ON THE CONCEPT OF INTELLECTUAL POTENTIAL AND THE WAYS OF ITS MEASUREMENT

Viktoriia Kryvoshei, PhD Assistant Professor of finance department,

KHARKIV UNIVERSITY OF FOOD TECHNOLOGIES AND TRADE

Abstract: the question about national information capital arose when considering the question of international trade relations conformably to information.

Keywords: capital, information capital, knowledge, information production.

Mankind enters the XXIst century under conditions of unprecedented rates of acceleration of material progress based on development of science and technology. An assumption made by K. Marx in the mid XIXth century that science became an important production force of a society had been completely justified. It had already become. Nowadays characteristic feature of social sciences became intent attention to dynamics of processes of social development and their forecasting.

Both assume the use of quantitative methods of cognition that presuppose determination of indices allowing strictly formalized measurement procedure.

One-sided interest to qualitative methods in sociology, including science of sociology, that took place in 60-70s in our country and abroad gave way to more reasonable approach that can be characterized as striving to combine quantitative methods with qualitative that completely conforms to general principles of dialectical cognition. Qualitative side first of all consists in elaborating main concepts and establishing relations between them in accordance with real relations between spheres, sides of public life. Moreover, the concepts of sociology should be brought into correlation with more general concepts – philosophical categories.

The requirement in question relates in full measure to the task set by the authors. The process of development in general represents the process of transformation possibility into reality, fulfillment of the following stages of the process that exist only in potentiality at present time. The concept of potential becomes one of the most generally used concepts in the era of fast changes. This extremely capacious concept is meant to summarize opportunities of growth in this or that sphere, its available and established preconditions that require these or those social conditions for their realization. Potential of growth does not always mean the presence of growth at the moment. Dynamics of movement of qualitative indices gives opportunity to create range, fan of forecasts each of whish is related to assumptions about this or that influence of internal and external factors on the process in question.

The concept of potential is used more and more widely: military potential, industrial, potential of fertility of soil, demographic potential and so on. The most important feature of “expansion” of this concept is transition to integral indices in understanding and measuring of potential. Index of development of human potential (IDHP) is a well-known and important integral index developed under aegis of UNESCO and widely used in international comparisons. Let’s have a closer look at it because the elaborated approaches and experience acquired when elaborating IDPH are of great importance for solving the task set.

The problem of measuring human potential (it also completely relates to measuring intellectual potential, further on) became so important due to aggravation of global antagonisms: between leading countries and their large regional associations as well as between developed countries of “gold milliard” and the rest of mankind under conditions of globalization of economic and cultural life. Growing competitiveness between main world centers of force in politics, economics, military might, cultural and information influence implemented mainly through electronic mass media presumes accelerated increase of human, first of all intellectual potential.

Evaluating the first and the second potential “by eye” is insufficient under contemporary conditions. A number of ways allowing to evaluate the status of a state in the world hierarchy according to the status of its human potential. Substantiation of advantages of the method of calculating IDHP accepted in the international practice is presented in the literature (1). Some mathematical methods applied when calculating IDHP will be used by us further. But, first, principal difference between human and intellectual potential should be emphasized.

Intellectual potential is also an integral concept, but more specified. We suppose that it should include in a generalized form the level of development of two closely related spheres of intellectual life of a society, namely the state of science and education.

At the end of the XXth century the winning in economic and political competition accordingly is determined not only by the level of development of fundamental ( its results to some extent can be derived from international literature or determined by well-organized “inflow” of brains ) and applied science, but not to a less extent by the level of literacy of the population. It is not accidentally that at present time Japan and the USA implement compulsory general ( 12 years ) secondary education after receiving which 60-80%of young people continue their education in colleges and universities. Scornful attitude to so called “literacy” demonstrated from time to time on the pages of newspapers and magazines is an evidence of complete misunderstanding the mainsprings of the contemporary social progress. Thus, M.Rats and L.Kravchenko definitely oppose attempts “to interbreed science and education” because there are “fools” and “know-alls” and the former should have “ten times as many resources” to obtain the same result (3). Indeed, people are distinguished by their intellect and by different levels of education and they prevail by head not by quantity. But fixation of inequality of abilities in science, the necessity of selection to it, importance of intellectuals for its progress and so on does not shake the necessity of mastering new equipment and related to it development of creative methods and skills of thinking of the mass of the population. Nowadays, the progress in production, technology, conditions of life, engagement in military operations is determined not only by the level of development of science and its implementation in technical appliances, but also by the level of mastering scientific and technical knowledge and skills of the whole population. And so on. This sphere of intellectual activity is not separated from intellectual activity as a whole, form general level of education and culture of the nation and, therefore, from humanitarian education and civil consciousness.

