Russian "artel'nost'" - myth or reality? Artel' as an organizational form in the XIX - early XX century Russian economy: Comparative and historical institutional analysis

Abstract

Many Russian economists, sociologists, and public leaders have asserted that one of the fundamental mental models of Russian people demonstrated over the long history is the so called “artelnost” i.e. the internal commitment to collective work, aspiration to work in solidary groups. However comparative and historical institutional analysis reveals that the assertion of Russian people’s artelnost has no supported evidence. Artel as an organizational form of production was not the result of the specific Russian national character and mentality. Different types of artel-like associations had existed in different countries including Western European. Existence of the collective forms of labor in Russia was mainly connected either with the non-economic coercion and propagation or with the higher economic effectiveness of such organizational forms in the specific spheres of activity. In particular artel’s «natural habitat» was quite narrow and was confined within activities of low capital investment, simple homogeneous job and labor with primitive equipment and technology. Artel in its «pure» forms did not survive in other spheres. Principal–agent and team production approaches highlight that Russian artel was an effective institution for solving adverse selection and moral hazard problems.