerns operated, the resumption of competition caused increased specialization: each concern concentrated on the production of one type of equipment (black-and-white or color, stationary or portable televisions, or industrial systems). In addition, even the same type of products of various concerns differed in design features, standard sizes, quality, etc.

The prices of concerns ' products are only partially determined by the market, as concerns partly form the market themselves, and partly it becomes an indirect reference point. First, they determine in advance the possibilities of the sales market, production volumes, sales methods, etc. Secondly, because of the huge size of their operations and their planning, as well as interaction with government agencies, multi - industry concerns are able to pass on to other agents-the consumer, contractor or state-the increase in production costs. Third, the industry-leading concern sets prices for its products based not only on its own production costs, but also on the prices of other major manufacturers. Since the latter get the opportunity to carry out extended reproduction, they agree with the proposed prices (price leadership). Finally, concerns are not so much interested in profit maximization as in obtaining a target profit that is not so large as to cause a rapid influx of capital into the industry.

With the replacement of the industry monopoly by a multi-industry concern, antagonistic relations between the main actors are replaced by simply competitive ones; in addition, the share of the monopolized (oligopolistic) sector increased at the expense of the non-monopolized one. In other words, the growth of the relative power of the monopolistic sector was accompanied by the emergence of the potential for interaction between its members, the ability to act from relatively unified positions.

In the first post-war decades (late 1940s-1960s), the global economy was not entirely favorable for large-scale private entrepreneurship. The main reason was the significant expansion of state ownership and state entrepreneurship.

First, in the post-war years, there was a noticeable diversification of infrastructure. The set of infrastructure facilities has expanded to include radio and TV stations, information networks, environmental protection facilities, and so on. For economic and military-political reasons, they were built by the state. In addition, the rise in capital prices observed in the post-war period made private investment in infrastructure unprofitable, while the rise to power in some countries of social Democrats, who advocated the use of these objects in the national and social interests, led to the nationalization of these objects in many European and developing countries.

Secondly, after the war, there was a fairly broad nationalization of industrial enterprises. The reasons for it were different. In some countries, enterprises owned by collaborators were nationalized, while in other countries ideological considerations were the motive. Industries that lost profitability due to changes in demand or a shrinking market were also bought out.

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Third, after the war, there was a rapid development of "dual-use" industries-nuclear power, aerospace and others, which, as a rule, were created by the state due to the need for huge initial capital investments and their military and political significance.

Fourth, there was the creation of state-owned facilities that were strategically important for the stable economic growth of these countries: enterprises for the extraction of oil, gas, uranium, agricultural support, etc. Many such enterprises operated abroad.

In the case of developing countries, and partly China, two other factors were at work, along with the four mentioned factors (in various combinations). First of all, the state was forced to create the missing links of reproduction; depending on the level of development of the country, these could be enterprises of various industries-from a sawmill to a locomotive factory. Further, in the context of strong foreign competition, the state was forced to create enterprises in the sphere of circulation to support local entrepreneurship - banks, insurance companies, investment trusts, foreign trade firms, etc.

Pricing during this period was distorted. The system of price leadership has been preserved, moreover, due to the noticeable expansion of cross-investment between developed countries, it is turning from a national one to an international one. At the same time, in many countries, state control over consumer prices, inherited from the war period, or over the rate of profit in trade - wholesale and retail (separately), continued to operate. In addition, a number of developed countries are introducing a system of minimum purchase prices for certain goods, as well as public procurement in case market prices fall to this minimum level, as a measure of anti-crisis regulation and maintaining social stability. It is during this period that the formation of the agricultural subsidy system in the UES begins (in the United States, it began in the 1930s). Pricing was also influenced by the "no profit, no loss" principle put forward by the Fabian Society (England) back in the late 1920s, prices for infrastructure services were set based on this principle, not only in England, but also in most of the former British colonies. It is clear that low prices of infrastructure facilities changed not only production costs, but also prices in the entire manufacturing sector. Finally, State-owned enterprises used a wide variety of methods for calculating costs and determining selling prices, often very far from market impulses.