Presented below index of development of intellectual potential, marked further as IP, and should give generalized quantitative expression of a certain number of indices characterizing intellectual development of the society in question. It is proposed to integrate several indices into two above mentioned interdependent spheres: the degree of education of the population because intellectual potential of the nation is determined by the culture of the vast masses and the state of science because creative character of thinking of a man and, thus, intellectual potential of a nation is concentrated in the greatest degree in science.

Available state in every of the chosen spheres formed at a certain moment is fixed in the presented IP index. Thus, for instance, index of life expectancy for those who were born this year is not forecasting in its essence because it is calculated on the basis of the data about age group mortality for the given (or last) year. So, in the 90s of the XX century Ukraine “was gliding” down in the IDHP tables compiled by international organizations, shifting from 54 to 72 place while Belorus managed to come up lately from 68 to 60 place (4).

Certainly, it is necessary to take into consideration that method of extrapolation applied in the forecasts of such kind is quite imperfect, especially if it is supposed that social and political and economic tendencies and mechanisms that were in effect during the previous period will go on in the same direction and with the same force during the forecasting period. That is why method of extrapolation is applied, as a rule, for supporting variability of the forecast on the basis of advancing various suppositions about possible changes of the mechanism of action of macro social factors: development of economics, system of education, financing researches and their organization, changes of a society’s influence on the state of environment, growth of the population and so on. According to these suppositions more or less wide “fans” of forecasts can be compiled, for instance, maximum, medium, minimal and so on, it depends on the conditions under which the development will be fulfilled according to this or that variant of the forecast.

Development of an integral index allowing to evaluate especially intellectual potential of the country (nation, state) and giving opportunity to forecast its dynamics for the nearest perspective, to compare to the world tendencies seems to be a very difficult task. We have already mentioned above the necessity to use experience accumulated when creating and improving IDHP , when method of calculation was differentiated for different groups of the countries (6). It seems that methodology of IP calculation should also differ for the countries with high level of development of the sphere of science and the system of education and for the countries that still solve the tasks of eliminating illiteracy of the major mass of the population and creating initial conditions for scientific activities.

The main feature of development of this group of countries lies in the fact that science in them had become the most important productive force by the end of the XXth century. Nowadays economic, financial, military, political might of the developed countries depends directly on the state of fundamental and applied science, development of RDW (research and development work) and know-how, specific share of science-intensive products in the total volume of industrial production and gross domestic product. Growth of intellectual potential is determined by the possibilities of two kinds. On the one hand, these are possibilities to provide science with modern, quite capital- and resource-intensive devices, apparatuses and installations (space stations, synchrophasotrons, radiotelescopes, “thinking” computers and so on.) that are embodiments of the newest achievements of scientific and technical thought themselves as well as expensive materials of high degree of purity. On the other hand, these are possibilities to train sufficient number of qualified personnel of scientists, engineers, technicians, top managers. Taken together requirements for creation and constant development of resource base of science and its provision with personnel that can use this base with appropriate degree of efficiency and improve it, within the group of developed countries find their generalized expression in financial provision of the sphere of science and the sphere of education. Both this and that ways can provide growth of intellectual potential only within the limits determined by historical circumstances. In the end it is possible to be reckoned among the leading developed countries and to hold the position of the leaders of the world progress (the latter is important for our country today0 only when creating and building up own powerful scientific potential and the system of training scientific and technical personnel of high qualification. According to these premises we presume that while developing such integral index as IP we should in a certain way bring together indices of state of education and science, educational and scientific potential.

