INTRODUCTION

classical political Economy and the economy that has become widespread in its Western version are two independent links in the system economic theory. The concept of "political economy" was first introduced by A. Montchretien in his teaching "Treatise of Political Economy". The title of the work became so fortunate that it was the generally accepted definition of economics until the early twentieth century, because it accurately reflected the nature of economic research being conducted.

However, most researchers began to abandon this designation, believing that economics should be wary of many political issues that the economist cannot ignore. In addition, the designation "political economy" seemed rather narrow to the researchers. As a result, the term was replaced by the concept of "economic science".

Economic theory is a universal science, acting as a methodological foundation for a whole range of economic sciences that have a significant impact on the development of other sciences.

However, as D. Keynes noted, economic theory is not a set of ready-made solutions for the practice of doing business. Rather, it is a powerful tool for the implementation of the accumulated information in the right hands.

The theoretical and methodological foundations of economic interests attracted the attention of researchers at all stages of the formation and development of world civilization. This problem is especially manifested during the transformation of socio-economic processes, accompanied by significant changes in the environment of economic agents, modifications of their behavior patterns, the need to adapt to new economic conditions.

The relevance of the chosen topic is explained by the fact that economic science has developed in accordance with the emergence of certain economic problems, as well as ways to resolve them. The history of development economic thought occurs simultaneously with the history of the development of relations between labor and property, the development of relations of exchange and the emergence of a division of labor.

The object of research when writing a term paper is the subject of economic theory.

The subject of the study is the development of the subject of economic theory, its interpretation by different economic schools.

The purpose of writing a term paper is to analyze the evolution of the subject of economic theory.

To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks:

· consider the subject of economic theory in ancient times;

· consider the subject of economic theory in the Middle Ages;

· consider the interpretation of the subject of economic theory by various schools of economists in the 17th - 19th centuries;

· analyze the views of the main economic schools, such as the neoclassical school, the Keynesian direction and the institutional sociological school.

When writing, scientific literature on a given topic was used.

Chapter 1. Formation and development of the subject of economic theory

.1 The subject of economics in ancient times

One of the most ancient eastern states are those that arose in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates (Mesopotamia) in the 7th-4th millennium BC. The main condition for agriculture in this area was irrigation, which required joint labor.

The sources of economic thought give examples of the fact that the state, with the help of the law, is trying to regulate economic life. The most famous is the code of laws of King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC). The main theme of the laws is the formation of conditions under which the strong would not oppress the weak. In accordance with it, in order to avoid the collapse of natural-economic relations and the threat to the sovereignty of the country due to the weakening state structures and the army from reduced taxes in the treasury introduced strict legal norms. It was forbidden to sell land plots of royal soldiers for debts, usury was limited (20% in cash and 33% in kind), debt slavery, regardless of the amount of debt, was limited to three years. The formation of usury leads to the formation of business houses that perform the functions of the first banks (the house of Egibi, the house of Murashu). Depositors received 13% per annum on their cash deposit, borrowers typically paid 20%. Violation entailed serious financial, administrative and criminal liability up to the death penalty.

Two documents about that time that have survived to our time speak about the economic development of Ancient Egypt: “Instruction of the Heracleopolis king to his son” (XXII century BC) and “Speech of Ipures” (XVIII century BC).

The first document contains the rules government controlled and farm management.

The second document speaks of preventing the uncontrolled growth of lending operations and, as well as the formation of debt slavery in order to exclude stratification in society, which could subsequently lead to a civil war. The civil war could lead to even greater impoverishment and decline of the country.

One of the most striking documents of Ancient India in the 4th-3rd centuries BC about the economic thought "Arthashastra" ("artha" - "teaching", "shastra" - "income"). The author of the work is the adviser to King Chandrapgta I Kautilya. He tried to explain that wealth is formed through labor, as well as the need to share profits with the state, since the state allows preferential land use, builds roads, guards buildings, develops crafts and develops minerals, the need to fight speculators. In addition, he called for those who do not pay for the exploitation of the land to be given into slavery temporarily or permanently. In his opinion, the state had to regulate the economic mechanism; costs should be set in advance, which are 5% for local goods and 10% for imported goods.

Economic thought in ancient China is presented in the treatise "Lun-yu" ("Conversations and judgments") of Confucius. In his opinion, a good state is like a respectable family, where the sovereign is a father who takes care of everyone, and the inhabitants are children who obey their father in everything. But this is inherent only to a highly educated sovereign, capable of influencing the distribution of wealth in the country. Confucius believed that when everyone has prosperity, due to the skillful management of the economy, the wealth of the state will increase, regardless of whether it is a private economy or a common peasant property.

Cato tried to describe the economy of Ancient Rome in a work called "Agriculture". In his work, he called for the maximum concentration of efforts on agriculture, since physical labor does not allow a person to be rude, angry, dissatisfied and aggressive, and also benefits health. Over time, sharecroppers began to appear in ancient Rome, working for money or part of the crop.

The economic problems of ancient Rome are also reflected in the writings of Varro and Columella.

Columella wrote a treatise on agriculture. He caught the main contradiction of the slave-owning society - the suppression of the production activity of the producer, the violation of the normal process of reproduction of the labor force. Slaves became a dangerous property, so Columella advised to move to small-scale production.

Economic thought developed, but reached its peak in Greece during the period of the beginning of the decline of the slave economy. The rudiments of economic thought are contained in Homer's poems "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey", which reflected the natural economic concept. In the work of Hesiod "Works and Days" the power of wealth is described.

An idea of ​​the economic thought of Ancient Greece is given by the events held by Pericles in Athens (444-429 BC). He launched civil construction, took care of the development of crafts and trade. The economic policy of Pericles focused on the widespread use of slaves, the development of trade and money management.

Important moments in the development of economic thought are noted in the works of Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle.

It is believed that it was Xenophon who proposed the name "economy", which literally translates as "house building". The treatise "Oikonomia" outlined the economy in the view of the ancient Greeks. This treatise reflected all aspects of life: from the distribution of duties in the house to farming. Xenophon is recognized as the author of the treatise Domostroy.

According to Xenophon, slavery was necessary, agriculture was the main activity, rivalry between slaves should be fomented by rewarding financially and morally those who work better.

The first of the thinkers who tried to prove what an ideal state looks like was Plato. He is known as the author of the works "State" and "Laws". He believed that philosophers should rule the state - the first class, relying on their wisdom. The second class is warriors who guard the border and keep order. The third class is merchants, artisans and peasants, who must provide goods for the first two classes. Plato was the first to classify forms of government according to how they obey the laws and how many people govern the state.

According to Plato, prices for goods should be set by the state. Plato considered agriculture, and not craft and trade, to be the most important, he proposed the hereditary transfer of land.

The first scientist who expressed the opinion that economics is the science of wealth was Aristotle, known as the author of the works "Politics", "Nicomachean Ethics", etc.

Believing, like almost all scientists of antiquity, that agriculture is the main thing, he supported Plato and Xenophon in matters of the division of labor and people.

Aristotle contrasted chrematistics and economics as a purposeful activity to create the benefits necessary for the natural needs of man. At the same time, Aristotle saw the role of the economy in meeting needs and in creating the funds necessary to maintain the economy. Money in this case serves solely to ensure the convenience of exchange. Chrematistics considers the situation when profit and accumulation of money has become the main goal of activity (for example, usury, commercial trade). Money acts as wealth and purpose, losing its purpose as a medium of exchange. Aristotle had a negative attitude towards chrematistics.

1.2 The subject of economic theory in the Middle Ages

An analysis of the economic teachings of the Middle Ages showed that the economic thought of that time was closely interconnected with the policy of the state, which supported the development of the existing feudal system.

In the process of its formation and development, feudalism went through three stages:

early feudalism (the emergence and formation of feudal relations during the collapse of the former slave system);

developed feudalism; (the dominance of agriculture and the low level of agricultural technology);

Late feudalism (emergence of manufacturing production, development of commodity-money relations, the beginning of the collapse of the feudal system).

During the Middle Ages, feudal land ownership was established as a guideline, the basis of which was the use of serfs. The difference from slave-owning relations was that the dependent peasant was a participant in property relations, tk. owned his own small plot of land and the means of production for its cultivation. At the same time, the peasant was obliged to alienate the surplus product in the form of various types of rent to the feudal lord. The economic interest was to receive income from their site.

A feature of the system is that the land was not always owned by the feudal lord, i.e. the process of feudalization meant the seizure by the ruling class of peasant lands and the formation of a feudal estate on the basis of the landed property of the feudal lord and his incomplete ownership of the production worker - the dependent peasant.

The economic thought of the Middle Ages developed in relation to the development of society: the defenders of feudalism rejected usury and trade, and supported the natural and economic limitation of production, which was presented as a social virtue.

At the same time, the church played a huge role in the economy of the Middle Ages, so more and more often economic thought took on a religious form. Christianity is becoming even more widespread, so the economy of Aristotle is timely transformed into scholasticism. Labor was declared a sacred and charitable deed, and economic thought is more of a set of rules and norms for the life of society than a scientific idea of ​​economic practice.

An idea of ​​​​the economic thought of the early Middle Ages (VI - X centuries) is given by the record of the judicial order of the Franks "Salic Truth", which appeared at the beginning of the XI century. By listing the number of possible fines for committed offenses, the record makes it clear the economic component of the life of this society: on the one hand, the communal peasantry, and on the other, the feudal lords. Agriculture, according to the record, is the primary occupation of the population. At the same time, special attention was not paid to the development of cities, as well as industrial production. characteristic feature for economic development francs was the absence of trade problems on domestic market. The distribution of land by the kings of the Frankish state was carried out in the form of full ownership of the land, but then the right to land became lifelong, which led to the heredity of feudal estates.

Some time later, the economic essence of the Middle Ages was reflected in the Capitulary of Villas published by Charlemagne, in which feudal economic relations were consolidated, the basis for which was subsistence farming.

The Middle Ages are characterized by the strengthening of the positions of the Catholic Church. Economic doctrines appeared that reflected the originality of economic thought. Being the owners of large land holdings, the church justifies the existence of serfdom and defends its positions with the help of church canons.

The most famous adherent of such views was the Catholic scholastic philosopher Thomas Aquinas, who systematized the beliefs of the canonists. In his writings, Aquinas affirmatively advocates the protection of private property, substantiating the need to create order in economic life and ensure the peaceful life of the population. At the same time, Thomas establishes the boundaries between the right of use and the right of ownership. According to his teachings, the owner manages property in the interests of creating the common good, and the one who shows hostility towards property goes against the whole system.

With a positive attitude towards feudal property, Aquinas has a negative attitude towards the emergence of usury, considering it a threat to the emergence of economic domination of the feudal lords.

An important place in his teachings was the definition of "fair price", which, according to his definition, also proceeded from the costs necessary for the manufacture of goods for raw materials, tools, etc. It follows from this that a fair price provided the seller with food based on his class position, so the labor moment here was estimated rather conditionally. The condemnation of the appearance of trading profits and the interest received was declared not only as "unpleasant to God", but also as a violation of the definition of a fair price. However, land rent was justified as income created by natural conditions.

Although the class structure was similar, the ideological processes were characterized different features that were inherent in the economic society in Western Europe, Russia and the East.

The economic thought of medieval Russia, as well as in other countries, develops together with society and is characterized by a close connection with the beliefs of the Orthodox Church. Analyzing the economic society in Rus', it is necessary to note the officially fixed information - chronicles, letters of princes, various church documents. The key is a document called "Russian Truth" - the first code of norms and rules in the history of Rus'. The content of the document characterizes the relations of production that existed at that time in our state. According to him, feudalism in Rus' had its own characteristics: the economy of the feudal lords in one case was called patrimonial (hereditary), and in the other - local (received as a reward from the Government). The estates differed according to the type of ownership, however, production relations on land plots were the same. In addition, separate articles of the document were devoted to the development of trade and credit relations, which indicates the spread of merchant capital and usury in the state. It is important to note that the loan was issued not only in cash, but also in kind.

Particular attention in medieval Rus' was paid to the protection of land holdings. Since the legislation did not particularly interfere in the affairs of the feudal lord, they themselves determined the order of management. This practice caused the appearance of a document on the organization of feudal production - "Domostroy", in which the main tasks of subsistence farming were considered. Subsistence farming in Rus' is directly connected with the market, therefore, in this document there is a chapter on the topic of shopping benefits. For example, "Domostroy" advises not to take on credit, but to repay various obligations in a timely manner. "Domostroy" is exceptional in that the book was the first to offer a table of income and expenses to help landowners. The last chapter draws the attention of landowners to the benefits of hired labor in commercial or industrial affairs, and also makes recommendations to set the serfs free in order to create their personal economy.

However, at the last stage of the development of feudalism, Domostroy lost its relevance due to the emergence of new economic tasks. In this regard, the work of Yermolai-Erasmus under the title "The ruler and land surveying of the benevolent king" was of great importance. The work is a special political treatise aimed at solving emerging economic problems. However, the ways of developing the economic system proposed by Yermolai-Erasmus turned out to be progressive and did not find support in society at that time.