In the USSR, and later in other socialist countries, including the PRC, there was an idea that lowering the prices of industrial goods could help accelerate the pace of development. This underestimation was offset by higher prices for consumer goods. In foreign trade, this idea was used in a transformed form: you can sell any product cheaply in order to buy products that are scarce (or expensive) on the domestic market. Although the share of socialist countries in world trade as a whole was small, it was still noticeable in some commodity markets, and therefore these perceptions had an impact on pricing.

Apparently, during this period, pricing distortions were observed not only in the commodity markets. Since the late 40s of the XX century. The "official development assistance" provided by the West and, since the late 1950s, by socialist countries is becoming increasingly widespread. Since this assistance was provided on concessional terms (reduced interest rate, long loan maturities, special repayment terms), it led to an underestimation of the price of capital in the development markets.-

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developing countries. According to many Western economists, this circumstance contributed to the acceleration of the process of industrialization in the East, the rapid transition to the development of capital-intensive industries there.

Although industrial monopolies and multi-industry concerns often used the state to their advantage, they remained national producers, since their enterprises were located on the national territory, manufactured and marketed most of their products on the domestic (national) market and fell under national jurisdiction. Therefore, the state had at its disposal numerous levers with which it could regulate and direct their activities, observing a certain balance of interests of different segments of society. Disagreements between the state and monopolies could not develop into open contradictions.

TRANSNATIONAL STAGE OF CAPITAL AND PRODUCTION DEVELOPMENT

Against this general background, the first post-war decades saw the evolution of large corporations and the emergence of transnational corporations (TNCs), which by the end of the millennium had become the main organizational form of large-scale capital activity. As you know, the overproduction crisis of 1958 showed that the post-war economic recovery in developed countries, in which capital was the main limiting factor, was over, and demand again turned into the main limiter of growth. This leads to increased attempts to enter new markets beyond national borders. The restoration of currency convertibility in developed countries, the elimination of various partitions between currency zones, the collapse of colonial empires, and so on created a certain amount of space for capital movement in the world economy. And the exchange of goods still faced major obstacles: non-convertibility of currencies and protectionism in developing countries, non-tariff and tariff barriers in developed countries, restrictions on trade with socialist countries. Therefore, the development of trade was slower than the movement of capital. Finally, the emergence of TNCs was directly related to the scientific and technological revolution. With the deepening division of social labor and the introduction of new technologies, it was possible to spatially separate individual technological processes - resource-intensive, capital-intensive, and labor-intensive. The emergence of new means of transport and communication has contributed to the practical implementation of this possibility. As a result, a single production process could be split up and placed according to the price of national factors of production.

The main difference between a multinational corporation and an "ordinary" one is probably the following. Its branches, branches and subsidiaries operate not in one, but in many countries. In its country of origin, TNCs operate within the framework of an oligopolistic market structure. In the host country, especially in developing countries, it can take a monopoly position. As a result of monopolizing certain parts of the capital cycle or price leadership, the corporation also manages to extract monopoly profits. TNCs are characterized by a combined profit - maximum (due to efficient production) and monopoly (due to monopolization of certain spheres of production, circulation and distribution), i.e. there is a partial return to the methods of activity of early-type industrial monopolies. It gets certain advantages due to differences in the pace of market expansion in individual countries, cyclical fluctuations in market conditions, uneven inflation rates, currency exchange rate movements, and so on.

