Antropologicheskij forum, 2018, no. 37

“ACTIVATING THE HUMAN FACTOR”: THE LATE-SOVIET ROOTS OF NEOLIBERAL SUBJECTIVITY?

Sergei Alymov
Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Science
32а Leninskiy Av., Moscow, Russia
alymovs()mail.ru

Abstract: The article considers concepts of personality and the Soviet Man held by Soviet philosophers and economists. The author analyzes the ideas about “developed socialism” of philosophers of liberal and orthodox Marxist convictions. The reformers (A. P. Butenko, A. S. Tsip ko) foregrounded the importance of the individual and the humanization of society, interpreted as a development of personality and consumption. Orthodox Marxists (R. I. Kosolapov) relied on Marx’s ideas about labour as the essence of humanity. An idealized industrial worker was for them a model Soviet Man (G. L. Smirnov). The key motive of his activity was the idea of the unity of interests of the individual and society. This idea came under attack for not taking into account “human nature”. Reformers tended to argue that “egoistical interests” were biologically determined. They referred to the character of a well-off peasant to symbolize this idea. The “activation of the human factor” became a motto for the reformers’ agenda. T. I. Zaslavskaya developed a program of recovering the Soviet economy and work ethic through market reforms. Yu. A. Levada offered a negative interpretation of Homo Soveticus and a positive alternative of a pragmatic individualist. The author concludes that liberal experts gestated Homo Economicus as a positive role model already in the early 1980s, so the early stages of the genesis of Russian neoliberal subjectivity go back to the pre-Perestroika period.

Keywords: ideology, Soviet philosophy, personality, subjectivity, Soviet man, Soviet economists, neoliberalism.

To cite: Alymov S., ‘Aktivizatsiya “chelovecheskogo faktora”: “zastoynye” korni neoliberalnoy subektivnosti?’ [“Activating the Human Factor”: The Late-Soviet Roots of Neoliberal Subjectivity?], Antropologicheskij forum, 2018, no. 37, pp. 54–92.

doi: 10.31250/1815-8870-2018-14-37-54-92

URL: http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/037/alymov.pdf