The Ethic of Self-Reliance and the Spirit of Capitalism in Russia

Abstract

Oleg Kharkhordin (1994) argues that most Russian industrialists adhere to a corporate ethic of mutual aid that facilitates the creation of financial and industrial conglomerates united in a national market. He also emphasizes that sustained capitalist development requires the rise of a new individualistic ethic of samostoyatel'nost', or self-reliance, which he finds growing among Russian businesspeople. Contrary to Kharkhordin's assertions, I demonstrate the persistence of collectivist sentiment among state enterprise directors on the basis of a 1994 Moscow-region survey. I then use survey data to show that in the adult Russian population as a whole, self-reliance was a much less popular norm in 1995 than it was in 1989. Finally, I analyse a 1995 survey of Russian adults in order to demonstrate that entrepreneurial Russians are not especially inclined to espouse the samostoyatel'nost' ethic. I conclude that certain social-structural continuities between the Soviet and post-Soviet periods partly account for the persistent weakness of the samostoyatel'nost' ethic among most Russians, including entrepreneurs. An ethic of self-reliance may be necessary for sustained capitalist growth in Russia, as Kharkhordin suggests, but so is a transformation of power relations more massive than has taken place to date.