Economic Mechanism for the Industrial Assimilation of Scientific Achievements

Yu. A. Tonkikh

The tasks of intensifying social production, formulated in the decisions of the Twenty-Fourth Congress of the CPSU, increase the urgency of developing problems of planned regulation of scientific activity and of the assimilation of its achievements in production. In recent years, notable successes have been achieved in our country in the effective industrial assimilation of scientific achievements. However, on the whole, the possibilities for improving production on a scientific basis are still not being fully used. “If one analyzes all the links of the complex chain connecting science with production,” L. I. Brezhnev noted in his report to the Twenty-Fourth Congress of the CPSU, “it is not difficult to see that the weakest are the links connected with the practical realization of scientific achievements, with their introduction into mass production.”¹

One of the reasons for the underutilization of the productive possibilities of science is, in our opinion, the insufficient development of the theoretical question of the mechanism linking science, technology, and production within the cycle “research—production.”

Contemporary studies of the “science—production” cycle are most often based on the assumption of the organic unity and interconnection of the components of this cycle. At the same time, the progress of knowledge that is materialized is understood as scientific and technological progress, becoming the basis for the development of material production. The real difficulties that have emerged in the process by which production assimilates scientific and technological achievements are treated as consequences of imperfections in the organization of the process of their assimilation, of incomplete and imprecise knowledge of the economic regularities governing the development of the “research—production” cycle, of errors or inertia on the part of people, on whom the assimilation of scientific and technological innovations in production primarily depends, and so forth.

All these difficulties do indeed exist. Overcoming them is a task of primary importance. It appears, however, that overcoming them can hardly be successful if, as the methodological basis for analyzing the “research—production” cycle, one uses only the thesis of the unity of its components. This

unity exists, but it is internally contradictory.^2 In a general theoretical sense, this contradiction is an expression of the distinction and relative independence of material and spiritual activity; within the cycle “research—production” itself, it takes shape primarily as the distinction between the types of development of the relatively independent parts of this cycle. These parts (at the same time, stages of the cycle) are: industrial scientific research, its material embodiment, the assimilation of the materialized innovation by production—or, in essence, science—technology—production.

What is most essential and generalizing in the character of the development of science is that science produces new knowledge. The development of science itself is realized only when the established system of scientific knowledge is not merely supplemented, but also renewed. More precisely, it should be said that the replenishment of knowledge is its renewal. This thesis is not at all undermined by the fact that, in the sphere of scientific cognition, scientific labor may also be expended that does not itself create new knowledge. This is already a consequence of the division of labor in science. The final product of research activity always appears in the form of new knowledge.

Of primary importance in determining the character of the development of science are both properties: the fact that science directly produces a spiritual product—knowledge; and the fact that this knowledge is each time characterized as qualitatively different, fundamentally new.

The determining property of the development of technology^3 is that, by virtue of its own type of development, it merely evolves.^4 The basis of the evolution of technology is the gradual accumulation of empirical knowledge in the process of production, the improvement and transmission from generation to generation of production experience and skills.

The development of production experience and skills is directed chiefly toward the improvement of already established productive forces, above all technology. Such progress in technology is directly connected with past experience and represents a single continuous line. Its characteristic and distinguishing feature is that it is highly reliable: production experience and skills preserve in production the best of the old achievements and add, bit by bit, that from the new which has been tested hundreds of times by experience. As the well-known

^2 A distinctive understanding of the internal contradictory character of the “research—production” cycle is given by A. A. Ignat’ev. He writes that “the actually observed processes of the development of science and the functioning of the mediating links between science and production make it possible to speak of the instability and internal contradictory character of the ‘science—production’ system. As a rule, contemporary technologies are neither stable (as the interests of production require), nor rational (to the extent possible at the attained level of scientific knowledge), but represent a typical product of a historically formed compromise. Since the division of labor has a necessary character, the relations between ‘big science’ and production can apparently be considered as competitive, and the ‘science—production’ system as a reflexive structure.” (See: A. A. Ignat’ev, “Science as an Object of Management,” Voprosy filosofii, 1971, No. 6, p. 23.) (Emphasis mine.—Yu. T.)

^3 Here the concept “technology” is taken in its broad meaning—as a complex of material means and technological methods used by people to satisfy their material and spiritual needs under the conditions of a historically concrete system of social production.

^4 We do not deny revolutionary changes in the technology of production, which constitute the material basis for the emergence of a new mode of production, or qualitative changes within the framework of one mode of production (for example, the development of monopoly capitalism into imperialism). But in this case we are speaking of a different level of analysis, in particular, not of the development of technology, but of the development (qualitative change) of the entire mode of production.

the English scholar of science J. Bernal, technical production traditions cannot be erroneous.^5 This is their strength.

