PROPORTIONS IN THE SPHERE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Yu. A. Tonkikh

In the life of modern society there is hardly any phenomenon that attracts such broad universal attention as science. At the beginning of our century, mention of a scientist—a man of science—could evoke any concrete image only in a few people. And still less was the social usefulness of scientific labor understood. In our time, even someone who does not have a fully clear idea of the content of scientific labor is firmly convinced that science is something very important. The achievements of modern science have fundamentally transformed production and have exerted an indisputable influence on all other aspects of social development.

No society can ignore the achievements of science. In the countries of socialism, science is increasingly becoming the most important means of achieving abundance; in developing countries, a means of overcoming poverty. The governments of bourgeois countries are trying to use science to soften the contradictions of capitalist society; they see in it a kind of elixir for rejuvenating the organism of the capitalist economy.

This growth in the significance of science is a completely natural phenomenon, logically following from the entire history of the development of social production. At present, social production has reached such a level that it can no longer exist and develop solely on the basis of production experience traditionally passed down from generation to generation. The appearance within the productive forces of instruments of labor created and operating on the basis of scientific knowledge, the application in the production process of materials not simply taken from nature but synthesized by man himself, and the increasing complexity of the tasks of production management made it necessary to apply scientific knowledge systematically in the production process and required an organic union of science with production.

Examining, in the manuscripts of 1857–1858, the economic mechanism of the influence of science on social production, K. Marx shows that the main factor of production and wealth (in any case, from the standpoint of its magnitude) is not direct labor itself, but man’s mastery, through the application in the labor process of the most important conquest of the social individual—science—of the forces of nature. Labor in this case makes use of the achievements of science through technique and technology.

But if this is so, is it necessary at all to single out science as an object of economic analysis? If science manifests its effect in production not directly, but always through technology, production technique and organization, or is realized in the production experience and labor skills of the worker, does there not arise, so to speak, a doubling of the factors influencing the efficiency of production if science is included here as well? No, there is no such doubling.

Science is not an independent, separate factor in the system of society’s productive forces, but it is an independent sphere of activity in the system of the social division of labor. And to the extent that the product of this sphere of activity—scientific ideas—is materialized in production, becomes its spiritual factor, and thereby raises the productivity of social labor, to that extent science, as a sphere of social activity, is included in the economic process, is included in the process of reproduction, and participates in all its stages.

Economic research in the field of science will make it possible to use more rationally the enormous resources that society currently spends on the development of science; at the same time, it will help accelerate progress in science itself. Science requires a comprehensive approach to its study. Every comprehensive approach, however, needs unifying principles. Much in this direction can be provided by an economic study of the scientific sphere.

The latter thesis is based not only on the well-known methodological proposition that relations of production underlie other social relations. Although this is also meant. Because science is included in the production process, relations of production begin to operate within it,¹ exerting a determining influence on all other aspects of the development of science. But the point is also that the study of relations of production in the sphere of science creates a basis for solving major complex problems, including both purely scientific and technical questions and a variety of organizational and economic questions. The increasing complexity of connections in science makes it impossible to solve many scientific problems solely on the basis of a scientific foundation. Such problems also contain tasks of organization. Their solution requires taking into account the entire totality of social relations in the sphere of science, and above all economic relations.

The study of the economic problems of science is beginning to take shape as a new branch of economic knowledge—the economics of science.

But what, then, is the subject matter of the economics of science?

Attempts to resolve this question have recently been undertaken quite energetically. However, the discussion has so far revolved mainly around identifying and resolving questions of the efficiency of scientific labor. In particular, V. Sominskii, in the article “The Economics of Scientific Research,” defines the subject of the economics of science as a special form of social production, and its object as a special type of labor activity—scientific research and experimental-design developments carried out in various organizational forms.²

Rightly objecting to the reduction of the object of the economics of science solely to the investigation of the specific features of scientific labor, A. Nikolaev, in the article “Science in the System of Social Relations,” writes that the economics of sci-

conditions can be created only by revealing the specificity of the operation of the economic laws to which the development of science is subject, by investigating its social-production economic nature³.