Thus, the economic system of medieval Rus' was determined by the feudal system that dominated the state. The feudal lords largely determined their own powers.

At the last stage of the development of feudalism, economic thought undergoes significant changes in connection with the development of manufactory production and geographical discoveries, which accelerated the process of accumulating own capital. This period is characterized by the emergence of social utopias and, as a result, opponents of private property. However, the researchers of that time did not know the real ways to implement their ideas, so they limited themselves to describing the utopian structure of the state.

Thus, economic subject in the Middle Ages, it is characterized by the development of feudal relations, the basis of which was the use of dependent peasants and their tools in order to increase their own capital. The economic thought of that time was constantly developing, which led to the emergence of a large number treatises describing the conduct of the feudal household. The characteristic features of this time are the significant participation of church authorities in matters of the economic structure of the country, the rejection of usury, and the encouragement of the development of agricultural land in order to increase their own capital.

1.3 Interpretations of the subject of economic theory by schools of economists inXVII- middleXIXin.

As noted above, the stage of late feudalism is characterized by the development of commodity-money relations, the manufacturing industry, and the development of elements of the capitalist mode of production. It was during this period that science appears, which gave the name to the subject of economic theory - mercantilism.

Mercantilism is the economic policy of the state of the stage of late feudalism, thanks to which the accumulation of capital and the formation of the capitalist mode of production were developed. The policy of mercantilism is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 - The policy of mercantilism

As can be seen from Figure 1, the production of goods within the country, according to this policy, is subordinated to the export of finished products, so it is necessary to develop those manufactories whose production of goods finds the highest degree of sale abroad at high prices.

The subject of study for the mercantilists was the source of society's wealth in trade.

Mercantile policy combines two stages:

late mercantilism.

The basis of early mercantilism was the theory of the balance of money, according to which one should be engaged in the accumulation of money in the country, and not their spending.

Late mercantilism is also characterized by the fact that wealth is identified with money, but money is already capital, which leads to the growth of money. Therefore, the requirement for the accumulation of money is transformed into the requirement for the continuous movement of money, for a greater increase in own capital. From this it follows that the supporters of the doctrine considered money not only as a source of wealth and a means of circulation, but also as capital, i.e. money as a way to increase your own capital.

The main thing in the doctrine of the mercantilists is the desire to find out not only the objective movement of money as capital, but also to establish the value of profit as the defining motive of the capitalist economy.

Prominent representatives of mercantilism were T. Man, A. Montchretien, W. Stafford, Colbert.

Naturally, the teachings of mercantilism had both supporters and opponents. The main opposition to this movement were supporters of physiocracy. The supporters of this doctrine transferred the study of the sphere of circulation to the sphere of production, thereby laying the foundations for the analysis of capitalist production. Like the mercantilists, the Physiocrats considered the sources of society's wealth to be the subject of science.

Supporters of this theory for the first time presented the surplus value of capital as a category of production, not circulation, and also gave an analysis of capital as a factor. The great merit of the physiocrats is the laid foundation for the doctrine of the composition and division of capital into fixed and circulating. The study of the capital structure allowed F. Quesnay to compile an economic table in which the researcher seeks to give a picture economic relations between classes. (Picture 2)

Figure 2 - Economic table F. Quesnay

As can be seen from Figure 2, F. Quesnay divided society into classes not on the basis of class, which was typical of the previous stages, but on the participation of the class in the production and expansion of surplus value. It follows that the researcher establishes the relationship between the structure of society and the structure of production.

Thus, the teachings of the mercantilists and physiocrats had an enormous impact on the development of the capitalist system and the penetration of the bourgeois class into the sphere of production. This thought immediately found application in theory: trade is no longer a source of wealth; production is increasingly the source of wealth. Goods are the real wealth. From that moment on, a school of classical political economy emerged, the brightest representatives of which are W. Petty, A. Smith and D. Ricardo.

W. Petty - the founder of the labor theory - believed that labor is interconnected with the cost of the product. In his writings, he equates the labor of the farmer and the labor of the worker. This theory also has a number of shortcomings: the author does not distinguish value from price as a monetary expression and believes that only labor for the production of valuable metals determines value.

In 1777, A. Smith's book "An Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations" was published, which is considered the main creation of his life. The essence of his work is to substantiate the theory of labor value, to prove that labor is a source of wealth in all spheres of production, and not just agriculture, due to the costs of which value is formed, and then the price of a commodity. Many researchers of the present time consider the postulates of Smith's theory, which form the Smith's paradigm, to be relevant to this day.

Smith's paradigm is based on the proposed concepts:

the hypothesis of "economic man", denoting the concept of man and his place in economic theory;

The hypothesis of the "invisible hand" of the market, which implies minimal government intervention in the market environment; regulation based on free prices, depending on the supply and demand for the product and the impact of competition;

· According to Smith, wealth acts as the main function and object of economic relations.

The teachings of A. Smith were further developed in the writings of D. Ricardo, who established comparative advantages for each product.

As for Russia, in our country for a long time dominated serfdom, therefore, many categories of the capitalist system foreign countries remained irrelevant. However, something else was important - the search for ways and means to achieve the economic potential of Russia, the search for ways to abolish serfdom and the formation of the business sector. It was this side of Smith's teachings that attracted domestic economists - S.Yu. Witte, P.A. Stolypin and others.

The achievements of classical political economy are:

change in the object of study from the sphere of circulation to the sphere of production;

• disclosure of labor as a measure of the value of all goods;

· proof that the economy should be regulated only by market participants and has objective laws;

· Identification of sources of income structure of the population.

From the teachings of A. Smith and D. Ricardo, a new trend in the development of economic thought was formed - Marxism, the founder of which is considered Karl Marx and his main work - "Capital". The teachings of K. Marx are presented in 4 volumes, the author considered the development of the capitalist mode of production and the corresponding relations of production and exchange as the subject of his research. "Capital" mainly considered the theory of surplus value (unpaid labor of workers), which claims that its production is achieved through the use of the working class, and the appropriation of surplus value is a constant increase in the wealth of the capitalists.

K. Marx, like the founders of classical political economy, believed that the market is a powerful tool for capital accumulation. However, unlike the works of A. Smith and D. Ricardo, Marx believed that this process would lead to an intensification of the class struggle, and as a result, the death of capitalism, because. the market mechanism will not be able to cope with such power.

The teachings of K. Marx became widespread in Russia in the works of such Russian scientists and politicians as V.A. Lenin, R.G. Plekhanov, M.A. Bakunin. Moreover, for more than half a century the Marxist doctrine was dominant in our country.

Assessing the influence of Marxist teaching on the development of the world economic system, we can draw the following conclusions:

· "Capital" - the pinnacle of classical political economy;

· the study of capitalism was carried out not in fragments, but as a single system of laws and categories;

· the study of the reasons for the change of socio-economic formations made it possible to assess the course of human history not from the point of view of chaos, but from the point of view of logic.

Thus, scientists have been engaged in the formation and development of the subject of economic theory since ancient times, when economic science developed as a science of wealth. At the same time, the state and the church had a serious influence on the development of the existing economic system until the emergence of the first schools of classical political economy, which contributed to the development of commodity-money relations, the manufacturing industry and the development of elements of the capitalist mode of production. A. Smith and K. Marx had a significant impact on the formation of the capitalist system of the economy, highlighting the market as the main instrument of capital accumulation for entrepreneurs. After the teachings of K. Marx, political economy develops within the framework of neoclassical, Keynesian, institutional and sociological trends.

economic neoclassical Keynesian institutional

Chapter 2. Interpretation of the subject of economic theory inXIX- XXin.

.1 Neoclassical direction

The neoclassical direction arose in the mid-80s of the XIX century, at the time of the rapid development of economic theory. The formation of the neoclassical trend is associated with the name of U.S. Jevons, as well as with those who supported the idea of ​​this direction - L. Walras and V. Pareto. A feature of the neoclassical direction was the introduction of mathematical methods into economic theory in order to turn it into a more exact science, as well as the behavior of an "economic" person, in an effort to obtain maximum income at minimum cost. This direction is a weighty base for many modern trends in economic thought.

Like any other, the neoclassical direction has a number of followers who, in an effort to generalize their knowledge and ideas, as well as to give a new impetus to the development of the direction, united in various schools. (Austrian, Cambridge, etc.)

The Austrian school seems interesting, which is a subjective-psychological direction in political economy, the main merit of which is considered to be the development of the theory of marginal utility. Supporters of this school made attempts to overcome the limitations of the theory of labor value, which did not provide an analysis of the consumer in the process of forming the value and price of goods. However, the theory of marginal utility received a particularly successful development in the works of well-known marginalists - A. Marshall, F. Wieser and others.

As noted in the first chapter, in the middle of the 19th classical political economy dominated, represented by the Marxist school, however, the turn in the issue of considering pricing methods was so swift that it was called the marginalist revolution. Supporters of the direction studied the so-called limit values: marginal utility, marginal productivity, etc.

Marginalists saw the task of political economy in finding ways to effectively allocate limited resources and the possibility of rational management. At this point, the concept of "economics" appears instead of the concept of "political economy" in order to emphasize the social neutrality of the teachings of the marginalist approach. The marginalist revolution was of great importance for the development of all economic theory - a change in the subject of study, i.e. if in classical political economy, the main goal was to study and determine the source of wealth, then the task of the neoclassical direction is to study the behavior of an individual firm with the goal of maximizing profits, as well as an individual consumer, who in his activities is guided only by his personal considerations.

The neoclassical direction is characterized by the emergence of a large number of different theories:

· liberalism;

· monetarism;

The theory of "general economic equilibrium";

The theory of "welfare economics", etc.

Consider the key of them - the theory of liberalism and monetarism.

Liberalism is a theoretical doctrine that denies the widespread intervention of the state in the economic life of society. Unlike other economists, supporters of this theory evaluate the process of economic life not from a microeconomic position, but from the point of view of development. national economy generally. According to the theory, the state performs only those functions that the market cannot perform on its own, as well as the functions of creating a structure within which the effective functioning of markets and private enterprises is possible.

The theory of monetarism is an economic theory according to which the entire money supply in circulation plays a key role in the stabilization and development of market relations. Unlike the theory of neoclassical liberalism, monetarists allow state intervention, but only in the case of control over the country's money supply.

Thus, having considered the neoclassical direction of development of economic theory, we can say that this direction is characterized by the following features:

· research by supporters of the "clean" economy direction, with a distraction from the nature of social relations in which it was organized;

· Preference is given to the market mechanism for establishing a balance between production and consumption; granting freedom of private enterprise;

creation of a basis for the emergence of new modern trends;

· the use of mathematical methods in order to transform economic theory into a more exact science;

· The marginalist revolution had a huge impact on the development of economic relations of that time, however, the applied approach is asocial.

The relevance of the neoclassical direction, which defends the freedom of private enterprise and restricts state intervention in market mechanisms, is not lost to this day. However, during periods of economic crises, interest in this area disappears, since the theory is unable to answer the questions of the causes of the crisis and ways out of it.

2.2 Keynesianism

The formation of this direction was based on or and the views of the English economist D. Keynes.

Keynesianism is a macroeconomic theory that recognizes and justifies the importance state regulation economy. In contrast to neoclassical economic theory, the subject of analysis in the teachings of Keynes was the national economy as a whole.

According to Keynesian theory, such indicators of macroeconomics as national income, aggregate supply, aggregate demand, and the degree of employment are subject to government intervention. According to Keynes, the main factor that can bring the national economy out of the crisis is aggregate demand, which is determined by three components:

consumption of the population;

enterprise investment;

government spending.

Keynesian theory, as opposed to neoclassical, became especially interesting during such crises as the Great Depression, the crisis of World War II; at each stage, Keynesianism was enriched with new ideas and methods, as a result of which neo-Keynesianism and post-Keynesianism appear, opposing the development of the main theories of neo classical school- the theory of marginal utility and the theory of marginal productivity.

Thus, having considered the tory of Keynesianism, we can draw the following conclusions:

· the development of a macroeconomic method for studying the economy belongs to Keynes;

· the necessity is proved and specific levers of state regulation of the economy are named both during the crisis and in the long term;

· the cyclical development of the economy was explained not by objective laws, but by human psychology: the desire to accumulate as much as possible than to spend; as a result, "effective demand" falls and, as a result, the rate of growth of production and employment slows down.

Despite the struggle of the neoclassical and neo-Keynesian schools for the possibility of putting their ideas into practice, attempts were often made to combine the individual provisions of the neoclassical theory and the theory of Keynesianism. This direction was called "neoclassical synthesis" and is considered one of the main ones in modern economic science.

2.3 Institutional sociological direction

The institutional sociological trend arose at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. thanks to the work of the American economist T. Veblen. This direction was considered by many economists as a reaction of radical economists to the emerging negative aspects of capitalism.

