THE SOCIOECONOMIC SITUATION IN ARMENIA

Abstract

On the whole the processes unfolding in Armenia can be seen elsewhere, in all countries with transitional economies. Still, there are certain purely Armenian specifics caused by the country’s economic, political, and cultural specifics and national psychology. It is these specifics and this psychology that force each and every country to choose the path of economic reforms.  Alexander Neklessa has offered a highly original description of the current changes: “Today the neoliberal program, which can be called a ‘secular religion of the current century’ together with communism and chauvinism, is realized fast in dramatic circumstances.”1 In other words, there are no standard principles or models to be realized with equal success in all countries.
 One should accept as the most general observation that worldwide rivalry is based on high technologies and a flexible nation-state system. It is not accidental that the societies based on the nation-state principles (Japan, China, “the four Asian tigers,” Israel, etc.) can promptly respond to global developments and create flexible economic systems. In fact, everything that is going on today has displayed two trends: first, an opposition to the architects of the new world order and the efforts to create a relatively independent system that would include certain elements, high-tech production being one of them. No scientific and techno-logical potential is possible without developed production. A nation that loses the prospects for its scientific and technological development is left without one of the key reasons for its continued existence. The second trend of contemporary development calls for an adjustment to the challenges created by the architects of the new world order and survival within their program as a servicing country.
 An analysis of what is going on in Armenia says that the country is heading toward the second trend.
It seems that it is developing into a servicing country in all spheres, especially where the brain drain is concerned. As soon as the status of a servicing country takes its final shape, Armenia will be robbed of its future: this status creates different survival criteria.2
Development Trends