Indeed, although it is difficult to object to V. Sominsky’s proposition that the emerging economics of science is one of the branches of concrete economics, nevertheless, even in this case, narrowing its object of study to only a special type of labor activity is unjustified. Any concrete economics investigates not simply a type of labor activity that is special from the point of view of a given branch of production, but the specificity of the operation of economic laws in that branch. Moreover, even if the economics of science is one of the branches of concrete economics, it is in any case a very specific one. Its specificity, in our view, consists, among other things, in the special character of its links and interrelations with other branches of concrete economics and with political economy.

The connection between the various branches of social production studied by individual branches of concrete economics is realized mainly in the process of exchange of already finished products of activity on the basis of the social division of labor. The nature of production and consumption in the scientific sphere, however, is such that it necessitates the interpenetration of the sphere of scientific research and the branches of material production that consume scientific output directly in production.

For branches of the metalworking industry, for example, it does not matter how the metal they consume was produced; only its technical indicators and cost are important. For science, in its functioning, the character of the production it is called upon to serve and improve is also important.

Thus, science has not only external but also internal contacts with the branches of direct production. The basis for this is the interpenetration of the relations of the sphere of science with the relations in the production that science serves. Therefore, the specificity of economic phenomena in science consists not only in the specificity of scientific labor, but also in a more general, universal manifestation—compared with the branches of material production—within the sphere of science of economic relations and the economic laws corresponding to them.

The economic laws operating in the sphere of scientific production, in terms of the scope of the economic relations they cover, possess the dignity of the economic laws of production in general, while in terms of the depth of penetration into the essence of economic phenomena they correspond to the concretization of economic laws in the branches of concrete economics.

Of course, the specificity of the scientific sphere is not limited to this. But most of the specific features of science that are currently noted and studied are based not on the social form of scientific labor (which is what the economist must investigate first of all, if this labor is the object of his analysis), but are derived from the natural properties of scientific labor. These are the creative character of scientific labor, its continuity, the probabilistic character of its results, and so on. Clarifying the operation of all these features of scientific labor is, of course, very important, but only with due regard for the given social form of their operation, determined by the form and mode of functioning of property.

And when the question concerns defining the subject and object of a new economic science, the singling out of scientific labor alone impoverishes the investigation and thereby distorts the essence of the matter.

Economic research in science, when it confines its attention only to the specific features of scientific labor, encounters insoluble difficulties. For example, the problem is posed of revealing the factors that affect the effectiveness of scientific labor. From the standpoint of the specific features of scientific labor, in this case attention has to be directed to the very nature of the creative process. Indeed, labor in the sphere of scientific research that is identical from the standpoint of economic measurement very often yields incomparable results. Outwardly identical labor may have as its product a discovery that will influence entire branches of social production, will advance all of science, and a product of a considerably more modest scale, having, for example, significance only as an intermediate stage of some scientific work. When in this case the economist tries to clarify the regularities of the reduction of scientific labor, he inevitably arrives at paradoxical results, for the peculiarities of scientific creativity itself lie outside economic science. In studying scientific labor, economic science can, of course, have its say in working out questions of the rational organization of this labor. But the main thing is that it is called upon to study the social form in which scientific labor is carried out.

There exists one important feature of scientific labor that especially compels us to emphasize this conclusion. This is the universality of scientific labor. K. Marx calls science the product of general historical development in its abstract form. In Volume III of Capital, characterizing scientific labor, he writes: “A distinction should be made between universal labor and joint labor. Both play their part in the process of production; each passes over into the other, but there is also a difference between them. Universal labor is all scientific labor, every discovery, every invention. It is conditioned partly by the cooperation of contemporaries, partly by the utilization of the labor of predecessors”⁴).