The concept of institutions was considered by economists, both in a broad and in a narrow sense. In a broad sense, institutions mean corporations, trade unions, the state, and so on. There are two main branches of institutionalism:

traditional;

Traditional institutionalism is a combination of various concepts: the technocratic concept of T. Veblen, the theory of post industrial society, the theory of economic backwardness G. Myrdal. The founders of the direction are T. Veblen, D. Commons and others. The methodology developed by these scientists took into account:

the use of a descriptive-statistical method;

use of the historical-genetic method;

The fundamental theory of traditional institutionalism is The Theory of the Leisure Class by T. Veblen. In the doctrine, there is a division of entrepreneurs into the owner of capital and the organizer of production. At the same time, the source of income for capital owners is not the real sector, but securities, applying to financial sector. In this sense, the owners of capital appear as an idle class, while the productive class will be workers and managers who do not have their own capital. Veblen saw the problem of the leisure class in that the role of credit in any economic environment becomes too high. The resolution of problems between the idle and the industrial classes will inevitably lead to the transfer of power into the hands of technocrats, and equity capital will replace private property.

D. Commons in the doctrine of "Institutional Economics" emphasized the development of legal categories and legal institutions that influence the development of the world economy. At the heart of his work is the concept of "deal", which is understood by the author as a conflict of interest, and the role of the judge is assumed by the state, forcing by force to fulfill the obligations of both parties. The difference from Veblen's theory was the total, according to which the order will be replaced not by a technocratic doctrine, but by an administrative one.

Denying socialism, but at the same time recognizing its achievements, on the one hand, and defending capitalism, but seeing its negative features, on the other hand, the supporters of this school came to the conclusion that the best qualities of both systems were combined, which found its application in the theory of convergence.

The concept of new institutionalism differs significantly from the traditional one, i.e. if the latter uses a predominantly inductive method as methods, then neo-institutionalists began to apply a deductive approach - leading from general principles to explaining specific phenomena in the life of society.

According to supporters of this theory, the basis of relationships between people is mutually beneficial exchange. This approach is called the contract paradigm, which creates an economy of agreements. Agreements form the institutional environment and determine the norms and rules inherent in it, both for the private sector through the theory of property rights, and the public sector through the theory of public choice.

The new institutionalism puts the problem of human motivation at the forefront, i.e. he is interested in the process of decision-making by an individual, its conditions and prerequisites. This statement found its place in the theory of agents, which first consider the preliminary premises of contracts, and then - the Coase theory of transaction costs.

Old and new institutionalism differ significantly in the following sentences:

· if the supporters of the old approach occupied an important place in the study of the problems of transforming society into a post-industrial one based on scientific and technological progress, then the new institutionalism is characterized by great attention to the person and his problems;

· supporters of the old approach study the subject of economic theory using the methods of other sciences: sociology, psychology, jurisprudence, etc., while supporters of the new approach study legal and other problems using the methods of modern macroeconomic theory;

Neo-institutionalists based their study on the behavior of an individual who independently decides which team to be in, while traditional institutionalism did not affect the actions of specific individuals, but focused on the actions of economic teams.

Thus, we considered the influence of three important economic directions on the formation and development of the subject of economic theory. It is important to note that if at the beginning the state in economic doctrines was assigned the role of an observer of market relations, then later schools betrayed the state more importance, believing that with its levers of power it could demand the fulfillment of the terms of the transaction from both parties. Schools of neoclassical direction, Keynesianism, institutional and sociological direction had a huge impact on the formation of modern economic thought.

CONCLUSION

Thus, economic theory is the science of the laws and factors of economic growth, the effective use of limited useful resources and their exchange between individuals in order to meet their needs, about the types of activities according to the methods of formation and accumulation of own capital.

The subject of study of economic theory is the relations and patterns that develop in the process of economic growth in conditions of limited resources necessary for the development of social life.

As a phenomenon, economic science arose in ancient times and developed as a science of wealth. The first attempt to make a theoretical understanding of the economic structure of society, tried such Greek scientists as Aristotle, Socrates.

Later, as a science, economic theory began to take shape during the development of capitalism, and mercantilism became the first economic doctrine.

The beginning of classical political economy was laid by W. Petty, in his writings proving that the source of wealth is production, and not trade in goods, i.e. true wealth is money, and the possession of goods. A. Smith and D. Ricardo were prominent representatives of the school of classical political economy, whose teachings resulted in the emergence of a separate trend - Marxism. The subject of research in this direction was the capitalist mode of production, as well as the corresponding relations regarding the production and exchange of goods or services.

The industrial revolution, as well as the high rates of development of the economic society, allowed the emergence of such areas as the neoclassical school of economics, Keynesianism and the institutional sociological direction, which determined the future development of economic thought. The relevance of these studies remains to this day.

Thus, over the centuries, the subject matter of economic theory has continued to evolve. To date, there is no clear concept of the subject of economic theory, but it is necessary to take into account the experience gained over the centuries in the effective management of economic processes.

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The origin and main stages in the development of economic theory as a science

Human needs are very diverse. The main source of their satisfaction is the economy, the economic activity of people, since it is they who create the necessary conditions for this. The economy allows you to transform Natural resources into goods suitable for public consumption.

The concept of economics (from Gr. oikonomia, literally - the art of housekeeping) is now used in four meanings:

- the national economy of a certain country, a group of countries or the whole world;

The sphere of human economic activity in which life's goods are created, distributed and consumed;

The totality of economic relations between people in the sphere of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of products that form a certain economic system.

The economy as a complex, diversely structured system is the object of study of a special science - economic science.

Economic science is a sphere of human mental activity, the function of which is the knowledge and systematization of objective knowledge about the laws and principles of the development of real economic reality.

The first attempts to study certain aspects of economic processes are known from the works of ancient Greek and Roman thinkers (Xenophon, Aristotle, Plato, Cato, Varro, Seneca, Columella), as well as the thinkers of Ancient Egypt, China and India. They investigated the problems of housekeeping, as well as agriculture, trade, wealth, taxes, money, etc.

Economic science as a system of knowledge about the essence of economic processes and phenomena began to emerge only in the 16th-17th centuries, when the market economy began to acquire a general character. The main stages in the development of economic science are shown in fig. 1.1.

Mercantilism. Supporters of this school considered the sphere of circulation, trade, to be the main source of wealth, and wealth was identified with the accumulation of metallic money (gold and silver). The views of the representatives of this school expressed the interests of the commercial bourgeoisie during the period of the primitive accumulation of capital and the development of foreign trade. Representatives: A. Montchretien, T. Mann, D. Hume, V. Stafford.

Physiocrats. Unlike the mercantilists, the physiocrats were the first to transfer research from the sphere of circulation directly to the sphere of production. But the source of wealth was considered only the primary sector - labor in agricultural production. In their opinion, industry, transport and trade are fruitless spheres, and the work of people in them only covers the costs of their existence and is unprofitable for society. Representatives: F. Quesnay, A. Turgot, V. Mirabeau and others.

Classical political economy. It arose with the development of capitalism. Its founders W. Petty, A. Smith, D. Ricardo were the first to give a systematic exposition of economic science as a single integral scientific discipline. They concentrate on the analysis of economic phenomena and patterns of development in all spheres of capitalist production, and strive to reveal the economic nature of wealth, capital, income, credit, circulation, and the mechanism of competition. It was they who laid the foundation for the theory of labor value, and the market was considered as a self-regulating system.

Marxism, or the political economy of labor. The founders of this trend, K. Marx and F. Engels, explore the system of laws of capitalist society from the standpoint of the interests of the working class. Continuing the study of the theory of labor value, they analyzed the development of value forms, proposed their own concept of surplus value, money, labor productivity, reproduction, economic crises, land rent. However, some provisions of Marxism - about the denial of private property and the market, the intensification of exploitation and the growth of impoverishment of workers under capitalism, about the only factor in the formation of surplus value, the advantages of public property, the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism - did not have proper scientific validity and did not find practical confirmation. Therefore, now they are being revised and subjected to fair scientific criticism.

marginalism(from the English marginal - marginal) - a theory that explains economic processes and phenomena based on the universal concept of using marginal, extreme ("max" or "min") values ​​that characterize not the internal essence of the phenomena themselves, but their change due to modification other phenomena. The study of marginalists is based on such categories as "marginal utility", "marginal productivity", "marginal costs", etc. Marginalism uses quantitative analysis, economic and mathematical methods and models, which are based on subjective psychological assessments of economic processes and phenomena. Representatives of marginalism - K. Menger, F. Wieser, W. Jevons, L. Walras.

In modern Western economic science, there are different directions, currents, schools, the typology of which differs both in methods of analysis and in understanding the subject and purpose of the study. The approaches to solving economic problems are also conceptually different. However, these differences are largely arbitrary, so the totality of modern non-Marxist trends and schools can be grouped into four main areas: neoclassicism, Keynesianism, institutionalism, neoclassical synthesis (Fig. 1.2).

Neoclassicism explores and develops the ideas of classical political economy, taking into account modern conditions. Denies the need for state intervention in the economy, considers the market as a self-regulating economic system capable of independently establishing the necessary balance between aggregate demand and aggregate supply. The founders of the theory are A. Marshall and A. Ligu. Followers - L. Mises, F. Hayek, M. Friedman, A. Laffer, J. Gilder, F. Kagan and others.

The neoclassical direction covers many different concepts and schools: "monetarism", "the theory of public choice", "the theory of rational expectations", etc. The concept of monetarism is especially popular, the recognized theorist of which is American economist Milton Friedman. Adherents of monetarism - F. Knight, J. Stigler, F. Kagan, A. Goldman.

Monetarism- a theory that proposes a rejection of active state intervention in the economy and attributes the money supply in circulation to the role of a determining factor in the formation of economic equilibrium, the development of production and changes in gross domestic product (GDP). According to the rule of monetarism, the growth money supply(monetary base) should be coordinated with GDP growth rates, price dynamics and the velocity of money circulation according to such a scheme (Fig. 1.3).

Rice. 1.3. Monetary levers of GDP regulation

Keynesianism- one of the leading modern theories, in contrast to the neoclassicists, justifies the need for active state intervention in the regulation of a market economy by stimulating aggregate demand and investment through the implementation of certain credit and budget policy. The founder of the theory is the outstanding English economist J.M. Keynes. Keynesianism arose in the 1930s. as a response to the need to overcome the Great Depression (1929-1933), which brought the economic system of capitalism to the brink of complete disaster. Ideas J.M. Keynes, outlined in his main work "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (1936), was widely used by the leading countries of the world in the practice of regulating a market economy and made it possible to relatively quickly overcome the crisis, achieve stable rates of economic growth and dynamic equilibrium. The Keynesian concept of stimulating demand is shown in fig. 1.4.

Adherents and followers of J.M. Keynes (J. Robinson, P. Sraffa, A. Hansen, N. Kaldor, R. Lucas, etc.) advocate the active participation of the state in the restructuring of the economy, consider it necessary to introduce anti-crisis and anti-cyclical regulation, redistribute income, increase social payments and etc.

institutionalism, or the institutional sociological trend, represented by T. Veblen, J. Commons, W. Mitchell, J. Galbraith, J. Tinbergen, G. Myrdal and others, considers the economy as a system in which relations between economic entities arise under the influence of both economic and legal, political, sociological and socio-psychological factors. The objects of study for them are "institutions", by which they understand the state, corporations, trade unions, as well as legal, moral and ethical norms, customs, mentality, instincts of people, etc.

Neoclassical synthesis- a generalizing concept, whose representatives (D, Hicks, J. Bukkenan, P. Samuelson, L. Klein, etc.) substantiate the principle of combining market and state regulation of economic processes, affirm the need to move towards a mixed economy. Adhere to the principle of rational synthesis of neoclassical and Cavesian directions of economic theory.

The subject of economic theory and the evolution of its definition by different schools.

The subject of economic theory is extremely complex and multifaceted, just as the economic activity of a person is complex, multifaceted and dynamic. This explains the impossibility of a short and comprehensive definition of the subject, which would be suitable for all stages of the development of human society. Economic theory, studying real economic processes, is itself in constant search and development, the subject of its study is changed and refined. The evolution of ideas about the subject of economic theory is given in Table. 1.1. This is a far from complete list of definitions of the subject matter of economic theory.

Table. 1.1. Evolution of the definition of the subject of economic theory

Definition of the subject of economic theory	School (authors)
The doctrine of the rules, the art of housekeeping, housekeeping	Ancient Greek and Roman thinkers
The science of creating, distributing and increasing the wealth of nations.	Mercantilists, physiocrats, classical political economy
The science of production relations and the laws governing the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of goods at different stages of the development of human society	Marxists
Modern Western economists define economic theory as the science of:
- the sphere of individual and social actions of people who are closely connected with the creation and use of the material foundations of their well-being	A. Marshall
- the action of people in the process of choosing limited resources for the production of various economic benefits	P. Samuelson
- activities of people in conditions of scarcity of resources	E. Dolan
- the behavior of people as a link between the end and the limited means that may have alternative ways of application	J. Robinson
- efficient use or management of limited productive resources in order to achieve maximum satisfaction of human needs	K.P. McConnell, SL. bru

As we can see, representatives of traditional schools associated the formation of the subject of economic theory with the increase of wealth, economic laws, industrial relations between people, and modern Western economists - with the problems of "rarity", "limited resources and the efficiency of their use", "alternative choice", etc. n. Such a variety of definitions of the subject of economic theory cannot be considered a shortcoming or weakness of this science. It is natural because it reflects the evolution of the study of such a complex and controversial social object as the economic system. At the same time, none of the above definitions can claim to be a complete, exhaustive disclosure of the essence of the object under study. Each theory expresses a certain side, facet, cut of the system under study, and thus makes a certain contribution to economic science. On this occasion, P. Samuelson, the author of the well-known textbook "Economics" in the West, notes that the definition of theoretical economics as a science reveals its subject from different angles, since various aspects of human life, including economic ones, are taken into account, and this makes it impossible formulate a short and at the same time comprehensive definition of it. Therefore, all attempts to absolutize any one concept, one approach to defining the subject of economic theory are unacceptable and unproductive, since they contradict the essence of economic life and science itself - it loses its scientific character.

