Empires and Nations in the Modern World: Shifting Political Orders

This essay traces the path of empires and nations as forms of governance, the eventual predominance of nations and disappearance of empires, and the contemporary interplay of large and small nations as the dominant form of global governance. It also gives attention to the rise of capitalist economic organization as a factor expanding empires and later encouraging nationhood. The essay emphasizes two stages in the emergence of nations: the emergence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of nations and eventually of the great powers, and the post-1945 emergence of nations as the universal form of government, consisting mostly of small powers, linked by the United Nations.

Theoretical problems of defining the concept of «economic organization»

The concept of “economic organization” is known in the science of economic law since Soviet times. However, it did not become widespread and was used only by some scholars. The legal status of economic organizations has not been comprehensively studied in the Ukrainian science of economic law. The purpose of the article is to set out the theoretical problems of defining the concept of “economic organization” and to outline the directions of their solution. The concept of “economic organization” is quite apposite to denote all the diversity of economic entities, but its usage caused a number of theoretical problems. These include problems: the relationship between the concepts of “economic organization” and “undertaking”, the status of a legal entity, the definition of organizational and legal forms of economic organizations, the distinction between commercial and non-commercial economic organizations and classification of economic organizations in general. The definition of “economic organization” needs to be clarified taking into account the following: in the economic turnover involved some business organizations that are not legal entities; the right to carry out economic activities should have the organization, that formed in the prescribed organizational and legal form, which provides economic competence for commercial or non-commercial economic activities

Firms versus corporations: a rebuttal of Simon Deakin, David Gindis, and Geoffrey M. Hodgson

I share the view expressed by Simon Deakin, David Gindis, and Geoffrey Hodgson (‘DGH’) that social scientists need to consider the constitutive role of law in their disciplines. This is particularly the case for economists working on the theory of the firm and on institutions more generally. Their analyses are often built on assumptions about the legal system which do not correspond to reality. One major issue is the generalized confusion between the concepts of ‘corporation’ and ‘firm’. In day-to-day parlance, the two words are synonyms. But, when the constitutive role of law is considered, the word corporation corresponds to a specific legal device which should be clearly differentiated from a less-specific concept which can be called a ‘firm’ or an ‘enterprise’. The notion of firm usually corresponds to the economic organization of various resources via contracts to produce goods or services. The corporation is a legal institution with peculiar characteristics, including a potentially eternal legal personality, an asset partitioning effect, and several layers of separations of ownership and control. Corporations are often used to legally structure large firms because they are very efficient legal devices to concentrate capital. But, firms are practically and conceptually different from the corporation(s) used to structure them. DGH consider that the understanding of what a firm is should not go against general, day-to-day understanding. In their view, although not all firms are corporations, all corporations are firms. I disagree. Only by clearly explaining that corporations are not firms can lawyers help social scientists consider the constitutive role of the law of corporations in the structuring of our present-day economy.

Criticism of capitalism and socialism in the philosophy of Nikolai Berdyaev

Philosophical understanding of the economy and economics is not the main, but significant topic of the reflections of Russian religious philosophers. It is important to trace the specifics of the formation of the Russian view on the economy and economics, on the basic principles of the economic systems’ structure (among which we can single out capitalism and socialism), since the interpretation of Russian thinkers, including N. А. Berdyaev, cannot be included in the mainstream of Western economic thought. The article examines the criticism of capitalism and socialism in the post-revolutionary works of Nikolai Berdyaev, highlights the key contradictions of the two basic principles of economic organization with the post-revolutionary views of the thinker, which were significantly strengthened after the revolutionary events of 1917; these views can be conditionally called socialist-personalistic. Inheriting the tradition of Russian thought, Berdyaev unequivocally rejects the capitalist principles (in many respects this attitude was formed by the period of his legal Marxism), while he assesses socialist concepts ambiguously, with a certain amount of sympathy for the very socialist formulation of the problem of justice and the fight against “slavery”, exploitation of a man by a man. The article indicates the main line of criticism of Christian socialism by Berdyaev, and also describes his preferred variant of socialism, that he called “social personalism”.

