(a). Introduction.
A central theme of what “Atlas Stumbled” attempts to convey is that, although by common consent the spiritual phenomenon of “sobornost” in the Russian “social fabric” has significantly diminished compared to past times, it still exists at a level orders of magnitude higher than what can be observed in the West.
What exactly I mean by the term “sobornost” is discussed in post 2, “The Spiritual Component of the Economy in Russia.” I repeat, in Christ there is neither male nor female (Galatians 3:28). When we gather in the sacrament of assembly, we transcend carnal passions and thereby transcend the “two worlds” of “male” and “female,” loving our neighbor as ourselves and thereby finding unity in Christ. This unity, this “love in Christ,” uniting the “two worlds” of “masculine” and “feminine,” is what constitutes “sobornost.” Although, unfortunately, parish life does not always achieve this ideal state, nevertheless, after 1,000 years of Orthodox Christianity, the unity of the “two worlds” at the societal level has become a structural element of the “social fabric.” The communists did not destroy this—they utilized it. And to some extent, this persists even in post-communist generations, even among non-believers, because Russian “national identity” is inextricably linked to Orthodox Christianity. Individual triune personalities (spirit-soul-body) in everyday life remain in only one of the “two worlds.” But the fundamental tension between the “two worlds” is entirely a matter of carnal passions. Despite the male and female egos of individuals, carnal passions are “neutralized” at the societal level by this fundamental tension, and what remains—the source of the spirit from which ALL Russians draw (the spiritual component is the same for men and women)—is the “love of the Russian people,” essentially identical to the “love in Christ,” that is, “sobornost.” Therefore, for example, thanks to my spiritual work, I can avoid carnal passions, love my neighbor as myself, and thereby find a “middle ground” between the “two worlds,” where Russian society continues to maintain a level of a gigantic liturgy—at least in urban, pedestrian environments. (Of course, the situation may be different for people in vehicles.) And for this reason, in Russia, I can “go with the flow” of society, whereas in the West, this is impossible.
The fact that Russia is a multicultural, multireligious society does not diminish the preservation of “sobornost” in the “social fabric.”
Many people, commenting on a published interview with me, noted that “sobornost” no longer exists in contemporary Russian society. I believe they focus on “sobornost” as a direct “unity in Christ,” which is a deeper state that implies freedom from ego and from carnal passions. The reason they cannot “see” “sobornost” in the sense I use the term in the context of their own society is that they are “stuck” in their perspective, based on one of the “two worlds.”
I present the preservation and, indeed, expansion of “sobornost” in the “social fabric” as the most important condition for maintaining Russia’s spiritual well-being in future generations living in a world that is becoming increasingly “transhumanistic” (61).
To this end, I pursue three main objectives:
(i). Explain to young Russians (who are not themselves active believers and may hold openly anti-church views) Orthodox spiritual work, which is the primary source of “sobornost,” with the goal of helping them understand how to maintain “sobornost” within the “social fabric.” (For example, “Letters to My Godson on ‘Making the People’ and the Future of Russia,” posts 9-14)
(ii). Draw the attention of Orthodox Russians (an estimated 7%) (62) who regularly participate in church services to the fact that they represent a “leavening effect” in the state when they take Orthodox spiritual work from the assembly to the streets. (See “The Yeast Measure Effect,” post 17)
(iii) Draw the attention of the “system” in Russia to the need for self-reform to avoid following the West’s path of consumerist “mechanical capitalism,” and, as an example, offer assistance in this regard through the “Union of Orthodox Workers” movement.
This article is the first post aimed at achieving goal (iii).
It is important for Russians to recognize the mistakes made by Western societies so as not to repeat them in striving for a truly Russian future. The hallmark of Western capitalism, which has led to societies of “anti-sobornost” and an “every man for himself” mentality, is an “economy” that has no goal other than EXPANSION based on a “pyramid of wealth” created through debt-fueled hyperconsumption. Such an economy has no incentive to provide a peaceful, stable, and high-quality life for people.
(b). The Economy of Death – “mechanical capitalism.”