Economic theory is a creative science that is constantly enriched with new knowledge, the subject of its research is expanded and refined. In modern conditions of humanization, intellectualization, socialization of public life and globalization of economic processes, its subject area is evolving in the direction of expanding and complicating issues, attracting additional layers of socio-economic relations to scientific research, taking into account the multidimensionality of their interaction and defining a person as the center of the economic system.

The modern development of economic theory is characterized by:

The diversity of scientific creativity, the structure and methods of cognition, which allows for the plurality and synthesis of theoretical concepts and scientific ideas;

Rejection of generally binding criteria of truth and theories that claim to be universal;

Mutual influence and tolerant competition of ideas and cognitive approaches, expanding the possibility of seeing complementary truths in contradictory reasoning;

Expansion of the traditional problematics and conceptual apparatus of economic science on the basis of complex and dynamic processes, problems and tasks born of globality that arise in the course of socio-economic transformations;

The introduction of a new promising methodology of analysis into economic research, based on synergistic approach, which opens up wide opportunities for multi-aspect coverage of the essence of economic processes and phenomena.

The paradigm of modern domestic economic theory should also have a national-historical component, which provides for taking into account the transformational specifics of the national economy, its institutional and reproductive features, as well as the national mentality of the people, their traditions, psychology, historical, cultural, demographic and other features of the country. Taking into account the national-economic component is an important condition for a deep understanding of the current socio-economic processes that are taking place in the country, and scientific forecasting of their development trends in the future.

So, the development of modern economic theory takes place on the basis of combining the process of pluralization with an increasing tendency to integrate its various directions and schools, with the prevalence of synthesized and integrated approaches to the study of socio-economic processes. Not in opposition, not in difference, but in mutual enrichment and scientific synthesis of similar features of different concepts is the democratism and synergy of the effect of the common work of economists, which makes it possible to more deeply reveal the subject of economic theory in all its versatility.

Summarizing what has been said, it is possible to define the subject of economic theory in the political economic aspect as follows.

Economic theory is a socio-economic science that studies the laws of development of economic systems, activities economic entities aimed at efficient management in conditions of limited resources, in order to meet their unlimited needs.

Along with the evolution of the definition of the subject, the name of economic science has also evolved (Fig. 1.5).

Term saving(from gr.oikonomia) were put into circulation by the ancient Greek thinkers Xenophon and Aristotle. Translated from Greek, it means "art, housekeeping rules", "home economics" ("oikos" - house, household; "nomos" - rule, law).

The term "political economy" was first introduced into scientific circulation by the French mercantilist Antoine Montchretien in his work "Treatise of Political Economy", written in 1615. From Greek, "politicos" is translated as state, public. This term in combination with the term economy means the science of the laws of housekeeping in the state, society.

In economics, the term "political economy" dominated until the end of the 19th century. - the time of publication (1890) of the work of the famous English economist A. Marshall "Principles of Economics". Economics is a neoclassical direction in economic science, which aims to synthesize classical political economy and marginalism.

In modern conditions, in most countries of the world (especially Anglo-American) political economy functions under the name "economics", in a number of others - as "economic theory" or as "political economy". Each of them has its own aspect of research and presentation. Nevertheless, they, in fact, are the names of the same economic science, which is constantly developing and exploring economic phenomena and processes at different stages of the development of human society.

The evolution of the terms "economy", "political economy", "economy", "economic theory" is objectively determined by the development of economic science itself and the object of its study - the economic system.

Economic theory in a broad sense includes the following sections: the foundations of economic theory (political economy), microeconomics, mesoeconomics, macroeconomics, megaeconomics (Fig. 1.6).

Rice. 1.6. Structure of general economic theory

Fundamentals of economic theory (political economy)- this is a fundamental, methodological part of economic science, which reveals the essence of economic categories, laws and patterns of functioning and development of economic systems in different historical eras.

Microeconomics studies the behavior of primary economic entities: households, enterprises, firms. It analyzes: the prices of individual goods, the costs of their production, profits, wages, demand for goods and their supply, etc.

Macroeconomics studies the patterns of functioning of the economy as a whole, that is, at the level of the national economy. The object of her research is the gross domestic product, gross national income, national wealth, standard of living of the population, problems of unemployment, inflation and its causes, money circulation, percentage, tax policy, credit and banking system, etc.

Mesoeconomics studies individual sectors and subsystems of the national economy (agro-industrial complex, military-industrial complex, commercial and industrial complex, territorial-economic complexes, free economic zones, etc.).

Megaeconomics studies the patterns of functioning and development of the world economy as a whole, i.e. at the global planetary level.

Note that the general economic theory is not a mechanical sum of its components. All its parts are in inseparable unity and organic interconnection, providing a holistic perception of the economy as a self-sufficient and dynamic system that operates at the national and global levels.

Economic theory, depending on the functional goal, is divided into positive and normative economic theory.

Positive Economics aims at a comprehensive knowledge of economic processes and phenomena, reveals their interrelationships and interdependencies, which are due to reality. That is, it explores the actual state of the economy, economic reality and answers the question: what is it like?

Normative economic theory studies objective economic processes, evaluates them and develops recommendations for improving the economic system, its transition to a higher stage of development. It answers the question: how should it be and what needs to be done for this?

So, economic science, on the one hand, is called upon to study real facts, to find out cause-and-effect relationships in the economic system, and on the other hand, to give recommendations on how to improve it in order to effective use available resources and achieving on this basis the highest level of satisfaction of social needs. Thus, economic theory performs not only a cognitive, but also a practical function.

The origin of the word "economy" originates from "oikonomia" ("oikos" - house, economy and "nomos" - rule, law) and was initially considered as a science of household. Aristotle, a philosopher and economist, explores the basis of the proportions of exchange, the origin and functions of money, the meaning of trade, and so on.

For the first time the term "political economy" was introduced into scientific circulation by the Frenchman Antoine de Montchretien. He published in 1615 the essay "Treatise of Political Economy", which gave the name to the whole science. Political economy was considered by Montchretien as the concentration of the rules of economic activity.

The defining direction of economic thought XV-XVII centuries. became mercantilism. The essence of mercantilism in economic theory is the definition of patterns in the sphere of circulation, i.e. in cash flow and trade. Characteristic exponents of the ideas of mercantilism were the Englishman Thomas Man and the Frenchman Jean Baptiste Colbert.

England in the 17th century, with its ideas of freedom, reason and progress, brought forward many original thinkers, among them William Petty. His role in the evolution of economic thought is very large, which makes it possible to classify him as one of the founders of classical political economy.

France in the 17th-18th centuries the work of Pierre Lepezan de Boisguilleberg was a very important experience in the formation of classical political economy. Boisguillebert, studying the causes of the economic growth of society, noted that the most important condition for progress is normal prices that cover production costs, allow making a profit, support the sales process and consumer demand. It is these prices, according to Boisguillebert, that are formed in conditions of free competition.

It seems very difficult to determine the exact authorship of an idea that has retained its relevance for centuries: "Let (people) do their own thing, let (things) take their own course."

Scot John Law, called the "father of inflation", believed that the main criterion for the economic well-being of the state is a large amount of money in the country. In his opinion, a large amount of money makes it possible to open new enterprises, make the best use of the entrepreneurial gift, labor force and other factors that create economic prosperity. J. Lo owns the idea of ​​centralization of capital. If we remember that fast development joint-stock companies began in the Old and New Worlds in the middle of the 19th century, it becomes clear that Lo was ahead of his time by about 150 years.

The Physiocratic school represents the French economic thought of the 18th century. The term "Physiocrats" is derived from Greek words and literally means "the power of nature." The most prominent representatives of this economic school are Francois Quesnay and Anne Turgot.

The Physiocrats transferred the main focus of research (unlike the mercantilists) directly to production. The very term "reproduction" was first used by Quesnay. This was the period when France, according to Voltaire, got bored with poetry, comedies, tragedies, novels, theological disputes, and the country began to think about bread.

F. Quesnay's brilliant achievement was the creation of the "Economic Table". In this table, the author carries out the idea of ​​the process of reproduction and implementation as a continuous process, subject to the existence of certain economic proportions within the framework of the class stratification of society formulated by him, namely between the classes: productive, owners and the so-called barren. Quesnay's ideas in the 20th century have become one of the theoretical foundations for the formation of intersectoral balances "costs - output", which allow us to analyze the production and distribution of the total social product.

A. Turgot, a French economist, continued the development of the theory of the physiocratic school. He formulated the physiocrats' understanding of the production of a pure product as the result of a special productivity of labor employed in agriculture.

18th century England represented in the evolution under consideration by the brilliant theorist, the founder of the classical school in economics, Adam Smith. The main work of A. Smith "A Study on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" was published in 1776.

A. Smith's analysis of human nature, the interaction and interrelationships of man and society was the basis for the formulation of the concept of "homo economicus" - "economic man". A. Smith believed that the main incentive economic activity person is a personal interest. A person can realize his interest only by exchanging with other people the results of personal economic activity, in other words, by working and participating in the process of division of labor. Pursuing personal interests, people satisfy the needs of each other. The prosperity of society, therefore, is possible only on the path of individual well-being, and self-interest leading to the achievement of this well-being is such a powerful stimulus that it can overcome hundreds of obstacles. An individual person seeking to multiply personal capital, does not think about the public interest, striving to satisfy his interest, and in this case, as in many others, he is directed by an invisible hand towards a goal that was not at all part of his intentions. In pursuing his own interests, a person often serves the interests of society more effectively than when he consciously seeks to do so. By "invisible hand" Smith understood the spontaneous operation of the objective laws of economics. These laws operate in addition to, and often against, the will of man. The order of free manifestation and effective satisfaction of personal economic interest is called by Smith the natural order. The basis of the economic doctrine of A. Smith was the principle of free competition. Only with the free movement of capital, goods, money and people can society's resources be optimally used. The policy of free competition or natural freedom according to A. Smith was fundamentally substantiated in his theory and included the following elements:

• - free movement of labor force;
• - free trade in land;
• - abolition of government regulation of the functioning of industry and domestic trade;
• - freedom of foreign trade.

The economic policy of many countries through the centuries tested the theory of A. Smith in practice, having achieved great success in economic development. In real life, it’s so simple and so difficult at the same time to create conditions under which his idea could be realized: in order to raise the state from the lowest level of barbarism to the highest level of well-being, only moderately light taxes and tolerance in governance are needed - everything else make the natural course of things.

The most prominent representative of English classical political economy was David Ricardo, who published his work in early XIX in. hallmark his scientific system was the recognition of the law of value (value) as the foundation on which the theory of political economy is built into a single whole.

D. Ricardo considered the sphere of production to be a source of value and income, and in his concept of distribution showed the dynamism of economic life. Capitalism is an absolutely rational system of production, and the rate of profit is the stimulus of capitalist dynamics.

D. Ricardo analyzed quantitative indicators and connections under capitalism, which is a symbol of economic progress.

Utopian socialists. A certain stage in the evolution of economic theory was the writings of the Swiss economist of the 19th century. Jean Simond de Sismondi. He criticized the economic mechanism of capitalist society. In Sismondi's interpretation, political economy is called upon to be the science of improving the social mechanism for the sake of human happiness. Sismondi gave his own explanation of the term "proletariat", somewhat different from its content in the ancient Roman period, which denoted the lower, poor, declassed strata of society.

The idea of ​​creating a future society was put forward by the utopian socialists Henri Claude Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier (France) and Robert Owen (Great Britain). They also criticized the capitalist system and saw it as transient. Utopian socialists came forward with demands for the reorganization of production, distribution and consumption. The social system, designed to replace the existing one, Saint-Simon called industrialism, Fourier - harmony, and Owen - communism. The theorists of the society of the future proceeded from the need for the disappearance of private property, the elimination of the opposition between mental and physical labor, the establishment, in their opinion, of a fair social system. However, they were against political struggle and revolutions, believing that the society they design can be created by spreading the ideas of social justice, so they were called utopians.

