COOPERATION IN THE CONTEXT OF LIBERAL SOCIALISM

Abstract

Aim. To show the evolution of cooperation in the context of liberal socialism, which has already played and continues playing an important role in the economy and socio-political life of society.Methodology. To achieve this purpose, the author applied a wide range of general scientific methods and political science approaches: dialectical, axiological, statistical, historicism, analysis and synthesis.Results. The author comes to the conclusion that socialism, established in Soviet Russia, was essentially liberal, despite the certain excesses in different periods of its almost a century-old history. It is noted that during the analyzed period the country’s government, in order to overcome economic crises, had to incorporate cooperation into the Soviet economy, thereby turning it into a mixed one, despite the unacceptability of its economic and ethical basis.Research implications is in a comprehensive approach to the study of the essence, place and role of cooperation from the point of its value foundations. The reconsideration of such definitions of social and economic system as “capitalism” and “socialism”, as well as synthetic versions of these concepts (“state capitalism” and “liberal socialism”) is conditioned by the fact that these definitions gain with new meaning and require semantic analysis over time. Cooperation, in turn, being in the “gray” zone between capitalist and socialist modes of production, is the optimal form that ensures a balance of interests of all subjects of economic activity.