Rethinking Development in Africa

In an intertextual assessment of Jacob’s Ladder (1987) and The Resolutionaries (2013), we are conducting a post-colonial analysis with the aim of showing that the post-colonization systems of sociopolitical and economic organization in African countries has no other objective but spoliation and subjugation of African economies to Western countries. For these two writers, and especially Armah, the international meetings which often gather the great leaders of this world in Africa and elsewhere are only “bloody ritual” meetings organized to make sure that the system of pillage is working perfectly. In this work, our objective is to show how Williams and Armah make use of the power of the imaginary to open the way to development in Africa, specifically by shaping a new African leadership which is ready to challenge the devil plan of Western hegemonic powers with as defiant programs as Fasseke’s nuclear project in Jacob’s Ladder (1987) and Nefert’s plan of unified linguistic construction in The Resolutionaries (2013).

Cognitive modelling application to business model choice justify of an economic organization

This article considers the urgent scientific and practical task of developing analytical tools to justify the choice and transformation of a business model for an economic organization in a rapidly changing business environment. The mathematical apparatus of cognitive modelling is proposed to use to solve this problem, which makes it possible, based on the analysis of cause- effect relationships between the most significant conditions and factors affecting the economic efficiency and competitiveness of doing business, to improve the reasonableness and reduce the subjectivity of the decisions made by its owners and top managers. An algorithm to justify the choice of a business model for an organization based on the construction and analysis of fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) of business models is proposed. A common list of business factors (concepts) and a set of causality relations between each pair of concepts has been defined, and a basic FCM of the business model is developed as the basis for constructing FCM models of specific businesses. An example of the application of the developed toolkit in a strategic analysis of the conditions and factors of an organization undertaking the production of furniture, carried out to justify a change in competitive strategy and the associated transformation of the business model, is considered. The analysis has been performed using specialized cognitive modelling software developed at the department of information technologies in economics and management, branch of the National Research University Moscow Power Engineering Institute in Smolensk. The proposed toolkit improves methods and algorithms for intelligent decision-making support in the management of economic and social objects and can find practical application in the strategic management of commercial organizations in various fields, as well as be used by professional consultants in the preparation of recommendations for business model change.

Values spaces migration. appraisal scenarios for an intercultural society [Valori spazi migrazioni. prospettive estimative per una società interculturale]

Incessant migratory flows move towards nations or cities where they can find better living conditions, driven by economic inequalities, political and social instability, war conflicts and environmental emergencies, and generate real or perceived perturbations in the social and economic organization of territories. The changes in value, social, spatial and economic systems resulting from migration flows were debated during the SIEV conference “Values Spaces Migrations. Identity and Otherness in the Multicultural City”, which took place in October 2020 Incessanti flussi migratori si muovono verso nazioni o città in cui trovare condizioni di vita migliori sospinti da sperequazioni economiche, instabilità politiche e sociali, conflitti bellici ed emergenze ambientali, e generano perturbazioni, reali o percepite, sull’organizzazione sociale, ed economica dei territori. I mutamenti dei sistemi valoriali, sociali, spaziali ed economici conseguenti ai flussi migratori sono stati dibattuti durante il convegno SIEV “Valori Spazi Migrazioni. Identità e alterità nella citta multiculturale”, che si è svolto nel mese di ottobre del 2020.

MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING IN PANDEMIC CONDITIONS

The COVID-19 pandemic suddenly and unexpectedly has brought unprecedented short and long-term challenges to organizations. In the context of the global economic crisis, the role and importance of production information and its operational accounting in making managerial decisions is increasing. The main task of such support is to use new methods of organizing production and sales, and as a result, to reduce costs and improve the quality characteristics of products. The crisis makes more "stringent" requirements for the quality of information for making management decisions. Therefore, it is critically important to use the entire arsenal of the management accounting system, which allows solving these problems. Insufficient or incorrect understanding of the importance of management accounting in times of crisis is the ignorance or ineffective use of its tools in the organization. The purpose of this study is to examine changes in the management accounting system during the crisis. In this work, various aspects of the organization's management accounting are analyzed. The most effective ways to optimize costs in the crisis period of the organization's activities are identified. Long-term anti-crisis solutions are proposed. The presented methods of overcoming the crisis phenomena can be applied in the economic activity of any economic organization.

Space and Landscape in Polish Toponymy

In my paper I would like to analyze two sections of space: natural and cultural landscape (in terms of historical geography) and their reflection in the toponymic landscape. The greater focus will be on those elements of the natural landscape (the shape of the surface, soil, flora, fauna) and cultural landscape (forms and types of settlements, defense system, administrative divisions and borders, economic organization and trade, ownership, communication and roads), which were most often recorded and most frequently used in Polish oikonymy over the centuries.