K. Marx and F. Engels in the 19th century created a theoretical concept that received the generalized name of Marxism. Within the framework of this concept, a doctrine was formulated about socio-economic formations, their constituent elements, rigidly determined reasons for changing formations, which, from their point of view, determine the content of the historical process. In the Marxist concept, the study of the labor theory of value (value) is continued, the beginning of which was laid by W. Petty and D. Ricardo. A theory of the price of production was also developed, a position was formulated on the problems of the contradiction of goods, the dual nature of labor, the law of value (value) as the law of the movement of commodity production. Marx gave his analysis of the evolution of the form of value (value) of his understanding of the difference between value and exchange value, introduced the concept of surplus value and showed the channels for its appropriation in capitalist society, and therefore was confident in the inevitable death of capitalism.

In the second half of the XIX century. the theory of marginal utility and marginal productivity or marginalism (from the English marginal - marginal) was formulated. The theory of marginalism is an economic analysis mainly from the point of view of the psychology of an individual subject involved in economic relations. Each subject is guided, first of all, by his own estimates of marginal benefits and marginal losses from participation or non-participation in the economic process. Based on such estimates, this theory explains production costs, supply and demand, and price.

The classics of the theory of marginalism were the economists of the Austrian school Karl Menger, Friedrich von Wieser, Eugene von Bam-Bawerk.

The theory of marginalism was actively used in the analysis of the mutual influence of price and demand for specific goods, in determining the interchangeability and complementarity of various factors of production. A new direction in economic theory, called neoclassical, was mainly formulated in the writings of the English economist Alfred Marshall. His main work "The Principle of Political Economy" was published in 1890 (modern translation - "Principles of Economic Science". M., 1993).

In the economic theory of the neoclassical direction, the position was formulated that supply and demand are equivalent elements of the market pricing mechanism. A. Marshall interpreted the terms of the balance of supply and demand in his own way, actively using the concept of market equilibrium.

Within the framework of the neoclassical direction, the principle of functional interdependence of economic processes was developed and rapidly spread. The study of the economy based on the principle of functional interdependence has been called "economics". Theorists of the neoclassical direction have identified as one of the main points of their analysis the mechanism of price formation based on market factors in the process of their mutual influence.

One of the well-known theorists of the mathematical school of the XIX - early XX centuries. is the Swiss economist Léon Walras. The followers of this school of economic theory viewed the market economy as a system that could potentially reach an equilibrium based on supply and demand. The components of the market system, according to economists and mathematicians, were rational subjects, continuously striving for the optimum of their existence, i.e. economic success.

L. Walras developed a model of general economic equilibrium, which is based on the analysis of supply and demand and is a system of equations in which the decisive place is occupied by equations designed to determine the equilibrium of markets - productive services and commodities. In the market of productive services, the sellers are the owners of the factors of production, and the buyers are the producers of consumer goods. In the consumer goods market, the roles of owners and producers change. Theoretical achievements of L. Walras became one of the main input-output models of V. Leontiev, an American economist, Russian by origin, Nobel Prize winner (born in 1906).

In 1899, an active figure in the German social democracy, Eduard Bernstein published the book "Preconditions for Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy", where he outlined his view (based on reformism) on the Marxist concept. Bernstein noted that Marx's historical materialism is based on mechanical determinism, and in the form he formulated, the objectivity of economic laws gives rise to fatalism.

E. Bernstein gave his interpretation of the concept economic value(values) as an aggregate (aggregate) of utility and production costs. He qualified the Marxist concept of surplus value as an abstract formula based on a hypothesis. The most prominent theoretician of reformism denied the absolute and relative deterioration of the position of the proletariat and wrote about the rise in the living standards of the working people and the entry of society into a period of prosperity at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Analyzing the development of the joint-stock form of capital, E. Bernstein drew a conclusion about the decentralization and democratization of capital, leading to an increase in the number of owners, an increase in living standards and overcoming socio-economic cataclysms in society.

In 1936, the outstanding English economist John Maynard Keynes published his most famous work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, establishing a new branch of economic theory - Keynesianism.

Previously, in the analysis of economic processes, a macroeconomic approach was used. It was based on the consideration of the activities of an individual firm in conditions of free competition: reducing its costs, increasing profits, rational employment of the workforce. The effective functioning of the company is identified with the economic well-being of society, including the impossibility mass unemployment in society. In contrast to the microeconomic approach, Keynes formulated a macroeconomic, in other words, analysis of the interdependence of aggregate indicators - national income, investment, consumption, savings, etc.

Keynes stated that the basis for the successful functioning of the economy is the formation of effective demand and its components - consumer and investment demand, and the factors influencing their change.

A new phenomenon in the economic theory of the first third of the XX century. became the concept of institutionalism in its various modifications. The name of the concept (from Latin - institutum - establishment, device, institution) serves as an illustration of the desire of the authors to give a systematic analysis of the processes and phenomena called or institutions. Moreover, the content of the concept of institution in the interpretation of the authors of the concept is very broad and can include the state, and competition, and monopolies, and taxes, and a sustainable way of thinking, and legal norms.

Depending on the understanding of the essence of the institution, there are modifications of institutionalism in economic theory.

American Torsten Veblen is the author of the theory of socio-psychological institutionalism. T. Veblen noted that in prehistoric times (primitive society) social institutions were just emerging, and social regulation was carried out at the level of instincts, the main of which are the instinct of mastery, parental feelings and idle curiosity. But also for other stages of human civilization (handicraft and machine production), these instincts are of fundamental importance.

The representative of American economics, John Commons, the author of the theory of social and legal institutionalism, believed that legal relations are the basis of economic development.

The American scientist Welsey Mitchell was a representative of the school of conjuncture studies - another modification of institutionalism. Mitchell systematized a large amount of factual material and formulated methods for predicting quantitative changes in the economy.

In the last three decades, a new kind of institutionalism has also developed - neo-institutionalism, or a new institutional economics. Her research focuses on areas such as economic analysis such as: the theory of transaction costs, the economic theory of property rights (Ronald Coase, USA), the theory of public choice (James Buchanan, USA) and some other areas.

The next stage in the development (evolution) of economic theory is represented by the works of theorists of economic liberalism of the 20th century. Austrian professor Ludwig von Mises and his student Austro-American professor Friedrich August von Hayek.

Misen's scientific work is marked by the breadth of interests and the depth of economic analysis. Peru of this apostle of economic liberalism belongs to "The Theory of Money and Credit", "Socialism", "Liberalism", "Criticism of Interventionism", "Omnipotent Government: The Origin of the Totalitarian State and Total War", "Human Actions: A Treatise on Economics", "The Foundations of Economic science" essays on methodology" and other works.

Mises substantiated the conclusion that the only reasonable economic policy for a modern industrial society can only be liberalism, the provision of complete freedom to commodity producers acting on the market. The absolute foundations of civilization are, according to Mises, the division of labor, private property and free exchange.

Professor F. Hayek, like his teacher, was uncompromising in upholding the concept of economic liberalism. He is the author of The Uses and Abuses of Reason: The Counter-Revolution of Science, Nations and Gold, Money and Nations, Economic Studies, monetary theory and fluctuations in industrial production" and other scientific works.

The works of F. Hayek are the theoretical basis for the criticism of totalitarianism in all its numerous manifestations, which many countries faced in the 20th century.

In 1956 the book Welfare for All was published. Its author was the practicing theorist Ludwig Erhard, the "father" of German economic miracle, which served as a model for a number of "miracles" of the 20th century. - South Korean, Taiwanese and Spanish.

Based on the theory of neoliberalism, Professor Erhard created his own concept of the social market economy and put it into practice, thus marking a new brilliant stage in the development of economic theory and its real social results. Here are some of Professor Erhard's reflections on the qualitative components of economic success: "... a market economy cannot also give up the free price function. Whoever wants to exclude the free price function kills competition and contributes to the stupor of the economy.

This is the secret of the market economy and its superiority over any type of planned economy, that in the market economy processes of adaptation are carried out, as it were, daily and hourly, which lead to the correct correlation of supply and demand, national production and national income, and thereby to equilibrium.

Competition and the resulting increase in productivity and promotion of progress must be secured by state measures and protected from all possible encroachments.

American economist of Russian origin Wassily Leontiev is one of the greatest scientists of our time. His name is associated primarily with such a direction of economic theory as the creation of the "input-output" model, which reflects the ideas of equality between available resources and their use.

The range of scientific interests of Professor V.Leontiev is extremely wide. For example, the "Economic Essay" includes studies on various theoretical problems of classical economic theory, the characteristic aspects of Marxist and Keynesian theory, the use of economics to determine the consequences of foreign economic assistance, and input-output models.

The most important direction of modern economic theory is the concept of monetarism, the spiritual leader of which is the American economist Milton Friedman. At the center of monetarist research is the problem of stabilizing the economy through the monetary system.

INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS (FOR BACHELORS IN MANAGEMENT)

TOPIC 1. INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMIC THEORY. BASIC PRINCIPLES OF THE FUNCTIONING OF A MARKET ECONOMY. MONEY

1. Introduction to economic theory

2. Basic economic concepts

3. Economic systems

4. Money and its functions

The ultimate goal of the functioning of any economic system is to meet the needs of society and individuals. This is precisely what the production process, which is inextricably linked with the consumption of goods and services, the expenditure of the resources at the disposal of society for their production, is aimed at.

All the problems of economic development are connected with the expenditure of resources to satisfy needs. And all solutions to these problems are based on two fundamental economic axioms. The first axiom the needs of society (individuals and institutions) are limitless, completely indefatigable. The second axiom society's resources needed to produce goods and services are limited. From here goal of economic theory as a science is to substantiate the mechanism for the optimal use of production resources, allowing to produce a maximum of goods and services with a minimum expenditure of society's limited resources.

Economy - it is a social science that justifies the optimal use of limited resources in order to maximize the satisfaction of the needs of society.

Need- this is the need of society and the individual for goods and services, without which their further development is not possible and for the production of which they are ready to pay with their limited resources. In the process of meeting needs, new needs are formed in quantitative and qualitative terms, their structure changes, priorities shift, and interchangeability develops.

In modern economic theory, it is customary to distinguish three sections:

1) microeconomics - a part of economic science that considers the functioning of firms, households or private businesses

2) macroeconomics - a part of economic theory that considers economic problems on a national scale

3) world economy(intereconomics) - studies economic relations in the world community

The evolution of economic theory

The history of the development of science shows that the subject of each scientific discipline is gradually changing, evolving. This is due to the gradual accumulation, expansion of knowledge with differences in the positions of economists. The degree of change can range from minor differences to radical changes. The subject matter of economic theory has undergone a marked modification. The main stages in the evolution of the subject of economic theory are shown in Table 1.