As a case study, I examine the once-noble United States, and present 1980 as a turning point. The “economy” in the United States underwent a transformation at this point. Until then, the “foundation” of the economy had been personal savings, which in itself was the source of mortgages. After this point, the economy became hypercharged, financed by pure debt. The pattern of ever-growing debt has continued from this point in history to the present. During this time, the US federal debt grew from $0.9 trillion to $38 trillion (63) – more than 10 times the difference caused by inflation alone (64). The nominal monetary value of stocks (the Dow Jones Industrial Average), which directly determines the “wealth pyramid,” also increased 60-fold during this period (65) – 15 times the difference caused by inflation alone (64). At the same time, median income growth over the same period only slightly matched consumer price increases (64, 66).
It was here that the “economy” in the US transformed from what I call a “natural process” responding to “natural markets” into a “mechanical” process that “efficiently” and “automatically” maximized the “return” on “investment,” primarily by stimulating ever-increasing consumption. This, in turn, led to a “mechanical” lifestyle, mass production, automation, and a formulaic franchise model, soon to be influenced by AI, which minimizes human interaction within the conceptual framework of “time is money.”
American “mechanical capitalism” is inherently satanic. It actively “commercializes” people as “impersonal modules” within a consumer-technological construct—it is literally an assault on the triune “image of God” (spirit-soul-body) present in every individual. This “commercialization” effectively “excludes” the “spirit” from the “structure” of society, from the “social fabric.” “Collective unity” then ceases to be a “spiritual unity” and becomes simply a “unity” of “commercialized” “impersonal modules” within a “spiritless” economic machine that generates material well-being for consumers living in a spiritual desert.
In such a system of “mechanical capitalism,” the “expansion” of the economy becomes society’s sole goal, while ensuring a peaceful, stable, and “quality” life for people becomes irrelevant. The “economy” literally becomes an “economy of death”—a “mechanism” that must continue to expand to avoid collapse, and which in the process “consumes” humanity itself, transforming triune individuals into effectively “binary” “carnal machines” with no spiritual interaction within society.
The “death economy” encourages the “consumer” to cultivate their ego. As a result, the individual becomes a slave to their ego, instead of struggling to free themselves from it. This does not lead to creativity; it leads to the destruction of unity (harmony of spirit, soul, and body) within oneself, thereby hindering Trinitarian (“love thy neighbor as thyself”) communion with others, which is ultimately the source of “sobornost.”
I believe that a great moment in history is rapidly approaching when the Western “death economy” will collapse, collapsing in on itself, a situation likely exacerbated by the West’s own arrogant attempts to destroy the Russian economy.
My greatest hope for a peaceful future for life on earth is that self-proclaimed “Christians” in the United States will finally understand the full extent of the spiritual harm they have inflicted on themselves and attempted to inflict on the rest of the world. (See Post 18, “Removing the Hyphen from ‘Christian Satanist’”) Instead of waging a final war against Russia, China, and everyone else to prevent the inevitable collapse of their “death economy,” I sincerely hope they will “take up their cross” and embrace the same “divine suffering” that Russians endured after the fall of communism. In this hopeful vision of the future, American self-proclaimed “Christians” can look to Russia for a positive role model as they work to rebuild their society based on the principle of “love thy neighbor as thyself.”
(c). The Economy of Life – society as an evolving organism.
In my optimistic scenario of a peaceful future, the “system” in Russia will be actively reformed so that Russia can return to the path of its Orthodox Christian history with a Christian “economy of life,” based on the principles expressed by the Russian theologian Sergei Bulgakov in 1912 in “The Philosophy of Economy.”