But the weakness of technical progress that is accomplished only on the basis of production experience and skills consists in the fact that, taken by itself, without connection with scientific progress, it proceeds slowly, as if by touch, at times retreating. And, most important, each time inheriting the old experience, technical progress proper cannot leave the beaten path; it only slowly, evolutionarily, perfects production. An example of such progress may be progress in the construction of dwellings, whose architectural appearance took shape over millennia. The line from the first hut to the modern building is one continuous line. Each generation has contributed to it its own facet of improvement.

The internal limitation of technical development proper is obvious. Repetition and improvement are organically joined in it. In other words, repetition in technical development is also the material basis of improvement. If the matter at hand is the improvement of a technical means for working metal by cutting, the lathe, then technical progress in its proper sense can yield nothing other than a new, more perfect lathe. A different method of working metal—for example, cutting by means of a laser installation—has no relation whatever to the improvement of cutting by means of a turning tool. This is already a product of the materialization of scientific knowledge. Therefore the limited character of technical development proper consists in the fact that it does not have within itself an inherent basis for fundamental qualitative change. The moment of qualitative development is present in technical progress, but it has the form of improvement, that is, in essence it is determined by quantitative development, in which the “new and better” is “old, but more.”

Since the moments of repetition and change, the qualitative and quantitative moments, are organically fused in technical development, technical development acquires its own measure. This measure is determined in two ways: internally—by the threshold of complexity,^6 externally—by the connection of technical progress with the development of production.

Technical development, carried out on its own basis by transmitting production experience and skills directly in the process of production or in materialized form, has a limit. This limit is determined by the capabilities of the worker, or of some cooperation of workers in the process of production, to accept production experience in materialized form (technique), to improve it in his own labor process, and to transmit it further along the line of inheritance. At a certain stage of the complexity of technique, the transmission of materialized experience and skills ceases to be accessible not only to an individual worker but also to any cooperation of workers. At this stage, the determining form of transmission of materialized production knowledge becomes the systematization of accumulated knowledge and its transmission in the form of scientific knowledge. But at the same time, systematized knowledge also becomes a means of developing production technique, easily crossing the threshold of complexity whose overcoming is inaccessible to the production worker.

^5 See: J. D. Bernal, Science in History. Foreign Literature Publishing House, Moscow, 1956, p. 26.

^6 See: L. A. Khursin, “On the Nature of the Mechanism of the Development of Science at the Present Stage of the Scientific-Technological Revolution,” Voprosy filosofii, 1971, No. 6, p. 34.

It should be noted that the measure of the development of technology, determined by the threshold of complexity, is not absolute. This gives rise to illusions of omnipotence in the sphere of traditional invention².

The measure of technical development in terms of its connection with production is determined more narrowly. Production, in a number of cases, may refuse to develop a particular kind of technology if the productive need for it disappears. This occurs when society, for some reason, renounces the satisfaction of a particular need or begins to satisfy it by means of qualitatively different technical means. This happened, for example, in the development of the technology of railway transport that used steam traction.

Of course, the limitation of the development of technology by production is also connected with the concrete historical form of social production. But investigation of this question is possible at a different, more concrete level of analysis.

Finally, the character of the development of the third link in the composition of the “research—production” cycle is defined, in general terms, as the repetition of production—reproduction.

It is known that the real process of reproduction is expanded reproduction. And nevertheless the essence of the development of production, its basis, is precisely repetition. Production develops, repeats itself, and is renewed. Production itself is not internally determined by expansion; it receives this determination only if it is considered as reproduction. In this case reproduction includes the moment of expansion only in an abstract form, that is, it does not determine in what form and at whose expense it expands. Expansion may, for example, be carried out without scientific and technical improvement—through an increase in the scale of production by drawing in additional resources and labor power.

Thus, summing up the analysis of the foundations of the development of the three moments (stages) that constitute the content of the “research—production” cycle, we find both unity and difference: science—qualitative renewal; technology—partial renewal on the basis of repetition; production—repetition.

The very difference within this cycle exists in the unity of its parts. It also historically grew (became differentiated) out of their unity. Moreover, the difference did not remain unchanged, but developed through a successive change in the forms of connection between spiritual and material activity. Historically, its first product was the existence of science and production as separate spheres of human activity that had reached a “hostile opposition,” as K. Marx wrote. This unity becomes truly contradictory under conditions in which science is transformed into a functional part of production.

The essence of the objectively forming “research—production” cycle consists in the fact that within it there is no independently existing unity or difference of its constituent parts; rather, there is the unity of their unity and difference, that is, the real, living contradiction of the entire cycle. Unification within the cycle does not destroy its constituent parts, but moves them forward, compels them to develop.

