Establishment of the School of Integral Macro Forecasting

One of the leading directions in the formation of the post-industrial paradigm of social sciences is the establishment of the Russian school of integral forecasting.

The origins of this school:

• The theory of foresight, a doctrine about cycles, crises and innovations of N.D. Kondratieff;
• Civilizational approach and a doctrine of socio-cultural dynamics of P.A. Sorokin;
• Balance modeling and macro forecasting of W.W. Leontieff

The foundations of this school were laid in the 20s of the 20^th c. when N.D. Kondratieff formulated the fundamental notions of the theory of foresight, determined the link of forecasts with long-term plans, published major works on big cycles of conjuncture, implemented the suggested methodology in the draft long-term plan of development for agricultural and forest sector of Russia.

V.A. Bazarov contributed to the methodology of macro forecasting in the context of cycles and crises.

In the 30-40s the forecasting activities were discontinued in the USSR, the forecasting was declared a bourgeois methodology replaced by a centralized state planning under socialism.

However, from the end of the 50s the forecasting activities were resumed in the USSR. A comprehensive program was worked out covering a scientific-technical progress and its socio-political effect for 20 year, integral scheme of development and expansion of production forces for 15 years. In actual fact these were long-range normative forecasts. In their validation they applied the balance-based estimations. A noticeable contribution to the resuming the forecast activities in the USSR was made by such Academicians as A.N. Efilov A.I. Anchishkin, V.A. Kotelnikov, and Yu.V. Yaremenko.

However, such long-range forecasts didn’t make allowance for cycles and crises, waves of base innovations. The beginning of the establishment of the school of integral macro forecasting was laid in the 80s after treatises of Yu.V. Yakovets ‘Regularities of Scientific-Technical Progress and Their Regular Use’ (1984), Speeding Up a Scientific-Technical Progress: Theory and Economic Mechanisms (1988), ‘Foresight of the Future: Paradigms of Cyclicity (1992) were published. From 1988 cross-disciplinary discussions on the issues of methodology underlying the forecasting in the context of cycles and crises are held annually. In 1990, there was established the Association ‘Forecasts and Cycles’. The treatises of Yu.V. Yakovets ‘At the Cradle of a New Civilization’ (1993), ‘History of Civilization’ (1995, 1997), ‘The Past and the Future of Civilizations’ (2000) included a well-founded forecast of world and local civilizations for the 21st century. A methodology of the structural forecasting based on a reproductive-cyclical macro model is validated in the treatise ‘Economy of Russia: Changes and Outlooks’. A system substantiation of methodology of integral macro forecasting is given in the treatises: ‘Cycles. Crises. Forecasts’ (1999) and ‘Russian Cyclism: a New Vision of the Past and the Future’ (1999, published in the USA)

B.N. Kuzyk and I. Ageyev discovered 400-year and 80-year cycles in the history of Russia covered in the treatises ‘Rhythms of Russian History’ (2003) ‘Russia in Space and Time’ (2000). Based on the strategic matrix they determined the outlooks of super long-range and long-range cycles in the history of Russia and validated the forecast to 2080.

In the treatises: ‘Russia – 2050: Strategy of Innovative Breakthrough’ (in English and Russian) B.N. Kuzyk and Yu.V. Yakovets developed the methodology of long-range forecasting of innovations and worked out the forecast of innovative development of Russia in the context of world tendencies for a period to 2030.

In the two volume treatise ‘Civilizations: Theory, History, Dialogue and the Future’ a methodology of civilizational forecasting using a geo-civilizational macro model, strategic and geo-civilizational matrix is substantiated and the outlines of forecast of dynamics of world, local and global civilizations before the end of the 21^st century are determined.

The treatise of B.N. Kuzyk ‘Russia and World in the 21st Century’ offers a methodology of a multiple forecasting of historical processes; it also determined the tendencies and outlooks of the development of Russian and world economy in the 21^st century.

The scientific paper of B.N. Kuzyk and Yu. V. Yakovets ‘Future of the World and Russia - a Manifesto of Integral Macro Forecasting’ addresses the sources and the contents of the methodology of integral macro forecasting, results of a long-range forecast of world economy based on a geo-civilizational matrix, structure of economy and external connections of Russia’s economy using a reproductive-cyclical macro model.