A MEASURE OF SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY IN A SOCIALIST SOCIETY

Yu. A. Tonkikh

The accelerated assimilation, in material production, of the achievements of contemporary science is one of the determining factors in the development of socialist social production. The growing importance of science as a factor in the intensification of production urgently requires a rational approach to scientific activity itself, in particular, the resolution of the question of the volume of scientific activity in a socialist society and of the rates at which the sphere of scientific research should expand.

The question of the volume of scientific activity, on the basis of various indicators of its development, was first considered by the American scholar Derek Price¹. Analyzing the statistical characteristics of science, D. Price came to the conclusion that science tends to develop exponentially. It was found, moreover, that extrapolating this character of the development of science into even the relatively near future gives absurd results. Developing exponentially, science, after several cycles of doubling its volume, would absorb the entire national income of society and would draw into its sphere the entire able-bodied population. On this basis D. Price advanced the idea of the saturation (self-strangulation) of science.

Somewhat later, various interpretations appeared of the regularity to which D. Price draws attention.

In Soviet economic science and in science studies, the discussion has mainly concerned not self-strangulation, but the idea that science will find a mechanism of further development adapted to the new conditions.

The striving to find a so-called adaptation (adaptive) mechanism usually consists in the following. It is assumed that the development of science, measured, for example, by expenditures on scientific research, must gradually slow down. This is, of course, not a question of a decrease in the growth of scientific data themselves, but only of the rates of increase in social expenditures on the development of scientific activity. The rapid growth of this magnitude is regarded as a temporary phenomenon. It is a period of substantial shift in the proportions between expenditures on the development of the scientific sphere and production growth. As long as production has discovered in the use of scientific products a factor of intensification, it develops the scientific sphere at a rapid pace. But fundamentally this is extensive development of science. The growth of scientific products is ensured not so much by an increase in the productivity of scientific labor as

with the expansion of the sphere of its application. This causes a rapid growth in scientific personnel and an increase in scientific expenditures.

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

Logically, from this point of view, the boundary between the extensive and intensive development of the scientific sphere can be defined simply. So long as the application in production of the product of the scientific sphere—obtained, so to speak, at any price—surpasses in effectiveness the improvement of production on the basis of other sources, the intensive development of science has no production incentives, and science develops predominantly extensively.

In essence, as we see, this is merely a modernization of the previously formulated law of the accelerated development of science. The modernization in this case consists in the assumption that the character of the development of scientific activity changes in connection with the transition to intensification, reflecting the formation of science as an important factor in the improvement of production.

However, in our opinion, L. A. Khursin is quite right in observing that “neither D. Price’s ideas nor their mathematical interpretation... reflect the real process of the development of science. To seek the mechanism of the development of science in science itself is a regrettable error.”² The attempt to modernize the “law” of exponential development by pointing to the connection between science and production also seems insufficient.

Does science acquire quantitative determinacy if its development is determined by the value for production of the immediate product that science creates—the value of information? It would seem that an affirmative answer to this question is fully justified. Indeed, experience shows that society spends greater or lesser resources on the development of science depending on the contribution science makes to social production. In any case, this proposition seems valid for the period of machine production.

At present, attempts are being made to solve the problem of measuring the quantitative relation between the development of science and production growth by establishing a mathematical dependence between indicators of the development of science and national-economic indicators on the basis of their empirical comparison over a past (more or less prolonged) period, and also by isolating the “scientific contribution” in production growth.

Thus, G. Lakhtin and O. Rudenko attempted to reveal the connection between the growth of scientific information and the increase in the productivity of social labor.³ Using indirect data as an indicator of the growth of scientific information (indicators of the development of the sphere of scientific research), the authors established a linear dependence between the growth of information and the increase in labor productivity.

A distinctive method for establishing a quantitative dependence between the size of national income per capita and expenditures on scientific research is proposed by the Hungarian economist D. Derd Sakashich. He believes that there exists an “extremely close positive correlation” between these magnitudes.⁴ Such a dependence, D. Sakashich believes, is valid for all developed countries. On its basis—

² L. A. Khursin, “Science at the Present Stage of the Scientific-Technological Revolution,” Voprosy filosofii, 1971, No. 6, p. 36.

³ G. Lakhtin and O. Rudenko, “Scientific-Research Activity and Material Production,” Ekonomicheskie nauki, 1966, No. 1.