Bulgakov was a professor of economics and a former prominent Marxist who later became an Orthodox priest. He presents this work as a counterargument to Marxism. While Marxism views the world as a class struggle for existence in a bleak, atheistic-materialistic reality, Bulgakov views the world as a continuously evolving embodiment of the Creator’s creation. He presents the “economy” as the process by which life on earth is protected and developed—life initiated by the Creator, who granted “free will” to the triune humanity. In Bulgakov’s Orthodox Christian “Economy of Life,” society is viewed as a living and developing organism. A critical, defining feature of this “economy” is that workers lead a spiritually rich life—ideally, they perform their labor as part of their lives, participating in it with joy:
Here I quote Bulgakov directly (67):
“Economy is not a phenomenon of dead, material nature; it is entirely permeated with human spiritual energies and presupposes human communication with nature, their interpenetration. Labor is a phenomenon of spirit, not matter; it has spiritual foundations. The growth of material productive forces presupposes purposeful energy, human creative initiative in relation to nature. And material consumption cannot be the sole goal of the economy. It is also driven by the human creative instinct. The social organism cannot be divided dualistically, and its material side cannot be considered abstractly. Such abstraction of material life and its desensitization give rise to a whole series of morbid phenomena.”
“It is often forgotten that economic activity is a manifestation of the power of the human spirit, and that through it the mission of man’s royal calling in nature is realized. Economic life can be neither dominant nor self-sufficient. It must be subordinated to the higher principles of life. Only then does economic activity fulfill its mission of regulating the elemental forces of nature. Economic activity prevents the deadly triumph of the elemental forces; it limits the power of death in the natural order. There is a mystical aspect to the economic act, little recognized in our secularized age. Extracting economic wealth from nature is a spiritual act, in which the depths of nature are revealed to man, who becomes its owner.”
“Property is subject to serious abuses. Property cannot be recognized as an absolute and supreme principle; therefore, it must be limited and subordinated to higher principles. Man’s power over the elements of nature must have an ontological basis. Human attitudes toward the economic process can take a false direction in two opposite directions: either the duty of management and the imperative of productivity are denied, or people become enslaved to the economy, deifying it. A spiritual approach to economics presupposes asceticism, a curtailment of the thirst for life. And if nations desire spiritual rebirth, they will have to embark on the path of ascetic self-restraint and the spiritualization of economic life.”
In a related subsequent work, “The Fundamental Motives of the Philosophy of Economics in Platonism and Early Christianity,” Bulgakov explains the Christian understanding of property (68):
“It is well known that early Christian literature, as well as the Church Fathers and saints, contain harsh condemnations of private property… However, upon closer examination, one can see that the full force of these condemnations applies not so much to property as to owners, who are condemned for their selfishness and heartlessness in the use of their property. Owners are required to behave in a certain manner—namely, to provide charitable assistance to the poor and, in general, to use their wealth usefully and wisely, even to the point of completely renouncing property in the name of Christ. Therefore, the question of forms of property for Christianity becomes a matter of pure expediency, but lacks the fundamental relevance inherent in socialism. One should not completely immerse oneself in economics, allowing oneself to be subordinated to its instincts, but, as far as possible, living within the economy, one must exercise one’s freedom in relation to it, subordinating it to religious and ethical norms.”
Consumer-oriented “mechanical capitalism” has completely satanized the once-noble United States. (Discussed in detail in Post 1, “The Spiritual Component of the US Economy,” and Post 18, “Removing the Hyphen from the Phrase ‘Christian Satanist.’”).
Unfortunately, Russia’s current economy is clearly moving along the same trajectory toward the same “mechanical capitalist” society with the same “economy of death.” This can be easily seen even by simply watching “secular” programs and advertisements on any Russian television channel. It can be confidently predicted that as the material standard of living in the Russian consumer economy rises, “sobornost” will disappear, UNLESS the “system” changes course. (Discussed in detail in Post 8, “Preserving Sobornost in Russia – the Last Barricade”).
The question arises: what can be done to steer Russia’s economy along an alternative trajectory, toward the very “Economy of Life” described by Bulgakov? Clearly, this is a complex question, and there are undoubtedly many possible and non-mutually exclusive answers.
In search of an answer:
The first major problem is that the current Russian economy is a strange hybrid of Western consumer capitalism and traditional Russian principles of autocracy, governed by corrupt local officials. Opposition leader Grigory Yavlinsky describes this hybrid economy as “complex” and “not easy to rationally explain”—a “symbiosis” of corrupt officials and “opaque” business practices (69).
