Luzhkov doubts government can handle economic difficulties, suggests that it learn from Marx
MOSCOW. May 11 (Interfax) - The real sector of the Russian economy has encountered a critical situation, and the incumbent government has hardly dealt with the emerged difficulties, former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has said.
"The cabinet is not dealing with the real economy and science. The lack of interest in the development of science, especially the applied one, deprives the country of the prospective creation of new types of hardware, electronics, new types of products," Luzhkov told Interfax on Wednesday.
"In the end, this will have an impact not only on the level of the country's economic development but also on its defense capacity," the former mayor said.
"Being abstracted from communist dogmas, we should still take a fresh look at the teaching of Karl Marx, this outstanding economist. The laws he formulated say that the real sector is the foundation of state activity in any economy, and money is just a superstructure," Luzhkov said.
"Everything is mixed up here: in fact, the country is playing with money, it has become bonded to global oil prices and is now wholly dependent on them. Given those circumstances, the real economy cannot exist, especially under a harsh regime of lending," the former mayor said.
"To say nothing of what I am doing now - agricultural production. This equally applies to machine building, electronics, chemistry and lots of other things - we have practically no sectors to yield profit capable of covering the interest rate of a bank loan," Luzhkov said.
"This is a critical situation, and the cabinet does not seem to be able to tackle problems, which have emerged in the economy," the former mayor said.
Luzhkov noted that he had a negative opinion of the government's work.