⁴ D. Derd Sakashich, “Scientific Research and Economic Development,” Voprosy ekonomiki, 1964, No. 10.

One can again determine the level of necessary expenditures on the development of scientific research on the basis of the planned increase in national income.

L. A. Khursin^5 proposes his own method for resolving the question of the quantitative definiteness of scientific activity. He likewise proceeds from the fact that science supplies production with new information. The volume of scientific activity must depend on the degree of value this information has for production. The introduction of new information into production through technology or through the worker makes it possible to increase the output of material goods and thereby to expand the level necessary for the physical existence of society. This provides the basis and the possibility for redistributing the social product between material production and science in favor of science. Science, having received additional resources, supplies production with information on an expanded scale. Thereafter the process acquires a cyclical character.

Finally, attention should be drawn to one more approach to the question of determining the volume of scientific activity. This is the calculation of the contribution made by scientific and technological progress to production. For the calculation, the Cobb–Douglas production function is used.

As is known, in its original form the production function is an element of the theory of “marginal productivity,” which, according to its authors, governs the process of distribution of the social product. It was on this basis that the function was created in 1928 in the USA by the economist P. Douglas and the mathematician Ch. Cobb. In 1959 the production function was considered with allowance for the time factor, with the aim of clarifying the question of the shift between two factors of production growth (labor and capital) in the process of development under the influence of certain qualitative factors, considered as a whole as factors of scientific and technological progress.

Calculations of the “scientific contribution” have been carried out by many economists. Depending on the particular method of dynamizing the original production function, they yield different results (most often, 50–70% of production growth; in rare cases, up to 90%). However, bourgeois economists themselves have already expressed doubt as to the universality of this function. It has been suggested that calculations based on it exaggerate the significance of “non-scientific” factors in the growth of production, if only because the major part of innovations is realized through investment and increases the functioning capital. Attempts have been made to refine the contribution of capital and labor with the aid of coefficients characterizing the improvement of their quality—that is, to separate “materialized” scientific and technological progress from “non-materialized” progress. Additional calculations on this basis reduced the “scientific contribution” to 34% of production growth^6.

What the approaches cited above have in common in the question of determining the volume of scientific activity is that all of them are based on the premise of the indivisibility of all scientific activity, as well as on the premise that science is a type of activity independent in relation to production. Moreover, scientific activity itself, by its nature, is creative and nonproductive activity, while its productive significance consists in the fact that it is increasingly becoming the most important factor in the improvement of social production. The most important, but nevertheless a separate factor that develops outside production.

^5 See the work by this author cited above.

^6 On modifications of the production function in the works of bourgeois economists, see: I. M. Osadchaya, “Some Problems of the Functional Analysis of Factors of Economic Growth,” in the collection Competition of Two Systems. Moscow, “Nauka,” 1971.

Such an approach does not exclude the possibility of determining the magnitude of scientific activity by various indicators of its development, proceeding from its value for production, as many economists do. In so doing it is assumed that the volume of scientific activity, the degree of its development, and the rates of development may be greater or smaller depending on the real contribution made by science to production, on its actual significance as a factor in the improvement of production. But in any case the volume of scientific activity has its measure not in production itself, but only in relation to production taken as a whole, above all in relation to the product of production. From this standpoint, expenditures on the development of science, in any event, cannot be greater than society’s net product. Science appears as a factor valuable for production, but, so to speak, one that does not know the measure of its own needs. The measure of its needs must be given to science from outside. This aim is pursued, in particular, by quantitative comparisons of science and production.

The authors of methods for revealing the dependence between the development of scientific research and the development of production by means of mathematical formalization somewhat simplify the problem. In their striving to create a convenient and generally acceptable way of measuring this relationship, they overestimate the isolated effect of purely scientific regularities and underestimate the changes connected with the inclusion of modern science in production. On the whole, the disclosure of the indicated relationship still amounts to detecting some of its manifestations. In certain cases these methods reveal the correct factual picture, since the very study and generalization, even if it does not take account of the full richness of circumstances, nevertheless proceeds from facts. Often, in such cases, mathematical constructions give a picture coinciding with actual development precisely because they already have as their premise a ready-made truth obtained by a nonmathematical route.