Marx does not accidentally emphasize the universality of scientific labor. Only by considering scientific labor as universal can one understand the enormous effectiveness of individual acts of scientific creativity. Every discovery and invention is based on a large amount of preceding work, to which many scholars contribute. Social labor in the sphere of science has the form of universal labor, that is, the cooperation of the labor of contemporaries and the utilization of the labor of predecessors. This creates a special relation between individual labor in the sphere of science and social labor. If in any of the branches of production in general individual labor has its own significance, then scientific labor is possible only as successive labor, that is, on the basis of preceding labor. Even in the case when a scientist creates an entirely new direction in science, his labor is based on preceding labor. Apparently, the enormous effectiveness of individual acts of scientific creativity consists precisely in the fact that it falls to them to accumulate all preceding labor. The sources of this possibility are, first, in the very specificity of scientific creativity, and, second, in those socio-economic conditions in which scientific labor is performed. The former is the field of investigation of the natural sciences and the humanities; the latter, of the social sciences and above all of economic science.

Consequently, economic research into the problems of the development of the scientific sphere will be able to rest on a genuinely scientific foundation only when it directly turns to the study of that area of relations which underlies the very universality of science—the production relations in the sphere of scientific research.

⁴) K. Marx and F. Engels. Archive, vol. II (VII), p. 159.

One of the important problems whose solution may shed light on many economic regularities in the development of science is the problem of proportionality in the scientific sphere.

Clarifying the nature of proportionality in science has independent significance, since the existence and development of science depend on the proper formation of intra-scientific proportions. At the same time, it is of interest to study the proportions that take shape between science as a sphere of activity, on the one hand, and material production, on the other.

The study of proportions is of great importance for the planning of science, since, as production makes progress in the use of scientific achievements, planning the development of the sphere of scientific research and of scientific research itself increasingly becomes a component part of national-economic planning.

At the basis of the proportions that take shape between the sphere of scientific research and material production—as also at the basis of national-economic proportions in general—lies the social division of labor. Therefore the relations that arise between science and production possess all the basic properties of national-economic proportions.

As is known, proportions represent certain correlations, a definite commensurability of the parts of a whole. This first property of proportions—to be parts of a whole, in this case of a national-economic whole—acquires a special meaning if one has in view the proportions between science and production. Science and production, considered in this way, constitute something whole, unified. Such a view of the problem is not entirely customary.

In fact, despite its constant connection with production, science, before it began directly to serve material production, could in no way be considered as having a national-economic connection with production. Only when the immediate goal of science begins to coincide with the goal of production does the connection between science and production grow to the level of a national-economic connection.

The first fact deserving independent attention in the study of the separate proportions linking science with modern production is the fact of the unusually rapid growth of the scientific sphere and the increase in the share of scientific activity over the last decade and a half to two decades.

The very change in rates of growth and, consequently, in the correlation of various spheres and factors in social production is a phenomenon that is entirely ordinary, and even necessary. Development, from a strictly economic point of view, is not simply an increase in the production of particular kinds of products, an increase in incomes, and so on, but such growth and increase as shift the previous proportional relations in social production and change national-economic proportions. For example, an increase in gross product and national income alone, or an increase in the production of metal, coal, consumer goods, and so forth, does not in itself yet speak of economic development. But if an increase in the social product brings about a change in the share of national income within it; if in national income there changes, for example, the ratio between necessary and surplus product; if in the metals balance the ratio between different types and kinds of output changes; if in the production of consumer goods the share of some rises and the share of others falls—in short, if proportions change, then only in this case is it correct to speak of economic development in the precise meaning of the word.

Between the growth of production and economic development, if economic development is understood as a progressive change in proportions, there undoubtedly exists a proportional connection, for the growth of production is the material basis of economic development. But temporary exceptions to this rule are also possible.

A progressive change in national-economic proportions, of course, does not exhaust the whole concept of “economic development,” just as production proportions themselves do not exhaust the full richness of social relations of production; but there is a connection between changes in these proportions and economic development. In essence, the proportions of social production are the manifestation of relations of production most accessible to empirical study. In proportions, therefore, the quantitative side of relations of production becomes accessible; clarification of it is necessary also for understanding the essence of relations of production, the mechanism of their operation, and the tendencies of their development.

Since production discovered in the application of scientific output a powerful factor of intensification, it has been developing the sphere that produces this output at a rapid pace, but chiefly by an extensive path. The increase in scientific output is secured mainly not by increasing the productivity of scientific labor itself, but by expanding the sphere of its action. But this brings about not only a rapid increase in scientific personnel, but also an increase in scientific expenditures.