Let us note in passing that, in order to see all these successive forms of the connection between science and production, there is no need at all to trace mentally the entire process of their historical development. All these forms exist in today’s real actuality: this is not—

the direct unity of spiritual and material activity in the form of the worker’s production experience and skills; the existence of science as a sphere of activity in the system of the social division of labor, separate from immediate production; and, finally, production-related scientific research as a functional part of production.

There is also no doubt about the possibility of contradiction in the process of uniting science and production. Such a possibility becomes a reality and in practice hinders the assimilation of scientific and technical innovations in production if their objectively emerging contradiction is treated in understanding, and then in the organization and regulation of the “research—production” cycle, either as unity or as difference. In this case unity takes the form of suppressing the specific properties of science, while difference compels one to speak of the “instability” and “competitiveness” of their interrelation and, in practice, to rely only on a “compromise.” All this is the result of lowering an established vital contradiction to the level of an opposition.

At the same time, the reality of the contradiction also compels one to see real difficulties in developing the organizational-economic forms of its movement. A production manager who “runs from the innovations of science like the devil from incense” is by no means always a conservative. His organic task is to produce concrete use-values in the quantity prescribed by the state plan under conditions of reproduction of the material and personal elements of the given individual production. Material production neither consumes nor produces scientific knowledge in pure form. It can assimilate scientific knowledge in a form accessible to it precisely as material production, that is, through the mediation of the material means of production, above all technology. Thus, at its basis, the process of assimilating scientific innovations is accessible to material production in the economic forms of reproducing the material conditions of its activity. Assimilation will proceed successfully only if the development of science is economically commensurate with the process of reproducing the material factors of production at the various levels of its socialization within the framework of all social production. The conscious formation of this commensurability is a task of great complexity.

The assimilation of the results of scientific research in production is therefore defined as a system of organizational-economic actions for regulating the internally contradictory relation of material and spiritual activity within the “research—production” cycle at the interrelated stages of its unfolding.

Science and production within the “research—production” cycle appear as the extreme and, in the essence of their development, opposite stages of the cycle. As has been shown, the essence of scientific development is an unceasing process of renewal, based on the form of spiritual activity and directly producing only a spiritual product. Production is characterized by the retention of properties that have been formed, by their periodic repetition in the material form of the means of production. The final goal of production-related scientific research is the assimilation of its product in production. It is quite clear that this mediating moment—assimilation, which connects science with production—must itself have some real content accessible both to science and to production. It is important to note: this content must possess the properties of both science and production. Only in this case will assimilation be not a process of separating the extreme moments of the “research—production” cycle, but a process of their connection and mutual penetration.

It is precisely technology that has this content and possesses it—the middle link of the entire cycle “research—production.” As was shown above, the development of technology is characterized by development and improvement on the material basis of repetition. The moment of improvement in technology has a spiritual basis, for it is the concentration of the accumulation of knowledge in production; the moment of repetition, however, is material in its foundation, since it merely reproduces what existed as “previous” technology. The two sides in technology are not separated by an insurmountable barrier, because novelty is always embodied as new technology. Novelty in technology represents spiritual progress only in relation to the preceding stage in the development of technology. But this spiritual progress in technology is materialized in relation to the subsequent stage of its improvement.

Technology is therefore the most suitable “material” for serving as the bearer of the process of assimilation, which is the materialization (here it is even appropriate to say—the reification) of spiritual scientific achievements in material production. At the same time, technology is not simply one of the suitable bearers of the assimilation process; it is the organic bearer of assimilation, so that one may say: technology is assimilation.

Characterizing the place of the means of labor (technology) in production, K. Marx wrote: “A means of labor is a thing or a complex of things which man interposes between himself and the object of labor and which serve him as the conductor of his action upon that object. He makes use of the mechanical, physical, and chemical properties of things in order, in accordance with his purpose, to apply them as instruments of action upon other things.”^8 And in this connection K. Marx cites Hegel’s thought, who observed: “Reason is as cunning as it is powerful.” The “cunning” of reason consists in the fact that it “inserts” between itself and the object another object (a means, an instrument) and compels it to work for itself.^9

Thanks to technology, science realizes its goal of perfecting production and overcomes its opposition to it. Being the mediating link between science and production, technology appears as the object of action in relation to science and as the subject of influence in relation to production. Therefore technology itself acquires the property of action and activity; it becomes the material bearer of the activity of assimilating scientific innovations in production. As a material thing, a means of production, technology represents the result of past productive activity, reified labor; as the material form of the activity of assimilation, it is current activity aimed at perfecting production on a scientific basis, the living labor of science, the only possible form of existence of scientific labor in material production.

