Annotation

The article examines the relationship between the principle of the social state and freedom of entrepreneurship in Russian constitutional law. It substantiates the thesis that these principles are not mutually negating: the social nature of the state does not abolish economic freedom, but sets the normative model for its responsible exercise. Based on an analysis of the constitutional text, legal doctrine and the practice of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the article demonstrates that the principle of the social state acts both as a positive precondition for entrepreneurship and as a criterion for the admissibility of its restrictions. The scientific novelty of the study lies in revealing the private-law forms of this constitutional balance through good faith, limits of contractual freedom, protection of the weaker party, the socially conditioned content of property rights and the inadmissibility of abuse of economic power. It is concluded that the constitutional model of a socially oriented market presupposes not the opposition of business and the social function of the state, but their coordination on the basis of legality, proportionality and a fair distribution of public burdens.