There is nothing unusual in such a mode of development. The same process can be traced in the example of any other branch of the social application of labor. As soon as some type of labor in social production becomes especially effective, owing to the objective development of production and the necessary shift of proportions within it, this type of labor begins to develop more rapidly than others. But its initial development is mainly expansion, the establishment of a new social factor among others. Its improvement, its intensive development—this is the second stage of development.

A further increase in the output of scientific production will take place more and more not on the basis of the spatial expansion of the scientific sphere, but through its intensification, through an increase in the productivity and efficiency of scientific labor.

Logically, the boundary between the extensive and intensive development of the scientific sphere can be defined simply. So long as the productive application of the output of the scientific sphere, obtained, so to speak, at any cost, is more effective than the growth of production on the basis of other sources, intensive development of the scientific sphere has no substantial production incentives, and this sphere develops predominantly extensively.

In the USSR before 1956, over a long period, the share of expenditures on scientific research does not grow, and in some years even declines. The relative constancy of the share of expenditures on scientific research in this period can be traced in a fairly distant retrospect. Thus, in 1933 and 1937 this value, as also in 1950–1956, corresponds to 0.6–0.7% of the aggregate social product.

Thus, the period of especially rapid increase in scientific expenditures and of change in the proportion between science and production, from the point of view under consideration, in the Soviet Union is the last decade. This gives grounds for drawing a preliminary conclusion: in the mid-1960s the development of production in the USSR reached such a level that its further improvement with the help of scientific methods (primar—

...became not only useful and desirable, but also objectively necessary.

With respect to the USA this question is more complex. Until 1950, the increase in expenditures for scientific purposes in the aggregate national product was not constant: it either increased, as, for example, in 1940–1942, or made a sharp upward leap, as in 1944–1945, or decreased, as in 1946–1948. Apparently, these leaps are connected with the very mode of economic development and with various conjunctural circumstances. (The years 1944–1945, for example, were the period of work on the atomic project, which required large one-time expenditures.)

Since 1950 a fairly stable growth has been observed in the share of expenditures on research and development in the country’s national product. In 1964 this share reached 2.92% (18.8 billion dollars). Evidently, the year 1940 should be regarded for the USA as the turning point after which the application of science in production becomes organically necessary. This conclusion is further confirmed by the fact that, from approximately the same year 1940, the number of scientists and engineers engaged in research and development in private firms began to increase rapidly.

There is no doubt that this turning point in the change in the share of expenditures on scientific research (1956 for the USSR, 1940 for the USA) represents an essential step, a kind of milestone, in the rapprochement of science with production. In our opinion, this is a transition from the use of science for the improvement of production alongside other factors of improvement and development to the predominant use of science for these purposes.

To designate the character of the connection between science and production, the term “organic connection” is most appropriate precisely for this period. It may be said with confidence that the very idea of the transformation of science into an immediate productive force of society entered scientific theory with complete obviousness as a consequence of those decisive changes in the relation of science to production that have manifested themselves especially clearly in the last 10–15 years.

The change in the proportion between science and production is expressed not only in the increase in the share of expenditures on scientific research in the aggregate product of society; this change can also be traced by a number of other indicators.

Over a 15-year period the share of expenditures on scientific research in the national income of the USSR grew almost twofold; in the national income of the USA over the same period, expenditures on research and development increased almost 3.3 times. In 1965, in the Soviet Union almost three percent of national income was spent on scientific research; in the United States this figure in 1965 approached four percent.

The growth of expenditures for scientific purposes from state-budget sources outstrips the growth of allocations for science as a whole. Science in the USSR develops more rapidly at the expense of centralized sources than at the expense of the funds of enterprises and organizations. A comparison of state-budget expenditures not with expenditures on science as a whole, but only with expenditures on scientific research from the funds of enterprises and organizations, is still more striking. This ratio over the 16 years under consideration (from 1950 to 1966) amounts respectively to 791 and 369%. That is, the development of scientific research at the expense of the funds of enterprises and organizations not only does not outstrip, but even lags behind the growth of national-economic indicators as a whole.