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A transnational corporation is distinguished from a "regular" one by a certain organizational peculiarity. First, due to the well-known autonomy of the foreign markets in which it operates, its enterprises should have a greater degree of autonomy. Therefore, the system of branches that are strictly subordinate to the parent organization has almost everywhere been replaced by subsidiaries operating within the framework of a common strategy. Second, subsidiaries of TNCs operating in the host country tend to attract local capital extensively. As a result, the parent organization is fully controlled by the capital of the country of origin, while subsidiaries are in most cases mixed companies with the capital of the host country. Attracting local capital accelerated the concentration of production and, consequently, the growth of TNCs. Third, if a multi-industry concern tried to take over all areas of the capital cycle ("internalize" them) that ensure its expanded reproduction, then the corporation seeks to take out all possible activities outside the organization (externalize), except for the sale of the final product, and transfer them to contractors, specialized firms in the field of services and circulation. This allows you to reduce the cost of equity per unit of production and speed up its renewal. At the same time, in industries based on successive stages of processing raw materials, TNCs retain a vertical type of organization with much greater interaction with specialized firms in the field of services and circulation. In other industries, network production is emerging; it involves not only its own subsidiaries, but also a whole network of production and non-production units of other firms.

Parallel to the emergence of transnational corporations, there was also an expansion of the state's economic functions, which peaked in the 1970s. But it was precisely at this time that the fuel and energy crisis, the restructuring of the entire price system, the transnationalization of production and the internationalization of capital were taking place. Under these conditions, the state's activities aimed at managing the economy began to produce unpredictable results: the most important of them were stagflation and a decrease in production efficiency.

In this context, a wave of neoliberalism emerged in the West. ² Monetarists ' criticism of the active role of the state in the simplest form was presented by demanding that state intervention in economic processes be replaced by a free market mechanism. The implementation of these provisions in practice began in the late 1970s and took three main forms. First, many countries, especially developed ones, have begun to privatize state-owned enterprises: it was considered that increasing efficiency is in the interests of the real owner. Secondly, liberalization has begun, which is understood as the removal of legislative and administrative restrictions in the credit, financial and foreign trade spheres. Third, through the GATT/WTO, the agreed reduction of customs tariffs and the convergence of national investment regulatory codes were carried out. Finally, attempts were made to reduce the social functions of the state, since social policy was considered as a factor that deformed the labor market. In addition, the socialist system collapsed. Post-socialist countries began to implement market reforms aimed at eliminating the state from the economy. In most cases, they have gone further in this regard than countries that have developed market relations for centuries could afford. Therefore, "freedom of the market" in the former socialist and socialist republics of-

² I. Wallerstein considers this ideology to be "deep conservatism" [Wallerstein, 1999, p. 5].

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historically oriented countries have become a kind of main reference point for neoliberals.

In other words, at the end of the millennium, there was a fairly rapid elimination of tools that limited and deformed the market mechanism, whether it was pricing or the freedom of movement of goods and capital. In this sense, the market seems to have become freer than at any time during the entire twentieth century, and, consequently, its influence on all economic processes has increased. Judging by economic publications, the world is developing exactly the kind of market space that was promoted by neoliberals.

However, in reality, there are still restrictions on the operation of the market mechanism, both of the old and new types, in the world today. The old-style restrictions include: first, state regulation (price control, high customs tariffs - fiscal and protectionist, control over the activities of foreign investors, etc.), which persists in a number of developing countries; in modern conditions, its abolition can lead to economic collapse; second, restrictions such as economic ones as well as administrative and political ones that exist on the borders of regional economic groupings, which cannot be abolished without the risk of their collapse; third, the entrepreneurial climate that exists within each independent country. It manifests itself, in particular, in the degree of bureaucratization and corruption of the administrative apparatus, in the discipline and qualification of the labor force, etc.

However, it seems to us that the new type of limiters is more important. First of all, it is necessary to note the distortion or undermining of value relations. There is clearly an increase in the share of services in the formation of the price of goods. However, it is not easy to define it, because in many cases its producer is connected with the means of production, and labor with capital. In personal consumption, however, there is a progressive replacement of use value by marginal utility value, resulting in a huge gap between value and price. These violations of the law of value cause enormous distortions of market impulses in relation to the distribution of factors of production by industry and country.

Alas, as has been particularly evident in recent years, money that has become detached from the economy and "enraged" (Strange, 1998) ³ has ceased to be its most important regulator. The market is dying in the sense that the current money is distributed among farms (including national ones) in a chaotic, random, and increasingly simply forced or even violent way.

