The Countries of the Orient at the Beginning of the XXI Century: in the Search of the New Theoretical Generalizations
The author considers it topical to revise former conceptions of the social and economic development of the "third world". A revision is necessitated by the fact that these conceptions were formulated for developing countries viewed as an independent object of research. Today all attempts to theoretically understand processes in the more and more differentiating "third world" are impossible without including the problems of its development into the general context of the contemporary stage of the evolution of world economy (first of all - context of globalization). Topicality of such a revision in this country is necessitated also by the fact that the present-day level of development of the former colonial countries and backward societies was achieved despite the Marxist conceptions. The Marxist schemes of development could not either forecast or explain progress of the developing countries in many fields. Profound changes going on during decades in the world economy appear also for the developing countries, the author points out, either as a new stage of their development, or as a possibility of such development. In order to reach a required level of analysis it is necessary first and foremost to revise and in some cases reject old-fashioned methodological and theoretical approaches