In technology, socially concrete labor is materialized; therefore, being the basic form by which man assimilates the forces of nature, it has a quite definite economic content, that is, technology represents the embodiment of natural social forces under the conditions of a definite production. In this sense it is not simply a complex of material means for man’s subjugation of the forces of nature, but a quite concrete economic system for organizing these forces and a definite form of their reproduction.

The political-economic form of the organization and reproduction of technology (the means of production) under the conditions of socialist society—

^8 K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 23, p. 190.
^9 Hegel, Works, vol. 6, p. 205.

…of direct production are productive assets—a specific economic form of the functioning in production of the entire complex of objects and means of labor. Their most active part is fixed productive assets. In economic analysis, the concept of “technology” may coincide both with the concept of “productive assets” and with the concept of “fixed productive assets.” This depends on how broadly the concept of “technology” is interpreted. In the understanding of technology analyzed above, in terms of its material composition it is unambiguously productive assets. We proceed from the premise that, as the material basis for the assimilation by production of the results of scientific activity, technology must be taken precisely in this, its broadest, sense. However, such an approach does not exclude a narrower understanding of technology—as a complex of instruments of labor, a system of machines used in socialist production to create use-values. Moreover, such an approach is presupposed, since instruments of labor are the most active part of the material means of production and the active bearer (means of transfer) of scientific innovations. In this composition, the concept of “technology,” in its economic content, constitutes only a part of fixed productive assets.

Speaking of the reproduction of productive assets as the basis of the process of the production assimilation of the results of scientific activity, it is necessary to distinguish, within this complex process, two interconnected aspects: the reproduction of existing productive assets and their expanded reproduction—capital investments. The replacement and expansion of productive assets have natural and value forms.

Replacement of existing productive assets is carried out in the form of enterprises’ expenditures on the production of use-values which, in their entire natural form, are closely connected with the place of the given individual production within the system of satisfying social needs. Capital investments, in their natural form, are freer. They represent the expenditures of society as a whole on the production of use-values.

In real reproduction, replacement and expansion are closely connected. The process of functioning of productive assets is the basis of accumulation and capital investments. Capital investments appear as a form of production of existing productive assets; that is, in the successive reproductive process of the change of value and natural forms, the differences between replacement and expansion, between the reproduction of assets and capital investments, disappear. The process of replacement of existing productive assets takes the form of capital investments, while new capital investments appear as society’s expenditures on replacement (in the process of satisfying greater or new needs).

In the present case, special attention is drawn to the unity, in the process of reproduction, of the replacement of existing assets and capital investments precisely in connection with the understanding of productive assets as the material basis for the assimilation of the results of scientific activity and the development of the sphere of production research.

In Soviet economic literature, the thesis has been advanced concerning the connection between productive capital investments and the development of the sphere of scientific research—in terms of expenditures on science as a whole.^10 However, statistical comparisons—

^10 See, for example, V. Krasovskii, Technical Progress and Problems of Capital Investment, “Voprosy ekonomiki,” 1970, No. 1; Ya. B. Kvasha, Expenditures on Science and Capital Investments. Materials for the symposium “Current Problems of Socialist Accumulation.” Moscow, 1971.

comparisons have shown that no more or less regular connection between capital investments and the increase in expenditures on the development of the sphere of research is to be found. In this connection it was pointed out that it is necessary to take into account the transition of science to an extensive phase of development, lags in the process of assimilating the results of scientific research, and so on. We do not deny all these necessities, but it seems that taking them into account alone will not correct the situation.

The essence of the matter is that the material basis for the development of research is not capital investment in production, but the entire process of reproduction of productive assets, including capital investment. Otherwise it would be impossible to explain in any satisfactory way the internal sources of intensification of industrial production when its specific capital intensity is declining, for example, in the ninth five-year plan.

What has been said, of course, does not deny the necessity, when addressing questions of the development of the sphere of research, of considering the process of reproduction of productive assets in a differentiated way. In particular, it is necessary to see the special role of fixed productive assets, and within them the instruments of labor; to distinguish, in the process of reproduction of productive assets, between new capital investments and the actual replacement of productive assets; finally, within capital investments to single out society’s expenditures on the expansion of existing production and investments in newly created production, and within replacement to single out repair and renovation.

The investigation of these problems, which in our opinion is of great importance for clarifying the mechanism of the connection between science and production, lies beyond the scope of the present work. It appears that their further theoretical elaboration would make it possible to formulate an integral conception of the content and social forms of the production realization of scientific innovations, and would contribute to solving the historical task of the scientific and technical improvement of socialist social production.

1. Materials of the Twenty-Fourth Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, Political Literature Publishing House, 1971, p. 56. ↩

2. Traditional invention continues to remain an important means of improving technology. It develops and is enriched as workers master scientific knowledge. ↩