Table 1

Evolution of the subject of economic theory

Representatives of economic schools and trends	Subject (or related concepts and categories)
Economic thought of the period of ancient slavery Xenophon, an ancient Greek philosopher (430-350 BC) - the author of the concept of "economy" (from the Greek "oikos" - house, household, "nomos" - rule, law) Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher (384-322 BC)	-household; - ways to increase it; - the ability to use it wisely. The division of the economic sphere into two areas: - the economy (positively assessed activities of people in agriculture, handicraft and petty trade); - chrematistics (negatively assessed activities of people in the field of large commercial transactions for the purpose of speculation and usury).
Medieval economic thought in Western European countries (IV-XIV centuries) Italian monk Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)	- religious and ethical approach to economic problems and categories (wealth, exchange, "fair prices", money, trading profits and usurious interest) - large-scale trade, loan operations were condemned as sinful phenomena
Mercantilism - the economic course of the period of the emergence of market economic relations (XIV-XVIII centuries) Thomas Maine (1571-1641), member of the board of directors of the East India Company, author of the book "The wealth of England is in foreign trade"; A. Montchretien (France), author of the book "Treatise of Political Economy" (1616). Introduced into scientific circulation the term "political economy" and a new name for science, which remained without alternative until the beginning of the 20th century.	- state economy, coordinating and regulating economic life (primarily in the field of trade) - protectionist economic policy aimed at strengthening the role of commercial capital in the economy - money in the form of capital as a source of wealth
School of Physiocrats (XVIII century) Francois Quesnay (France, 1694-1774), author economic table. Introduced into scientific circulation tabular (visual) images of the relationship of product flows in society. Undertook the first attempt at macroanalysis. A. Turgot (France, 1727-1781), general controller of finances, reformer. Strived for the liberalization of the country's economy	- the origin of wealth, the patterns of its growth and distribution - analysis of the economy on the basis of the natural (i.e., close to the principles of the natural system) order - the labor of the farmer as the only source of all wealth - the circulation in economic life
Classical Political Economy (XVIII-XIX centuries) Adam Smith (England, 1723-1790), "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776. Smith introduced the concept of normative and positive economics. David Riccardo (England, 1772-1823) , "Principles of political economy and taxation"(1817) Jean-Baptiste Say (France, 1767-1832), one of the authors of the three-factor concept John Stuart Mill (England, 1806-1873), "Fundamentals of Political Economy" (1848). Synthesizer of Classical School Ideas	- the science of the origin of wealth and its distribution among workers, landowners and capitalists - political economy - the science of economic laws (J. Mill) - The problem of the economic development of society and improving its well-being - a priority study of problems in the sphere of production - the concept of "economic man" and " invisible hand of the market" - the theory of division of labor - the theory of the value of goods - the theory of labor productivity - the theory of money - the theory of income - the theory of capital - the theory of reproduction
Historical school (XIX century) Friedrich List (Germany, 1789-1846), " National system political economy" (1841); Wilhelm Roscher (1817-1894); Bruno Hildebrant (1812-1878); Karl Knies (1821-1898); Gustav Schmoller (1838-1917); Adolf Wagner (1835-1917); Karl Bucher (1847-1930)	- the science of the development of productive forces, taking into account the socio-economic characteristics of each country; - denial of the orthodox, "cosmopolitan" theory of A. Smith-D. Ricardo. The universal and scholastic concept of the classics is unsuitable for practical use. A sound economic system must be based on reliable historical facts. "Rebellion against formalism" (assessment of "historians" by the American economist B. Seligman) - development of the theory of productive forces - the concept of staged economic development - position on the active economic policy of the state (the first foundations of the theory economic policy) - “the economic education of the nation is more important than direct production material assets» (Sheet)
Marxism as a theoretical school (XIX century) Karl Marx (Gremannia, 1818-1883, Capital (1867); Friedrich Engels (Germany, 1820-1895), Anti-Duhring (1878) Rosa Luxemburg (Germany, 1871-1919 , "The accumulation of capital" (1913) V. I. Lenin (Russia, USSR, 1870-1924), "Imperialism as the newest stage of capitalism" (1917), N. I. Bukharin (Russia, USSR, 1888-1938), " world economy and Imperialism" (1918), "The Political Economy of Rentier" (1919), "The Economics transition period» (1920)	- the subject of political economy is the production (i.e. economic) relations that develop between people in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods - these relations manifest themselves as a system of objective economic laws. Their study is the task of political economy - a priority study of the problems of the sphere of production
Austrian school (subjective-psychological direction of marginalism, 19th century) Carl Menger (Austria, 1840-1921), "Fundamentals of the Doctrine of the National Economy" (1871); Friedrich von Wieser (1851-1926); Eugen von Behm-Bawerk (1851-1914)	- the theory of value, or value (value as an expression of marginal utility) - the theory of expectations - the priority in the economy is not the sphere of production, but the sphere of consumption
Neoclassical direction of economic thought as the second stage of the "marginal revolution" (XIX-XX centuries) Alfred Marshall (England, 1842-1924), founder of neoclassical economic theory, leader of the "Cambridge school", marginalism. "Principles of Economics" (1890). At the initiative of the marshal since 1902. introduced a new presentation of economic theory called "economics". Thus, the construction of a course based on the textbooks of political economy of the “classical school” of J.S. Mill was superseded; John Bates Clark (USA, 1847-1938), founder of the "American school" of marginalism; Wilfredo Praeto (Italy, 1848-1923). Representative of the "Lausanne school" of marginalism. "Course of Political Economy" (1898), "The Teaching of Political Economy" (1906)	- the science of studying the principles in accordance with which there is an optimal allocation of scarce resources to meet needs - the theory of value and pricing in the market. "Equilibrium price" at the point of intersection of supply and demand - the concept of elasticity of demand - the doctrine of statics and dynamics - macroeconomic balance- the decomposition of the total income of society into various types of income (wages, interest and profit) - social maximum utility. "Pareto Optimum" - a priority study of the problems of the sphere of circulation, not production
Theories of social control of society over the economy. Institutional direction of economic thought (XX century) Institutionalism is, in a certain sense, an alternative to the neoclassical direction of economic theory Thorstein Veblen (USA, 1857-1929). "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899); John R. Commons (USA, 1862-1945); Wesley K. Mitchell (USA, 1874 - 1948)	- institutions (as the primary element of the driving force of society in the economy and outside it) - the subject of analysis are both economic and non-economic problems of socio-economic development - government intervention in the economy
Keynesianism (XX century) John M. Keynes (England, 1883-1946), founder of the macroeconomic trend in economic theory. "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (1936)	- analysis of the economy in a state of depression - replacement of the principle of limited resources with the condition of underutilization of capacities and unemployment in conditions of depression - economic policy of the state
Monetarism (XX century) Milton Friedman (USA, born in 1912), "The Quantity Theory of Money"; Irving Fisher (USA, 1867-1947) "The purchasing power of money: its definition and relation to credit, interest and crisis"	- the laws of movement of the money supply, which are the "fundamental principle of economic development"; - money as an economic substance, "playing a decisive role in the oscillatory movement of the economy" - the relationship between the volume of money supply and the volume of production

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Introduction

1.3. Methods and functions of economic theory

2.1 Classical direction and its schools

2.5 Keynesianism

2.6 Monetarism

3.2 Problems of the current stage of development of economic theory

Conclusion

Bibliography

Applications

economic theory classical marxist

Introduction

Any science arises as a result of people's attempts to solve certain questions concerning nature, society and their interaction. All this fully applies to the complex of sciences that study economics. Since ancient times, people have been trying to figure out what the development of human society depends on, according to what laws the economy develops. Human life is extremely diverse, complex and contradictory. It covers economics, politics, culture, etc. Various aspects of social life are studied by various sciences. One of these sciences is economic theory.

Economic theory studies the sources, factors of national wealth, studies social production, i.e. economic relations in society, studies the economic laws that govern social production.

Economic theory makes extensive use of building models of economic phenomena and processes. The form of the description of models can be graphical and mathematical. An economic model is a tool for economic forecasts. Complex economic principles explains how the economy and its individual sectors function.

The subject of economic theory is the problem of the rational use of limited resources in order to meet the growing material needs of man.

So, this work is devoted to the consideration of the main stages in the development of economic theory and its state at the present stage, as well as questions of the subject and method of economic theory.

The relevance of the topic of the course work "The main stages of development and state of the art economic theory" is due to the fact that for a correct understanding of the course "Economic theory" it is necessary to determine the essence of economic theory as a science, as well as how and with what help economic theory studies its subject.

The purpose of the course work is to reveal the main stages of development and explore the state of economic theory at the present stage.

To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve a number of tasks:

- consider the essence and history of the development of economic knowledge;

- to study the stages of evolution of views on the subject of economic theory;

- consider the features of the development of economic theory at the present stage.

The course work consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion, a list of references and an appendix.

1. Origin and development of economic theory

1.1 History of the development of economic knowledge

Economic thinking is the same age as human society.

Initially, economic thought stood out as a separate form of thought, and it seems very difficult, if not impossible, to crystallize its absolutely initial results. The papyri of Ancient Egypt, the laws of King Hamurabi, and the ancient Indian treatise Arthashastra are considered to be the origins.

One way or another, the origins of economic science should be sought in the teachings of thinkers ancient world, especially countries Far East- the cradle of world civilization. The first attempts to theoretically comprehend the economic structure of society were made in the writings of Xenophon (430-335 BC), Plato (428-348 BC) and, to a lesser extent, in the teachings of Aristotle ( 384-322 BC).

Xenophon - a representative of the wealthy Athenian aristocracy - in his treatise "Domostroy" praised the virtues of agriculture and condemned crafts and trade. He entered the history of economic doctrines as a scientist who for the first time gave an analysis of the division of labor, and speaking of the value of a commodity, he considered value as in the sense consumer value, and in terms of exchange value.

The natural economic concept was also characteristic of Plato's economic views. In his project on the state structure, he assigned the state the function of resolving the contradiction between the diversity of people's needs and the uniformity of their abilities. According to Plato, private property could only be owned by persons incapable of political activity, i.e. representatives of the third estate: farmers, artisans and merchants.

The philosophers who govern the society and the watchmen must not have any property. Touching upon the issues of commodity production, Plato came to the understanding that in the process of exchange there is a reduction to "proportionality and uniformity" of disproportionate and diverse goods.

Aristotle huge contribution contributed to the development of economic science with his analysis of the forms of value, the duality of goods and the development of forms of trade. Interesting are his arguments about the ways of acquiring wealth and satisfying needs.

The economic thought of the era of feudalism covers a wide range of problems, from the justification of the legality of the ownership of feudal land, the eternity of the division of society into classes, and ending with increased attention to the problems of commodity-money relations.

At the same time, as a rule, supporting the development of commodity-money relations, in addition to usury, the ideologists of that time sought to preserve the feudal system.

Political economy as an independent science arose much later - during the period of the birth of the capitalist system, the formation of the national market.

It expressed the interests of the bourgeoisie as a rising class at that time. At the same time, the term "political economy" itself appeared, born as a result of a combination of three ancient Greek words: "politeia" - social structure, "oikos" - house, economy and "nomos" - law.

Since capitalist relations began to take shape, primarily in the sphere of trade, the first, early course of economic thought in the 15th - 17th centuries.

Mercantilism (from the Italian "mercante" - merchant, merchant) - was the knowledge of the patterns of trade. According to this theory, the wealth of a society is expressed in the accumulation of money, especially gold and silver, as a result of trade. Of all activities, priority was given to labor employed in trade, especially international, since it contributed to the accumulation of wealth.

As capital penetrated into the sphere of production, the views of the ideologists of the bourgeoisie also changed. The ancestor of classical bourgeois political economy is William Petty (1623-1687). His economic views were formed in the conditions of the rapid growth of capitalist relations in England.

He wrote a number of works: "Treatise on taxes and fees", "Word to the wise", "Political arithmetic", "Miscellaneous about money". Like many other researchers of economic processes, W. Petty was not a "pure" economist. He was a sailor, a doctor, and in his research developed the idea of ​​active trade balance. “The wealth of every country,” W. Petty argued, “is mainly in the share that it has in foreign trade ... and the production of such goods and the conduct of such trade, which contributes to the accumulation in the country of gold, silver, precious stones and etc. are more profitable than other types of production and trade". Petty's well-known formula "labor is the father and the most active principle of wealth, land is its mother" can be considered one of the variants of his doctrine of the source of value.

Representatives of classical bourgeois political economy in France in the XVIII century. were F. Quesnay (1694-1774) and A. Turgot (1727-1781.

The outstanding English economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) went down in history as the "Prophet of Free Competition". His greatest merit can be considered that in the world of economics he saw the natural self-regulating order discovered by Newton in the physical sublunar world. The main idea in the teachings of A. Smith is the idea of ​​liberalism, minimal state intervention in the economy, market self-regulation based on free prices, which are formed depending on supply and demand. The main work of his life, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), had a tremendous impact on the next century. Economic life, according to Smith, is subject to objective laws that do not depend on the will and conscious aspirations of people. The starting point of all his research is the problem of the division of labor, which binds "egoists-individuals" into a single society.

After examining this problem, he proceeds to present the origin and use of money. Smith made a significant contribution to the theory of value, to the doctrine of income, of productive and unproductive labor, of capital and reproduction, and of the economic policy of the state.

D. Ricardo (1772-1823) was the greatest economist of the era of the industrial revolution in England. He formulated a series of economic laws that entered the treasury of political economy. The central place in the teachings of D. Ricardo is occupied by theories of value and money, wages and profits, land rent, the doctrine of capital and reproduction. P. Samuelson, in his textbook on economics, evaluates D. Ricardo as a key figure of the 19th century: "He was one of the lucky ones. Classical, neoclassical and post-Keynesian scholars all trace their lineage from his environment. The same can be said about Marxists - socialists."

Thus, the teaching of the English classics was continued in a new way by K. Marx (1818-1883). In his main work "Capital", on which he worked for 40 years, he deeply and comprehensively developed the theory of surplus value and the theory of value, based on factual material on the development of capitalism in England.

Marx sought to put political economy at the service of the interests of the working class. Such a class approach had a negative impact on the scientific objectivity of a number of statements he made.

At the end of the 19th century, economic life itself demonstrated a certain limitation of the classical direction of political economy.

Firstly, it did not correspond to the historical features of England in the period of the 17th-19th centuries. (the dominance of the sole form of capital, free competition and non-intervention of the state in the economy.)

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the economy was greatly transformed (it began to be dominated by large joint-stock companies who sought to suppress competitors, the state began to actively intervene in economic life). Secondly, when developing the doctrine of the market price, the English classics and K. Marx deeply revealed its dependence mainly on production, on the supply of goods on the market. However, this view was one-sided. The effect of buyer demand on price has not been adequately studied.

The successor of the ideas of K. Marx and his associate F. Engels in the field of economic theory was V. I. Lenin (1870-1924). In numerous works, he concretized the teachings of K. Marx in relation to the new historical situation, developed the theory of reproduction, and proved that in a capitalist developing country there is a stratification of small proprietors into rich and poor, and other issues.

From the end of the 19th century new approaches in economic science are beginning to take shape, and for a long time its various directions were somehow concentrated around two main problems: the labor theory of value and the theory of marginal utility.

Economics proceeds from the fact that scientific knowledge can comprehend the truth only with a certain degree of approximation, and taking into account the changes taking place in economic life, it clarifies or discards outdated ideas, and comes to new conclusions.