Further, the individualization of production, the technological ability to adapt the product to the specific needs of the consumer led to the fact that the consumer was actively involved in the development, development and subsequent production of certain products. Since the quantity, quality, delivery times and prices of products are agreed between the producer and the consumer, the impact of the market is limited: in fact, it serves only as an indirect guide in determining these indicators.

Finally, the transnationalization and dispersal of design and engineering work, the production of individual parts and components, the assembly of components and finished products, the production of advertising, and so on lead to massive flows of products within a single production organization - TNCs; now these flows account for about 2/5 of all exports of goods and non-factorial services. Although these products are formally registered as goods by international statistics, in reality they are not registered as goods at all.-

³ Susan Strange is the author of the acclaimed book Casino Capitalism (1984). But it is not "markets" that outplay governments, as she believes, but TNCs, and not always, and not everywhere.

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their flows are organized by multinational corporations, and the exchange of goods becomes fictitious. They determine the volume of production, points and delivery times, as well as prices that are set in each specific case, depending on the exchange rate, tax rates, etc.Therefore, the market here acts only as an indirect guide. It can be said that the activities of TNCs undermine the omnipotence of the market, as each of them seeks to create its own segment of the economy, isolated from competition.

The noted changes in the role of commodity production and the market are growing. It is already clear that the replacement of market impulses with subjective goals should lead to a change in the organization of world production, a significant strengthening of forecasting and planning principles at various levels. In addition, commodity production and capitalist production are inextricably linked, so the deformation of commodity exchange must undermine or transform capitalist production itself.

Paradoxically, changes in the structure of the economy and the transformation of TNCs into its main players only worsened the nature of competition compared to the period of dominance of a multi-industry concern. In Western markets, the scope of non-price competition has expanded, where products differ not so much in price as in design features, quality, supply chain, etc. Now it includes, firstly, services, secondly, goods supplied within the framework of intra-industry exchange, and thirdly, complex finished products. According to available estimates, this sphere now accounts for about 3/4 of the world's trade turnover.

Important changes are taking place in the relations between the State and multinational corporations. As you know, the latter operate simultaneously in several countries: at the turn of the millennium, on average, one corporation accounted for about six subsidiaries (branches) operating in different countries. Therefore, TNCs in many cases do not have a single (central) sales market. In addition, it can be financed from the global capital market. Because of this, the corporation does not depend on a single country in the sphere of production, sales, or financing, and then it turns out that it is not accountable to any government. The world press is full of such statements. It is assumed that the interests of any corporation do not coincide with the goals of all the States in which they operate. But this is only partially true.

This approach does not take into account the specifics of both the country of origin and the location of multinational corporations. In large developed countries, which have the majority of TNCs, the possibility of state influence on corporations is immeasurably higher, since here they can sell a significant part of their products, conduct basic scientific research, fulfill government orders, and receive certain guarantees against political risks. Therefore, cases of direct conflicts between corporations and the State of origin are very rare. In addition, since the former operate in different countries, each of them faces its own problems. Therefore, the scope of their common interests has been reduced, which limits the possibilities of TNCs ' influence on the state. Their influence on supranational bodies is also limited.

The situation is different in countries with relatively small economic potential, especially in newly industrialized and developing countries. In most cases, such countries are the home of foreign corporations, the enterprise of any of them here can act as a monopoly or a leader in its industry and exert very effective pressure on the government of the host country. Therefore, in this group of countries, the possibilities of state influence on subsidiaries of TNCs are very limited.

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In general, the state's ability to influence large corporations has been reduced to a greater or lesser extent. If we assume that the processes of global liberalization and globalization will increase, as it is envisaged by the neoliberal theory and practice of the IMF, WTO and similar institutions, then the economic functions of the state will weaken even more. As a result, it will not be able to regulate the processes occurring within its territory. Moreover, since in the course of globalization many processes and phenomena acquire an international (global) character, then at this level development will take on a spontaneous character.