When it is definitely known that there is some connection between two parallel series of increasing quantities, the desire quite naturally arises to discover a regularity in this connection, to derive a mathematical law characterizing the interrelated change of these quantities. Taking into account the great variety and flexibility of existing mathematical methods, this is entirely possible. But does the regularity established in this way always express the real state of affairs? Can this regularity serve as a basis for practical regulatory activity? In our opinion, these questions should be answered in the negative.

It seems that, in order to determine the volume of scientific activity in a way that more fully reflects its position in modern society and in material production, one should take the second step along the path begun by many researchers of scientific activity. Namely, one should consider a part of scientific activity—production-related scientific research and development (PNIR)^7—not merely as a factor of production, but as production itself, as a functional part of production.

This forms a more concrete level for considering the quantitative determinacy of scientific activity. Considering the volume of the PNIR sphere under such an approach presupposes not only determining the share of the social product that can be allocated to the development of science. The solution of the problem is transferred to another plane: the problem arises of determining the optimal relationship (proportion) between two—

^7 The question of the objectivity of PNIR, as well as of the essence, content, and forms of development of these investigations, is an independent one. (Author’s note.)

parts of production—the material and the spiritual. It is just as unfounded, for example, to decide the question of the development of the extractive industry solely on the basis of an assumption about the necessary expenditures of society’s national income on the development of this branch, as it is to regard R&D expenditures as merely expenditures of some part of the final social product. R&D expenditures are expenditures of production itself, productive expenditures. The commensuration of the development of science and production—if the term “commensuration” can be used at all in this case—cannot be carried out solely on the basis of the direct product of scientific research; rather, it becomes the commensuration of two parts of activity that constitute a single process of producing use-values and the social product, in which the cognition of the laws of production is only the initial stage.

Thus, the development of productive scientific activity is determined along two lines.

First, along the line of the division of labor within material production itself. Here the volume of scientific research is determined by material production’s need for the results of scientific activity. This need may vary depending on the character of the development of production. The greatest need for the productive use of the results of scientific activity arises under conditions of intensive development of production. The quantitative determinacy of scientific activity appears as the qualitative determinacy of intensive production. The “science-intensiveness” of production is not the same depending on the character of its development, and at the same time is specific under concrete socio-economic conditions.

Second, the volume of R&D is determined by the intrinsic efficiency of scientific production. Other things being equal, an increase in the efficiency of scientific labor in the sphere of production research makes it possible to satisfy production’s need for the results of research with a smaller volume of the R&D sphere. Calculations of this efficiency must be the second part of the socially justified volume of production research.

The assessment of the contribution of research activity to production must proceed not from a direct comparison of scientific expenditures and the increase in production, and not from singling out the share of scientific innovations in the increase in production, but from determining the optimal proportion of R&D within material production. In the general case, the volume of production research is directly proportional to the scale of production, of which it is a part, and inversely proportional to the efficiency of scientific labor in the R&D sphere.

The question may arise: does such a determination of the volume of scientific activity exclude the relation between science and production as a whole? No, it does not. This is true because R&D, becoming part of material production, retains all the properties of spiritual activity and remains within the sphere of research taken as a whole. From this point of view, it is entirely legitimate to consider the development of all scientific activity on the basis of the expenditures of society drawn from society’s final product.

The two approaches to determining the volume of scientific activity essentially reflect the objective duality of modern science. The sphere of activity concerned with the cognition of the laws governing the development of nature and society continues to remain a specific spiritual and internally unified activity. But this unity under modern conditions is complex; it is a unity of opposites: of wholly spiritual activity and of spiritual activity that has organically assumed the function

be production. Therefore, what is important is not the opposition of two approaches, but their joint use in resolving the question of the development of scientific research as a whole and of its part—PNIR.

It may be noted in passing that the determination of PNIR according to their place in production may to some extent serve as a basis for determining the volume of nonproductive research—according to its connection with PNIR in the sphere of all scientific activity.

But since the conditions for realizing the product of PNIR and the product of all science are different, the most correct way to resolve questions of regulating the volume of scientific activity is the path in which, proceeding from the needs of production—above all in research intended for production purposes—society orients itself toward PNIR, while regarding the development of nonproductive research as a necessary condition for the existence of the entire sphere of knowledge and as one of the most important forms of society’s development.

1. D. Price, Little Science, Big Science. In: Science of Science. Moscow: Progress, 1966. ↩