In the wake of the crisis of the 30s, the theory of effective demand arose, which offered its own recipes for regulating the economy and found application in practice, became an integral part of the economic policy of many states. The author of this theory was the English economist John Keynes (1883-1946). “His idea was to apply methods of activating and stimulating aggregate demand (general purchasing power) and thereby influence the expansion of production and the supply of goods. The state can influence investment by regulating the level of interest, or by investing in public works. According to Keynes, investments play a decisive role in expanding effective demand, and demand creates supply. He did not believe in a self-regulating market mechanism and believed that external intervention was necessary to ensure economic equilibrium.

1.2 Subject of economic theory

The task of any science is to analyze real processes, facts, identify internal relationships, determine patterns and trends in changes in phenomena. Economic theory is no exception to this. The entire history of economic theory shows that it was a constant search for a holistic system analysis of the economic life of society, the desire to describe, explain and anticipate development trends, to clarify the laws of economic life, to substantiate the methods of the most rational economic decisions.

Economic theory, like other social sciences, has a number of features in comparison with the natural sciences. Firstly, economic theory deals with the activities of people and, therefore, is a social, social science, unlike the natural sciences, which study phenomena and processes that are not mediated by the will and consciousness of people. Secondly, economic actions and, therefore, economic theory is directly related to economic interests and ideology. This sets the task for economic theory to constantly refer to other social sciences and disciplines: sociology, political science, history, etc. Thirdly, due to the direct connection of economic theory with the economic interests of people, economic theory is not only interested in economic decisions, and the need to implement these decisions, taking into account the socially equitable distribution of products and benefits, recognized by society. The subject of economic theory is the economic relations of society.

Since economic relations represent an integral system in society, the subject of economic theory has another definition.

Economic theory is the science of systems of economic relations in society.

Economic theory, analyzing economic relations, must answer a number of fundamental questions:

1. What is the economic system, how does it work, what are its main structural elements, goals and forms of movement?

2. How does the economic system function, how is the interconnection of its elements in the process of functioning, and what impact does economic decision making have?

3. How does the system of economic relations interact with other spheres of society and, above all, with the social sphere and politics?

Economic theory, based on the study of real economic processes, develops a basis for making effective decisions both in relation to the entire economy and in solving specific problems. Since the adoption of these decisions presupposes, first of all, a comprehensive study of the object, i.e. what it represents, the initial task of economic theory is to determine the content and structure of the economic system. Only by understanding the system and its features, one can make rational economic decisions, make the right economic choice.

Due to the complexity economic systems economic theory in modern conditions is represented by a combination of trends and schools. However, despite the various methodological approaches to the analysis of the economy, in modern conditions a rather harmonious structure of modern economic theory has formed. The components of modern economic theory and its immediate subject separate parts can be correctly defined in the context of two fundamental features.

1.3 Methods and functions of economic theory

Economic theory is part of the social sciences, since the object of its research is human society. Human society is people who act on nature to satisfy their needs and interact with each other; it is a system of connections, relationships, mechanisms, institutions that ensures the interaction of individuals with each other and is a kind of social environment that has autonomy and its own logic of functioning and development.

The system of production relations is considered in its influence on the social class structure of society, on the socio-political system of the latter. In the process of scientific research, the factors of emergence, formation, development of this system of production relations and its transition to a new system are revealed. The specificity of the subject implies the specificity of the methodology and research methods.

Methodology is a general approach to the study of economic phenomena, a system of methods and techniques of analysis with a certain philosophical approach: subjective, dialectical-materialistic, empirical, rationalistic.

At present, rationalistic methodology dominates in science, which involves the study and discovery of objective rational laws of economic civilization on the basis of a holistic study of the economic system, regardless of the class composition of the population. Mathematical apparatus, econometrics, cybernetics are used as tools. The results of the study are economic models, diagrams, graphs.

The rationalistic method involves the analysis of objective reality in constant dynamics, including the analysis of internal relations, the laws of production, distribution, exchange and consumption. The most complete relationship between rationalistic and analytical approaches can be traced in the analysis of the processes of reproduction and economic growth.

The methodology is based on methods. A method is a set of techniques, methods, principles by which ways to achieve goals are determined. If the subject of science and its methodology are characterized by what is being researched, then the method is being researched. One follows from the other. The reality of the results depends on the correctly adopted method. In economic theory, various methods of cognition are used: positive, normative, systematization of factors, scientific abstraction, experiment, etc.

The positive method involves the creation of a certain philosophy of economic science, the formulation of knowledge about the economy, categories and laws of development of the economic environment based on the description and systematization of factors, experience, market observations, etc. Thus, the philosophy of economic science forms the doctrine of the balance and evolution of command and control systems. administrative and market, their structure and infrastructure.

The normative method of cognition involves the analysis of the practical activity of a person, based on the principles of maximum efficiency. The main principle of this method is that it is aimed at obtaining results that benefit all business entities.

The application of this method involves the use of mathematical methods of wounding extreme problems to a minimum or maximum, solving systemic situations and problems. The development of economic science in the modern period involves the use of such a method as the collection of information, its analysis and synthesis. Economic life is an accumulation of facts that exist in concrete reality. That's why this method associated with the collection of large amounts of data. However, in order to cognize these facts, it is necessary to rise from their review to a higher level, to scientific generalization.

One of the methods actively used in economics is the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, from essence to phenomenon. If you try to save all the richness of the essence for scientific evaluation and find the main determining movement, connections and economic laws, then you can get confused in the diversity of the phenomenon and miss the essence. Abstraction will highlight the basis, the cause-and-effect relationship, which makes it possible to control the situation. However, optimization is also needed here. Too much abstraction leads science away from objective reality. The connection between science and practice ceases, the latter acts as a criterion for the truth and value of theory. Being in a long separation from practice, science can create "ideal models" that do not reflect reality and allow subjugating the will of people on structures that distort, deform the laws of development.

The method of scientific abstraction is of great importance precisely in general economic theory. Social life cannot be studied in the laboratory. Scientific abstraction is a mental distraction (abstraction) from non-essential aspects, properties of phenomena and the search for the main, most essential in them.

Thus, the essence of the phenomenon is captured. As a result of abstraction, economic categories are derived. They act as theoretical expressions of the real aspects of the economy (profit, price, goods, money, wages). Together, economic categories form a conceptual apparatus. Further knowledge is aimed at studying the connection of economic phenomena. Abstract thinking generates the method of analysis and synthesis.

The analysis of economic phenomena involves the division of the phenomenon under study into separate elements and the study of each element as a necessary component of the whole. Synthesis assumes that the phenomenon is initially studied as consisting of various parts, and then the combination of elements into a single whole is studied and a general conclusion is made.

A certain role among the methods of general economic theory used is played by experiment and economic reforms. They occupy a special place in the study and require careful preparation, calculation, justification, and scientific study. In general economic theory, the principle of combining the historical and the logical is widely used. Historically, society develops from simple to complex, but this development is not free from retreats and running ahead. The study of history helps to understand the internal logic of the subject, and the knowledge of the internal structures of society gives history a scientific character.

The unity of the historical and the logical is a methodological principle that helps to focus the attention of science on strengthening the argumentation, the validity of the conclusions. Both in the studies themselves and in logical constructions, when presenting its results, constant mutual control is necessary: ​​the logic of research must be constantly controlled by historical comparison, and the facts of history must be arranged in a logical sequence arising from the paradigm of economic science.

However, the unity of the historical and the logical must be understood as a certain tendency, sufficiently free in its fluctuation. The rigid connection between the historical and the logical can give rise to a dogmatic idea of ​​some episodes of history or raise formal logic to a scientific argument. These are the main methods and techniques of organizing scientific analysis and search for optimal solutions to economic problems.

Consider the main functions of economic theory:

1. Cognitive - allows you to analyze individual processes of the economy, establishes relationships between these phenomena, determines the properties of economic entities (financial institutions, enterprises, the state, the population).

2. Methodological - allows you to define economic theory as the basis for the development of a number of other economic disciplines (marketing, statistics, management, pricing).

3. Educational - allows you to form an economic culture, logic, basic concepts of the market among citizens.

4. Practical - recommendations for improving the current economic situation, reducing inflation, increasing the gross national product, etc., developing specific principles and methods for a rational economy;

5. Prognostic - based on the analysis of economic phenomena and processes, develop directions for future development.

2. The main stages of development and the evolution of views on the subject of economic theory

2.1 Classical direction and its schools

Classical political economy is a direction of economic thought that arose during the formation of the capitalist mode of production. The "classics", unlike the mercantilists, essentially re-formulated both the subject and the method of studying economic theory. Thus, the increased degree of manufacturing of the economy (and then its industrialization) led to the promotion of entrepreneurs engaged in industrial production, pushing into the background the capital employed in trade, money circulation and lending operations. For this reason, as the subject of study of the "classics" they preferred mainly the sphere of production. Classical economists emphasized that the conclusions of economics are ultimately based on postulates drawn as much from observable "laws of production" as from subjective introspection.

Classical political economy was born in England; William Petty is considered the founder of this direction. By studying production as the basis of the economy, Petty seeks to clarify the nature of price, to find the causes on which the level of wages and ground rent depend, to determine the price of land, and so on. thus he embarked on the path of scientific analysis of economic life.

Petty believed that the basis of exchange proportions is the labor expended on their production, therefore, the value is determined by labor; The value of a commodity is directly proportional to the productivity of labour. Thus, Petty was the first in the history of economic science to pave the way for the idea of ​​abstract labor, which formed the basis of Marx's theory of value.

Traces of this process during the period from 1691 to 1752 are striking even to the most superficial observer, if only because everything ... economic work of this time, either positively or negatively, the views of Petty come from: “In France, the emergence of classical political economy is associated with the name of Pierre Boisguillebert, who was its founder.

Pierre Boisguillebert was one of the first in France to criticize the views of the mercantilists. He argued that the basis of the wealth and welfare of the state is agriculture, which plays a decisive role in the development of the economy.

He considered the proportional distribution of labor between the results of their labor to be a condition for the normal economic development of the country. This can be achieved with free competition between producers. The labor time per unit of commodity, under such a proportional distribution of labor, constitutes its "true value."

The Physiocrats are representatives of classical political economy in France. François Quesnay was the head of the physiocratic school. His main work is The Economic Table.

The merit of the Physiocrats lies in the transfer of the subject of study from the sphere of circulation to the sphere of production of material goods. The central place in economic doctrine belongs to the problem of "pure product". “The net product,” wrote Quesnay, “is the annually created wealth, which forms the income of the nation, and represents the product extracted from land holdings after the removal of all costs.” They considered agriculture to be the area where a "pure product" is created and wealth is increased. Industry is a barren area that does not create a "clean product". Consequently, the "pure product" was reduced to a physical gift of nature.

Quesnay gave a description of the class structure of contemporary society: "A nation consists of three classes of citizens: a productive class, a class of property owners and a barren class." The first class are the farmers who create a pure product; the second is the recipients of the net product (landlords, courtyard, church); the third is all others engaged in industry and doing work that is not related to agriculture.

Physiocrats introduced into scientific circulation the concepts of "initial advances" and "annual advances". Under the initial advances they understood the costs of agricultural equipment, and under the annual advances - the costs incurred annually for agricultural work.

The Physiocrats posed the question of the reproduction and circulation of the entire social product, both in value and in kind. Kene considered the process of reproduction and circulation of the entire social product as a process of exchange of products of production between the most important branches of the national economy and the main classes of society.

The formation of political economy as a science is associated with the name of the outstanding English scientist Adam Smith. It is thanks to him that political economy stands out as an independent branch of knowledge.

According to Smith, political economy should, on the basis of objective analysis, solve practical problems: to justify and recommend such an economic policy that could “provide the people with an abundant income or means of subsistence, or rather, provide them with the opportunity to extract them ...”

The subject of A. Smith's study was the laws of production of social wealth. He believed that the source of wealth should not be sought in foreign trade, like the mercantilists, or in agricultural production, like the physiocrats. Wealth is a product of the total labor of all spheres of production, representatives various kinds labor and professions. The economic world is a huge workshop in which rivalry is unfolding between all those who in one way or another participate in the creation of wealth.

Smith says that the "wealth" of a society depends on two factors: 1) the proportion of the population employed in productive labor, and 2) the productivity of labor. Having raised the question of what determines labor productivity, he gave a logical answer: the division of labor. .

Smith begins his research with an analysis of the division of labor. The division of labor increases the dexterity of each worker, saves time when moving from operation to operation. It promotes the use of more advanced machines and mechanisms, more efficient methods that make work easier and more productive. This is proved by his famous example of the work of the pin manufactory: if everyone, working alone, performs all the operations, then in a day of work he is able to produce 20 pins. If a workshop employs 10 workers, each specializing in one operation, then together they will produce 48,000 pins. As a result of the manufactory organization of labor, its productivity increases 240 times.

The true source of social wealth, according to Smith, is "the annual labor of the nation", used for personal and productive consumption. In modern terminology, wealth is gross national product. And the term “wealth” is now understood not as a product of annual labor, but as the result of the accumulated and materialized labor of many years, the result of the labor efforts of several generations.

Among other factors of increasing wealth, Smith singled out the transition from manufactory to factory, freedom of competition, and the abolition of customs barriers.

David Ricardo was the greatest successor of the teachings of Adam Smith. Just like Smith, the subject of study was the social conditions of production and distribution favorable for the growth of the material wealth of the wealth of society.