In these circumstances, it would seem that the role of the regulator should be transferred to TNCs. But first, they are represented to varying degrees in certain groups of countries. In particular, in the least developed countries, of which there are now about 50, their presence is minimal. Consequently, this group of states will remain an outsider to global processes. Secondly, each corporation is a cluster of interconnected industries that covers the economy of several countries (not all!). Therefore, it can only regulate the segment of the world market in which it is the dominant or leading producer. In other words, there are as many segments of the global market as there are TNCs, and therefore as many individual regulators, i.e. each segment is regulated from its own center, and each of the centers tries to achieve the most complete realization of its interests.

It is obvious that the regulation of several thousand unrelated centers is fraught with the growth of such imbalances in the global economy, which can cause global chaos and the collapse of many existing principles and institutions.

CHINESE ALTERNATIVE

Thus, the state in the country of origin of a transnational corporation and in the host state are differently inscribed in the triangle of relations "market-monopoly-state". The State of origin cannot influence the fragmentation and suppression of the TNC market and, in turn, narrows the market space by budgetary redistribution. The state that accepts a corporation also risks losing the balance between the development of the market and the monopolized sector.

The depressing impact of TNCs on the market is well known: in many ways, it was the reason for the steady decline in the growth rate of the world economy over the past quarter of a century. It is also possible that it was the wave of mergers in the second half of the 1990s that finally turned the corporation into a too cumbersome apparatus for it to be effectively managed both from the inside and from the outside. Numerous scandals with senior management trampling on the interests of large and small owners (shareholders) may indicate the validity of assessments of the current socio-economic system in the West as "post - capitalist" in nature and, what is less noticed, anti - market in essence-in whatever clothes this essence may be disguised ("network")., "cluster" ones, and so on).

The scheme of relations between monopolies, the market and the state in modern China is fundamentally different. The well-known thesis "the state controls the market, the market orients enterprises" has, among other things, a clear anti-monopoly connotation. No less significant is the fact that monopolies in the PRC are either owned by the state or completely controlled by it - including in the interests of developing the market economy, providing it with the necessary infrastructure, credit, as well as mitigating social tensions and regional gaps. The result is another paradox: the socialist market contains more market (value) relations and patterns than the modern Western counterpart-at least in relative terms.

On behalf of the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, the Beijing Pedagogical Institute recently prepared a "Report on the Development of China's Market Economy in 2003".

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Based on an analysis of the activities of the government, economic entities, the necessary elements of production, the commercial climate, financial indicators, etc., experts concluded that the coefficient of development of the country's market economy in 2001 was 69%. The deepening reform of the economic system and China's accession to the WTO allowed for a further increase in this indicator in 2002. According to international rules, a country with more than 60% market economy development is required to be granted the status of a country with a market economy. Commenting on the report's findings, Wang Shichun, a representative of the Ministry of Commerce of China, noted that due to the lack of China's status as a market economy, it has become one of the main objects of anti-dumping policies of a number of countries. Between 1995 and 2002, 278 anti - dumping investigations were initiated against Chinese suppliers - 14% of all such cases.

China is still many times inferior to developed countries in terms of the number of manufacturing companies that could be classified as the largest ⁴ . Here is what a well-known Chinese economist notes in this regard: "Some foreign colleagues expressed concerns about the prospects of large Chinese companies. The current competition is sharper than when Japanese and South Korean firms were developing. Only four Chinese companies are among the 500 world leaders in terms of sales. Among the 250 most competitive global companies (Morgan Stanley rating), there is not a single Chinese one. Nor are they among the 300 leading companies in terms of investment in R & D (Financial Times rating)" [Lu Mai, 2002, p .274 - 2T6] ⁵.