All this gives definite grounds to conclude that, under the internal objective conditions of the contemporary development of enterprises and various...

economic organizations in the USSR still have no noticeable incentives for their own accelerated production of scientific research. Despite the obvious effectiveness of applying scientific achievements in the production process, enterprises’ own scientific research is growing even somewhat more slowly than industrial output is increasing. Enterprises still make use chiefly of the product of centralized science, since the main part of state allocations for scientific research goes to the needs of independently existing scientific centers.

The relative share of enterprises’ expenditures in relation to state-budget funds for scientific purposes decreases from year to year. If in 1950 this share was 66.7%, then in 1960 it was 40.6%, and in 1966 only 31%.

In addition, one more circumstance must be taken into account: a significant part of the funds spent by enterprises for scientific purposes is spent in independent scientific-research institutions through enterprises’ contract orders to these institutions for the conduct of various research work.

All the data cited testify to the fact that science, considered as an independent sphere of social activity, despite its accelerated transformation into a direct productive force, is not dissolved in production but, on the contrary, grows and is strengthened organizationally.

The question of recognizing or denying the organizational-economic autonomy of scientific activity is by no means scholastic, as it may seem at first glance. If scientific activity has a tendency to lose its independent organizational form of existence and to be transferred into production, then its study should take on a distinctive bias—one internal to production; but if the sphere of scientific research still has prospects for existence, then it is precisely this sphere that must be studied, with all the relations that take shape within it.

It should be noted that in Soviet literature the idea has been expressed of the gradual dying away of the scientific sphere, as science becomes “organically” united with production.

Thus, Prof. I. I. Kozodoev⁵ connects the transformation of science into a direct productive force with the disappearance of science as a special sphere of human activity. He writes that scientific activity will be preserved only in organic union with production, while the socio-economic form in which this activity existed—the sphere of scientific research—will disappear.

V. S. Bibler⁶ also takes the position of denying science as a “separate social sphere of the division of labor.”

But the process of development of the scientific sphere shows that the latter is by no means dying away, but is steadily and rapidly developing. It is precisely developing, and not only growing quantitatively.

A large part of the most recent decisions of the Soviet government concerning science is directed toward promoting the formation of this sphere, strengthening its internal links, and centralizing it. Under contemporary conditions the scientific sphere cannot dispense with its own socio-economic organization, nor fully adopt the organization of material production.

⁵) See I. I. Kozodoev, The Transformation of Science into a Direct Productive Force, “IRFON,” 1965, pp. 9, 12.
⁶) See The Process of the Transformation of Science into a Direct Productive Force. Materials for a Symposium. Moscow, 1967, p. 15.

The tendency to abandon the scientific sphere as an organizational form of scientific activity stems from an incorrect understanding of the organic connection between science and production. An organic connection is not an organizational merging of the scientific and production spheres, but the direct (insofar as objective conditions permit) application of the product of the scientific sphere—scientific ideas—in the production process. The best conditions for the production of scientific output are created by the organizationally independent existence of the scientific sphere, which embodies, in organizational forms, the specific nature of scientific activity.

Thus, the meaning of the economic study of the problems of the development of science at the present time, including questions of the proportional relations between modern science and material production, consists not in absolutizing the external manifestations of the growth of the connection between these two most important factors in the development of society and drawing the conclusion that one absorbs the other (this, in general, removes any posing of the question of any connection between them), but in revealing the essence and developing the socio-economic mechanism for the best interaction of these spheres of social activity.

In this lies the guarantee of the development of the scientific sphere and the condition for the rapid and effective realization of its product—scientific ideas—in material production.

1. “...those branches of scientific research and those of their forms which have organically joined with material production... are characterized by relations of production typical of direct production.” A. B. Nikolaev, “Science in the System of Social Relations,” Voprosy filosofii, 1967, No. 2, p. 21. ↩

2. See Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, 1967, No. 10, p. 7. ↩

3. See Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, 1967, No. 15, p. 19. ↩