Abstract. Since the second half of the XX century the majority of modern nations is confronted with the need to modernize their economies. The peripheral countries used different models of economic transformations at various stages of development. They regularly tried to radically reduce the levels of their backlog in technological and economic development from the developed nations. The economic modernization is limited to the period of transition from an agrarian society to an industrialized development. The author states that the modernization is not applicable to form a foundation of the post-industrialism which is characterized by emergence of the different economic laws.