Apparently, we should not consider such a lag of China as a defect in the economic structure: the optimality of the current size and scale of production activities of TNCs in developed countries for themselves, and especially for international trade and cooperation in general, has not yet been proven, but rather raises clear doubts. Another thing is the service sector: here China has powerful corporations and banks by any standards. In terms of assets, China's four specialized commercial banks are among the world's top 30 lenders. The process of concentration and regionalization (centralization) of the activities of credit institutions in China continues, including the completion of the transformation of urban credit cooperatives into municipal banks, the consolidation (merger) of trust and investment companies, etc.

China's foreign economic success over the past decade has had one important political and economic consequence. With its massive and exceptionally dynamic exports, it has significantly expanded the range of price competition following the newly developed countries. It is now effectively transferred to the markets of not only homogeneous raw materials and food products, but also a whole range of technical consumer products (consumer electronics, electrics, etc.) and, to an increasing extent, equipment for their production. In this important area, the PRC can easily strengthen its competitive advantages by developing national intersectoral concerns, ⁶ and deepening the interprovincial division of labor.

The continuing economic divides between provinces and protectionism towards local production have cultural, historical and infrastructural roots. Market fragmentation, of course, is not allowed

⁴ The assets of the 196 largest enterprises in China amount to 7 trillion yuan, or an average of $ 4 billion per enterprise.

⁵ Note, however, that the recalculation is carried out at the exchange rate, which underestimates the real production potential of Chinese companies.

⁶ Among them are the most famous Chinese companies: "China Telecom", "Changhong", "Hayer", "Sinopek", "Konka"; groups "First Automobile Plant", "Capital Steel", "Legend", etc.

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consider it a factor favorable for the long-term development of the country. But first, the gradual dismantling of interprovincial divides is among the priorities of the national economic strategy, and second, it gives the more backward provinces some time to adapt to new conditions and growing international and domestic competition.

The existing gap between domestic prices of the Chinese market and sales prices in developed countries is increasingly becoming the object of cooperation between Chinese organizations and TNCs, which are generally not interested in eliminating price differences in the global economy, defragmenting it and unifying it. Usually, data are given on the presence of 400 of the world's leading TNCs out of 500 in China. This indicator should be treated with a certain degree of caution. Not all multinational corporations present on the Chinese market have started commercial operations, and not all TNCs that have started such operations have reached the stage of making a profit ^.7 China's admission to the WTO at the end of 2001 did little to change this, perhaps only exacerbating external competition for the Chinese market. It is worth noting, of course, the simple fact that China has been developing relatively large-scale cooperation with TNCs for many years: only in the second half of the 1990s, this sector of interaction with the outside world began to gradually crowd traditional investment cooperation with the capital of Huaqiao and Tongbao. Nevertheless, the average amount of foreign investment in a single joint or purely foreign project in China now tends to decrease (since 2000): for example, in 2002, the volume of foreign capital attracted increased by 12.5% compared to the previous year, and the number of objects increased by almost 31%.

The press often overestimates China's readiness to carry out a powerful external expansion. It is often associated with the slogan "let's go to the world", the alleged hasty creation of "national TNCs", etc.It seems that it is too early to talk about China's readiness for such a policy. The above-mentioned slogan appeared in 2000 in a completely different atmosphere - the rise of the economic situation, including in the sphere of the "new economy". The subsequent decline in this area in the United States in 2001, as well as a sharp change in the situation with capital inflows to China in 2002 (for the first time, China became the world's largest recipient of direct investment, and for the first time in the country's balance of payments in the column "errors and omissions", a positive value exceeding $ 7 billion was recorded) the presence of an exceptionally favorable investment climate in the country, which equally attracts foreign and domestic investors, who have been living under market laws for a relatively long time. It is significant that the legal export of capital from China also decreased in 2002 compared to the previous year: from $ 9.7 billion to $ 2.5 billion. ⁸

In the context of the ongoing depression in the global economy, it is not so much external expansion (rather expensive in such periods) that is relevant for China, but rather a completely new task of preventing excessive inflows of foreign capital into the country, which, as the 1997 - 1998 Asian financial crisis showed, is fraught with serious negative consequences. At the same time, there is a tempting prospect of attracting foreign capital for long-term investments in the inner and western regions.