It is proposed to fulfill measurement of the role of educational potential on the basis of three indices. The first one (е₁) must reflect the level of general education of “adult” population, i.e. those who in the bulk had already completed their training in the educational establishments and who form the backbone of the employed, i.e. economically active, population or population over 20. Each of these methods has its own advantages. The presented methodology chooses the second one because general intellectual potential of a society is determined to a great extent by non-working population: including mothers who bring up young generation, elderly people and so on. Besides, such choice allows using successfully data of the national statistics.

The second index (е₂) that seems to be necessarily introduced for measuring the role of education in creating intellectual potential is a specific share of students in the population, i.e. that part of youth that is a reserve of replacement of mental labor specialists in all spheres of life of a society. For these purposes it is proposed to introduce as an index the number of students of high educational establishments (in conversion to 10000 of population). This index directly characterizes the level of future professional training that young generation obtains on completing their compulsory general secondary education. The nearest aim of the developed countries is to provide all the youth with compulsory secondary education; it is legally approved but it is not completely implemented. In the USSR it was set up in 1977 and by the end of the 80^th it was to a great extent achieved. Certainly, all kinds of professional education obtained by the youth should be taken into consideration for higher accuracy.

Finally, the third index (е₃), i.e. share of expenses on education in GDP, is essential for measuring educational potential. This index gives an idea of average expenses per one student, publishing textbooks and references, state and renewal of resource base of educational establishments of all kinds and, finally, the level of material security, social status and qualification of the pedagogical personnel.

Two indices are proposed to use for measuring the role of science in creation and growth of intellectual potential. The first one (s₁) is a specific share of personnel engaged in the sphere of science and scientific service, in the total number of employed (economically active) population. As the efficiency of work of this personnel depends on the material security of science (including payment of employees’ labor), this index should be combined in a certain way with the second one (s₂) - specific share of expenses on science in percentage to GNP. In some cases, for instance, when data on GNP are classified as secret or distorted index (s₂) can be measured by specific share in the national income. When financing of science is fulfilled by the state during the period in question, as it took place in the USSR, then the share of expenses on science in the state budget can be used for the same purposes. The first variant is used in the following calculations.

Presented methodology of IP calculations is far from being perfect because, in particular, it does not take into consideration the extent of using available scientific potential. But measurement of efficiency of expenses on science seems to be independent, extremely complicated problem that exceeds the limits of the discussed question. As a matter for discussion the following indices can be put forward: specific share of science-intensive branches in total volume of industrial production, the level of receptivity of industry to scientific discoveries and developments and so on. However, in practice all the ways of measuring efficiency of researches face considerable difficulties, especially under conditions of militarization of science. For instance, science-intensive products were so successfully “hidden” in official reference data in soviet statistics that it was just impossible to receive reliable figures. This problem has deep philosophical meaning as, on the whole, potential is indissolubly connected to urgent. Potential, if it is not used, fails quickly, and , on the contrary, when practice shows active demand for science, scientific potential grows quickly and its efficiency grows even more quickly. Our history supplies examples of both.

Further on it seems expedient to continue improvement of the presented method of measuring intellectual potential in several directions alongside development of forecasts for Russia. In the first place, as applied to the national conditions it is used to broaden possibilities of forecasting at least for the first ten-year period of the XXIst century. In the second place, it is necessary to find out the degree of discrepancy in growth (decrease) of intellectual potential in the states that emerged on the territory of the USSR. Comparing tendencies in Ukraine and other countries of the CIS (and the Baltic) turns on the difficulty of evaluating that part of common scientific potential that was related to that or other union republic. In the third place, to conduct international comparisons even in a group of developed countries it will be required to conduct comparative analysis of the system of education available in each of them in order to have grounds for the accurate comparison of the number of years spent at educational establishments.

Nevertheless, all these difficulties seem to be overcome and comparing intellectual potential of different countries (regions) and tendencies of its growth to be possible and necessary despite all the differences in social and economic formation and achieved levels of development.