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A. Well, life will show us. I wouldn't rule it out. We'll be phasing out state property and establishing shareholder companies, leasehold properties, cooperative enterprises and individual employment. Broadly speaking, self- employed people will include those who work in their own shops or on their own plots of land. In developed Western countries, there are various concepts of a market economy. For example, there is a more liberal approach in the U.S., while in some European countries, such as France and Scandinavia, there is more government regulation; a significant portion of the economy is publicly owned. But even there, everything operates within the framework of a market.
Q. Most Soviet and Western economists warn that you can't have radical reform of the Soviet economy without inflation and unemployment -- and probably large amounts of each.
A. I think both things will happen. You should bear in mind that we have quite a few factories in the Soviet Union that are simply inefficient. They're going to have to reorient their production. People will have to be retrained. Many will have to find new occupations. That's why we are establishing a system of social protection that will enable these people to make the transition. In America and other developed Western countries, most people are employed in the services sector, while two-thirds of our people are in the production sector. We've got a lot of work ahead of us to expand jobs in the services sector. We'll be looking at other countries as we decide which way to go. We feel ourselves part of a global civilization, and we want to be organically included in the entire world economically.
At the same time, however, it would be an ((environmental)) catastrophe if all the countries of the world tried to achieve the standard of living of the U.S. America already consumes a disproportionate percentage of the world's energy resources. That's why I stress the conflict between consumer society and nature.
Q. But it seems that many people in your country are concerned not with the conflict between nature and progress but with the absence of progress itself; they're not sure whether you can deliver on improved living standards.
A. You'd be mistaken if you think people are not troubled by the environment, by the conflict between industry and nature. Their concerns have caused 1,000 factories to be shut down. The result has been the loss of 10 billion rubles' worth of production. Just look at the Congress of the Russian Federation, which is debating the question of sovereignty. Many speakers are defining sovereignty precisely in terms of how most efficiently to use the resources of the republic.
Of course you're right that technological progress has stimulated the search for new forms of economic management and organization. The old system rejected technological achievement. Now, by making the transition to market mechanisms, we're going to adopt state programs that stimulate science and education, and we're also going to convert our defense industries in a way that shifts our society onto the path of scientific and economic progress.