⁷ Describing the situation in this area, Ye Fujing, a specialist at the Institute for Foreign Economic Research of the State Committee for Development and Reform, notes that by the end of 2002, the share of Hong Kong and Taiwan investments in the capital attracted by the PRC reached 53.1%, the United States - 8.9%, and Japan - 8.1%. TNCs invested less than $ 15 billion in 2002, meaning that each TNC averaged only a few tens of millions of dollars [People's Daily, 28.07.2003].

⁸ At the end of 2002, 6,960 Chinese enterprises were established outside the PRC (excluding Hong Kong), with a total investment of about $ 10 billion. [People's Daily, 28.3.2003].

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Accordingly, the task of special cultivation of Chinese TNCs does not look particularly significant yet. It is probably easier to use transnational corporations that have already established themselves in the country9 and their existing foreign sales markets, fitting their subsidiaries into the existing economic structure and leaving the state as a limiter of monopolization processes and a guarantor of both market development and the stability of the main economic macroparameters - domestic prices and the exchange rate 10 .

Money in China has not yet broken away from real economic circulation - unlike in developed countries, whose monopoly on "reversible" currencies and the corruption of money that began in the 1970s seem to have ultimately caused the fundamental problems that international finance faced at the beginning of this century. And the constant pressure on China to force it to revalue the renminbi, carried out in recent years by Japan and the United States, has no apparent economic basis: domestic prices and the exchange rate, we repeat, have been stable in China since 1997. Such pressure only illustrates the obvious weaknesses of farms where monopolies prevail and financial capital is almost not limited to the state.

To a large extent, the state in China also has the important task of stimulating scientific and technological progress and spreading its achievements throughout the economic system. In this role, the state has already visited the West and, perhaps, prematurely left it. Whether China will succeed in prolonging or restoring the era of meaningful economic management - the future will tell. But in any case, it seems completely incorrect to contrast the state and the market, which has become widely used by Russian "monetarists" who have failed to solve, for example, the elementary problem of suppressing inflation in 12 years.

It is important, therefore, to see the multi-variance of the prospects of the organizational structure of the world and national economies. Their pyramid segmentation by multinational corporations is not the only way forward. Such phenomena as a return to the predominance of forms that resemble multi-industry concerns and work mainly at the national level, including in industries related to the "new economy", are also quite possible. It is clear that such a refund can only be based on qualified state intervention in the activities of monopolistic associations. Democratization and market liberation, in turn, must be supported by a broad global consensus. It is necessary, of course, to say goodbye to the stereotypical idea of " mature "markets in the West and "immature" ones that are "emerging" in the East.

list of literature

People's Daily. 28.03.2003; 28.07.2003.

Lou Mai. Zhongguo fazhan gaoceng luntan daibiaode wenti yu jianyi (Problems and proposals of the Forum "Development of China") / / Zhongguo 2010: mubiao, zhengce yu qianjing (China 2010: goals, policy and prospects). Editor's note. Wang Mengkui. Beijing: Zhongguo fazhan tsubanshi, 2000.

Zhongguo renmin yinhang 2001 nianbao (Annual Report of the People's Bank of China 2001). Beijing, 2002.

Strange S. Mad Money. When Markets Outgrow Governments. N.Y.: Ann Arbor, 1998.

Wallerstein I. The World We are Entering, 2000 - 2050. Discussion Notes. Schengen, Luxemburg, June 4 - 5, 1995.

⁹ From September 2002 to February 2003, 25 TNCs opened their regional headquarters in Shanghai, including Kodak, Pioneer Electronics, Johnson, and others.

¹⁰ Since 1997, domestic prices and the exchange rate in the PRC have fluctuated in a very narrow range: the consumer price index - within 1.5% per year, and the dollar exchange rate-within one hundredth of the renminbi for the entire period.

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