After the fall of communism in 1992, Western countries forcibly imposed on Russia a consumer “market” economy based on Western Protestant principles of “individualism”—something completely unrelated to the Orthodox worldview and the historical evolutionary models of Russian society. Thus, Western countries forced Russians to endure complete humiliation, as 65% of state property was “privatized” through a massive, corrupt process, during which the “sale price” averaged 3.6% of the assets’ real value (70) – a process that the renowned Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn called “the greatest crime against the Russian people” (71). Subsequently, 77% of Russians voted for a second “privatization,” but by then it was too late – the new “Westernized” “system” had firmly entrenched itself in power (72).
The second major problem in finding an answer is that the “system,” according to Yavlinsky, “is not state governance as such, but is essentially a compromise between the executive head of state and representatives of influential economic and political clans, who act as intermediaries between the top of the power pyramid and its core.” (73) Most of the “oligarchs” who wield power within the “system” are ethnic Jews and (yet) do not consider themselves Orthodox Christians. It remains to be seen to what extent these people will be willing to “submit” as “owners” to the Orthodox Christian principles of the “Economy of Life.”
(d). Cast your net on the other side of the boat!
Sergei Bulgakov was deeply disappointed that the radical program of expropriation of aristocratic lands, adopted by the Second Duma, was rejected by the government of Tsar Nicholas II in 1907. Historically, this event can be seen as the second “shock” that contributed to the subsequent overthrow and assassination of the Tsar by atheist communists after the bloody suppression of the “peaceful revolution” of 1905.
Now, in the post-communist era, the expropriation of land or wealth is not discussed. However, ironically, the “oligarchs” of the current era, the core of the “system” pyramid, actually owe their success to the reverse expropriation of Soviet state property.
In this context, I cite the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John as a compelling metaphor. The resurrected Christ advises his disciples (historically, the “resurrected” Russians), who have labored long and hard without achieving tangible results from their fishing, to “cast their net to the other side of the boat.”
The task for the “owners” of Russian wealth is nothing less than a conscious, purposeful transformation of the Russian economy. Cast your net to the other side of the boat! Just as the Americans embraced the “Economics of Death” in 1980, the “system” must now reject it and embrace instead the “Economics of Life,” asserting that the joy of life comes from “sobornost,” from empathy, and NOT from “consumption.”
Instead of relying on propaganda about “national identity” and “difference from the West,” the “system” must act and build a truly Russian economy that glorifies and affirms “sobornost,” rejecting the strange, “anti-sobornost” Western hybrid that represents today’s status quo.
There are many errors that need to be corrected. The overt message currently being pushed by Russian “marketing”/commercial propaganda is precisely the same as that of the American “Death Economy”—that the joy of life is achieved through consumption, isolated from the masses in your European-style apartment or with your family in your well-appointed dacha. And, of course, the unspoken but undeniable parallel message is that life is miserable for those “condemned” to live in dreary “Soviet” anthill-like buildings.
The promotion of individualism, egoism, segregation, and “every man for himself” cultural practices, the cultural transformation that has resulted in shopping malls becoming central elements of culture, the fascination with televised, two-dimensional Hollywood reality—each of these mass cultural trends has an “anti-sobornost” effect that must be reversed.
(e). The “Union of Orthodox Workers” movement.
My answer to the important question of what can be done to transition the Russian economy to an “Economy of Life” lies in empowering workers—in transforming the “system” so that workers themselves become the driving force behind the development of a society they themselves consider spiritually fulfilling.
The ambitious goal of the Union of Orthodox Workers is to become a fundamentally new economic force, owning the means of production and providing its members with spiritually fulfilling housing, Orthodox schools, and “houses of culture.”
Modest-sized cities are ideal locations for the Union’s activities, as they will provide fertile soil for such a dynamic, creative new force in the evolution of the “social organism.” Russia has 153 such ideal cities, with populations ranging from 50,000 to 108,000.
In a metaphor from the Gospel of John, chapter 1, 21: The number 153 corresponds to the number of fish caught by the students “on the other side of the boat.”