As you know, D. Riccardo consistently adhered to the labor theory of value. Labor has its price, which, in his opinion, is determined by the cost of the means of subsistence required to support the worker and his family. Wage changes do not affect the cost of products produced. Only the ratio between wages and profits received by the entrepreneur changes: “Everything that increases wages must necessarily reduce profits.” Thus, wages and profits are inversely related.

Ricardo believes that it would be wrong to identify the increase in value with the increase in wealth. The size of wealth, its increase depends on the availability of essential necessities and luxuries at the disposal of people. No matter how the cost of these items changes, they will equally satisfy their owner. Value is different from wealth, it depends on the difficulty or ease of production.

A prerequisite for increasing wealth, Ricardo notes, is the growth of labor productivity. The lower the cost of producing a unit of goods, the greater the size of the goods.

A. Smith and D. Riccardo showed that the source of wealth is not foreign trade, not nature, but the sphere of production, labor activity, in its various forms. The labor theory of value, which does not completely refute the utility of the product, served as one of the starting points of political economy.

Jean Charles Léonard Simond de Sismondi is the finalist of the classical school in France and at the same time the initiator of a new trend known as economic romanticism.

Sismondi had his own understanding of political economy. He considered it a moral science. From his point of view, political economy deals with human nature and not with objective laws. According to him, the subject of study should be the person himself, his needs, feelings, passions, and how certain institutions act on him.

2.2 Neoclassical direction

During the last 30 years of the XIX century. classical political economy was replaced by marginal economic theory. To a large extent, this change was the result of tremendous progress in science, especially in its natural and humanitarian branches and the economy, which was increasingly acquiring signs of a monopolistic type of management.

The main idea of ​​marginalism is the study of marginal economic values ​​as interrelated phenomena of the economic system on the scale of the firm, industry (microeconomics), as well as on the scale of the whole National economy(macroeconomics). Economics is the science that studies human behavior in terms of the relationship between ends and limited means, which can have various uses. It follows from this that the subject of study is the rational behavior of the "economic man" in conditions of limited resources.

The term "marginal revolution" is used when talking about the discovery of the principle of marginal utility. The essence of the law: the utility that each subsequent unit of a given good brings is less than the utility of the previous unit of the good.

The neoclassical direction arose in the last third of the 19th century. The prefix NEO appeared as a result of the marginalist revolution in economic theory.

Marginal theorists, and above all the Austrian school, depart from the terminology of classical political economy. The emergence and development of the Austrian school is associated with the works of K. Menger, F. Wieser and E. Böhm-Bawerk.

Menger set the goal of his research human needs. They are considered by Menger as unsatisfied desires or unpleasant sensations caused by violations of the physiological balance of a person. This formulation of the problem highlights the problem of rational distribution of limited resources.

The doctrine of the Austrian school is characterized by a subjective-psychological approach to the explanation of economic phenomena. She considered the psychology of economic entities, the motives by which they are guided in their activities, their subjective assessments, to be the main defining feature of economic phenomena and processes. The main task of political economy, the supporters of the Austrian school saw in the study of man's relationship to things, to the nature around him, in the study of the relationship between human needs and the means of satisfying them.

By the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th, large capitalist enterprises arose, monopolies arose. There was a problem of development of an effective economic policy of associations and firms. This was the reason for the emergence of the Cambridge school.

The main directions of the Cambridge school are most fully set out in the writings of its founder and main representative, Alfred Marshall. In his works, he sets out his vision of the most important economic categories and laws and gives them his own interpretation. According to Marshall, “the subject of economic science is mainly those motives that most strongly and most stably affect a person’s behavior in the economic sphere of his life. That incentive is a certain amount of money.”

The American school of political economy considered its main task to justify and defend the domination of monopolies.

A prominent representative of the American school was J. B. Clark. He writes a number of works, and his main work is “The Distribution of Wealth”, in which he writes: “The accusation weighs over society that it exploits labor.” Clark sets himself the task of defying this charge and proving that there are no contradictions in American society and that public income is fairly distributed. Since he was a neoclassicist, the subject of study was the optimal solutions in conditions of limited productive resources.

2.3 Marxist political economy

Marxism is a direction in theoretical economics, which is a comprehensive study of the laws of development of a capitalist society and the concept of socialism (communism) as a new economic system. Karl Marx - the founder of Marxism, a German scientist, sociologist, economist, public figure. His main work is "Capital".

K. Marx paid the main attention to the social aspects of economic relations, class antagonism. In his work, Marx gave a deep analysis of production and its influence on distribution, exchange and consumption, interpreted the method of political economy in a new way, developing the tactics of historical materialism.

However, the central place in the research methodology of K. Marx is occupied by his concept of basis and superstructure, which he announced as early as 1859. in "On a Critique of Political Economy". The main idea in this work was formulated as follows: “In the social production of their lives, people enter into certain, necessary, relations independent of their will - production relations that correspond to a certain stage in the development of their material productive forces. The totality of these production relations constitutes the economic structure of society, the real basis on which the legal and political superstructure rises and to which certain forms of social consciousness correspond. The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and spiritual processes of life in general. It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness.

K. Marx showed that political economy studies social and productive relations between people in the process of production of material goods at various stages of historical development. Describing the role of individual moments social production and their dialectical interaction, Marx showed that it is not distribution that is of decisive importance, but production itself. All other moments of social production: distribution, exchange, consumption are derived from the relations that exist in direct production.

2.4 Institutional economics

At the beginning of the XX century. US economists, having activated the analysis of the intensified monopolistic tendencies in the economy and promoting the "antitrust" policy of their own country, have gained the status of leaders in the concept of social control over the economy, carried out by various methods. Their theories laid the foundation for a new direction of economic thought, which is now called social-institutional or simply institutionalism.

Institutionalism is, in a certain sense, an alternative to the neoclassical direction of economic theory. Institutionalists also consider spiritual, moral, legal and other factors considered in economics to be the driving force of the economy along with material factors. historical context. In other words, institutionalism as a subject of economic science is put forward by economic processes in conjunction with social, organizational and other social relations. At the same time, the objects of research - institutions - are not divided into primary or secondary and are not opposed to each other.

In the identified three currents of institutionalism, T. Veblen heads the socio-psychological (technocratic) version of institutional research, J. Commons - the socio-legal (legal), W. Mitchell - the conjuncture-statistical (empirical-prognostic) version.

Thorstein Veblen is the author of a significant number of major works in the field of economics and sociology, in which he proceeded from the theory of the evolution of nature by Charles Darwin, the principle of interconnection and interdependence of all social relations, including economic and socio-psychological ones.

The system of economic views of John Commons was that he considered the main economic development of society legal relations, legal norms. Consequently, economic institutions are categories of a legal order. The subject of Commons's study is the sphere of circulation, i.e. transfer of titles of property as legal transactions.

W. Mitchell's personal contribution to institutional theory consists, firstly, in identifying the impact on economic forces(in the categories of money circulation, credit, finance, etc.) the so-called non-economic factors (including psychological, behavioral and others) through a competitive study of digital indicators and the establishment of patterns in the fluctuations (conjuncture) of these indicators based on a wide array of statistical data on the actual material and its mathematical processing. And, secondly, in an attempt to substantiate the concept of a crisis-free cycle through various options government intervention into the economy.

Modern institutionalism is the institutionalism of Dh. Galbraith (the theory of technostructure and balancing forces). F. Perroux (the theory of the economy of domination), R. Heilbroner (scenarios and forecasts for the development of capitalism), G. Myrdal (models of transformation of the economies of developing countries). While retaining the characteristic features of classical institutionalism, modern institutionalism differs in subject matter, interpretation of the problems under consideration, and methodology.

Firstly, representatives of this trend interpret the subject of economic science in a very broad way. In their opinion, economic science should not be concerned with purely economic relations; this is too narrow and often leads to bare abstractions. It is important to take into account the whole complex of conditions and factors influencing economic life: legal, social, psychological, organizational, political.

Secondly, it is necessary to study not so much the functioning as the development, the transformation of capitalist society.

The market is by no means a neutral or universal mechanism for allocating resources. The self-regulating market becomes a kind of machine for maintaining and enriching large enterprises. Their partner is the state.

Relying on the might of the state, monopolized industries produce their products in huge excess and impose it on the consumer. The basis of the power of large corporations is technology, not the laws of the market. The determining role now, according to Galbraith, is played not by the consumer, but by the manufacturer, the technostructure.

Thirdly, it is necessary to abandon the analysis of economic relations from the standpoint of the so-called economic man. What is needed is not isolated actions of individual members of society, but their organization.

Against the diktat of entrepreneurs, joint, coordinated actions are needed, which are called upon to organize and carry out trade unions and state bodies. The state should take ecology, education, medicine under its guardianship.

Representatives of institutionalism are interested in the problems of economic power and control over it. The evolution of human society is based on changes in technology, production techniques. In accordance with these deterministic shifts, various concepts of the historical transformation of society have been developed: industrial - post-industrial - informational - technotronic.

The subject of institutional research is generally quite extensive. The main attention is paid to the analysis of changes in technology, the nature of large corporations, the participation of the state in the regulation of the economic process. Analysis of social cataclysms, criticism of capitalism as a system has now receded into the background.

2.5 Keynesianism

World economic crisis 1929--1933 hit with colossal force both developed and unindustrialized countries. Therefore, it is quite obvious that, since the "strength" of the neoclassical theory of the late XIX - early XX century. extended mainly to microeconomic analysis, in the conditions of an atypical, one might say, crisis, accompanied by general unemployment, another one became necessary - macroeconomic analysis, which, in particular, was addressed by one of the greatest economists of the 20th century, the English scientist J. M. Keynes .

John Maynard Keynes is an outstanding scientific economist of our time. The main and new idea of ​​his theory is that the system of market economic relations is by no means perfect and self-regulating, and that only active state intervention in the economy can ensure the maximum possible employment and economic growth.

The innovation of the economic doctrine of J. M. Keynes in terms of the subject of study and in methodological terms was manifested, firstly, in the preference of macroeconomic analysis to the microeconomic approach, which made him the founder of macroeconomics as an independent section of economic theory, and secondly, in substantiating the concept of the so-called " effective demand”, i.e. potential and government-stimulated demand. Based on his own, “revolutionary” at that time, research methodology, J. M. Keynes, in contrast to his predecessors and contrary to the prevailing economic views, argued that it was necessary to prevent wage cuts with the help of the state as the main condition for eliminating unemployment, and also that consumption due to the psychologically conditioned propensity of a person to save, it grows much more slowly than income.

2.6 Monetarism

Monetarism is one of the most influential currents in modern economic science. He considers the phenomena of economic life mainly from the point of view of the processes taking place in the sphere of money circulation. The recognized leader of monetarism is Milton Friedman, an American economist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976, awarded "for research in the field of consumption, history and theory of money." M. Friedman made an attempt to revive the priority importance of money, money supply and money circulation in economic processes.

According to Friedman, “the main problem of monetary policy is to ensure a correspondence between the demand for money and its supply. He considered it necessary to increase the money supply at a constant rate: "a constant expected rate of growth of the money supply is more essential than knowing the exact value of this rate."

Monetarism is a school of economic thought that assigns a decisive role to money in the oscillatory movement of the economy. Monetary - means money (money - money, monetary - money). Representatives of this school see the main reason for the instability of the economy in the instability of monetary parameters.

We can say that monetarism is the science of money and its role in the process of reproduction. This is a theory that justifies the specific methods of regulating the economy with the help of monetary instruments.

The main instrument of state intervention in the economy, according to monetarists, is a stable monetary policy. The stability of money circulation is the main prerequisite for private accumulation of capital, increasing efficiency, and accelerating growth in the long term.

A prerequisite for an effective monetary policy is the unity of the sphere of circulation of capital and the production sphere. They must be deeply integrated in such a way that through the first one the transfer of capital between different segments of the production sphere is carried out, ensuring the redistribution of resources from traditional to its new, more efficient sectors.

All of the above indicates that the subject of economic science is monetary factors in a self-regulating economy.

3. Features of the development of economic theory at the present stage

3.1 The state of economic theory at the present stage

Economic theory, based on the study of real economic processes, develops a basis for making effective decisions both in relation to the entire economy and in solving specific problems.

Since the adoption of these decisions presupposes, first of all, a comprehensive study of the object, i.e. what it represents, the initial task of economic theory is to determine the content and structure of the economic system. Only by understanding the system and its features, one can make rational economic decisions, make the right economic choice.

Due to the complexity of economic systems, economic theory in modern conditions is represented by a combination of trends and schools. However, despite the existing various methodological approaches to the analysis of the economy, in modern conditions a rather harmonious structure of modern economic theory has been formed.

The constituent parts of modern economic theory and the immediate subject of its individual parts can be correctly defined in the context of two fundamental features:

1. Economic theory develops along with society - economics and theoretical views on the economy evolve along with the development of real economic relations.

2. The complication of economic relations, the emergence of new models of economic systems inevitably gives rise to the differentiation of economic theory and the emergence of new directions and schools.

...

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