In a context where one of the explicit goals of the future “Economy of Life” is the development of Russia’s vast interior regions, the Union could one day become the driving force behind the creation of fundamentally new, original, and authentically Russian cities of similarly modest size.
Financing for loans to the Union within the framework of this grandiose concept could be provided by the “system” in the form of an “oligarch reconciliation fund,” corresponding to the net present value of the difference between the real value and what was actually paid for Soviet state property at the 1992 “Economy of Death” sale.
This would give birth to a new model of “ownership” without shareholders and without the “wealth pyramid.” This would harmonize the past and future trajectories of Russian history, as well as the spiritual and economic interests of the Russian “social organism” as it develops.
Ideally, the kinds of products made in the first, modest Union factories can be traditional Russian products that do not currently exist on “mass culture” scale – children’s toys, furniture from the world’s largest forests, clothing. The Union model can also be applied to services, such as computer programmers.
In the absence of this grandiose idea—and it’s an excellent start—the Union of Orthodox Workers could collaborate with the Union of Orthodox Entrepreneurs, which is based in Orthodox circles. Such a partnership could introduce a theoretical principle whereby “owners” enter into an agreement with the Union, agreeing to pay 5% more than the “market” price for labor, while the Union agrees to accept 5% less than the “market” price, so that a net “tithe” of 10% could be offered to the Moscow Patriarchate. In this way, the “oligarchs” who currently directly support the Church could distribute the same amount in a way that “multiplies” the effect for the Patriarchate, while discreetly keeping out of the spotlight.
The Union seeks to attract believers beyond those who regularly attend church. At its initial stage, the Union may simply be a joint temporary employment service and cultural organization that sponsors non-profit cultural events, including musical and other events where people gather. Such events can be organized as festive Orthodox events, following religious processions, at which members wear distinctive symbols of membership (T-shirts, banners, pins, etc.). Thus, even in its early stages, the Union can serve as an active convener of “sobornost” in society—the vanguard of the “Economy of Life.”
(61) “The Technocratic Blueprint: A Century in the Making,” Joshua Stylman, https://stylman.substack.com/p/the-technocratic-blueprint
(62) “Russians Return to Religion, But Not to Church,” Pew Research Center, February 2014, Communication 202.419.4562
(63) U.S. National Debt by Year https://www.investopedia.com/us-national-debt-by-year-7499291
(65) https://www.fedprimerate.com/dow-jones-industrial-average-history-djia.htm
(66) https://www.multpl.com/us-median-income/table/by-year
(67) Philosophy of Economy: The world as household, Sergei Bulgakov (1912) (english translation by Catherine Evtuhov, Yale University Press, 2000)
(68) Русская философия собственности (XVIII–XX вв.). СПб 1993 г., стр. 231.
(69) Realeconomik: The hidden cause of the great recession (and how to avert the next one), Grigori Yavlinsky (2011) (In english)
(70) Russian Economy in Transition (1990s – XXIst century) Problems and Prospects, M.A. Ignatskaya (2006) (In Russian)
(71) Ibid
(72) Ibid
(73) Realeconomik: The hidden cause of the great recession (and how to avert the next one), Grigori Yavlinsky (2011) (In english)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We gratefully acknowledge the influence of the works of Archimandrite Ieronim Testin. His doctoral dissertation, which I entitled “A History of Economy in the Russian Orthodox Church before 1917,” is presented here as an appendix in English and in the original Russian. Although limited to the history of economy within the Church it provides an excellent overview of Church teachings about property, ownership and “economic duty.” It explains the spiritual component of Russian economy in general including the qualities and origins of “sobornost” in Russian society. It presents an overview of Russian religious philosophers’ view of “property” and documents the historical trends in the economic interrelationship between the Church and the State up to and including the revolution in 1917. Father Jeronim’s work provides a good place to begin the discussion about what a Christian and genuinely Russian future economy might look like.
We also express our gratitude to Father Ieronim for introducing the editor to the talented philologist and journalist Irina Akhundova. Her works (in Russian) relevant to this topic can be found at the links below, and we also express our gratitude to her.
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