Economic existence, economic phenomena and processes have always attracted the attention of people, especially scientists. Why: The thing is economic issues concern the life of every person: they regulate the material possibilities of family life, arising in the relationship between people, between individual and the state, between private institutions, between private and government agencies etc. That is, in everyday life: in transport, in a store, at work, in school, during leisure, doing business, each of us acts as a participant economic relations and, wittingly or unwittingly, in their activities makes decisions that affect not only their own economic interests, but also the economic interests of the people who surround us, and finally, the interests of society. So, the first problem that confronts people is the problem of the optimality of the decisions that they make in the course of their economic (economic) activities. What does this optimality depend on? From knowledge of the laws of economic development. Therefore, the desire of people to penetrate the essence of economic processes was dictated and is dictated by the practical needs of economic life, influence on it in the right directions, the adoption of effective decisions in the process of any economic (economic) activity.
Even in the Ancient World, economic thought reached a significant development. Economic views of Xenophon^2!, Platoї3!, Aristotle^4!,
as well as the thinkers of Ancient Egypt, China and India had big influence on the development of economic science in subsequent eras. We find many economic observations in the Bible. It gives a definite interpretation of the economic life of the ancient peoples who inhabited Palestine and the surrounding lands in the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. As a rule, these interpretations are given in the form of commandments, instructions about human behavior.
But economic views, schools originated long ago, economic theory as an independent science arose relatively recently. The impetus for this was the birth and development of capitalism, the formation of the national market. At the same time, the name of this science appeared: political economy. It comes from a combination of three ancient Greek words "politeia" - social, political system and already familiar to us "oikos" and "nomos", which together means: the science of the laws of public economy.
For the first time the name "political economy" was undertaken by the Frenchman Antoine Montchretien5! in the "Treatise of Political Economy", which was published in 1615. Why exactly did Montchretien call his work, and not just "economy" or "economics", as ancient Greek thinkers or his contemporaries did? The fact is that starting from Xenophon and Aristotle, everyone who used these words (economy, economics) invested in them the original meaning - this is home economics, management personal household, family. But Montchretien does not write about such an economy. His thoughts were directed to the prosperity of the economy as a state, national community. Emphasizing precisely this, he put a political definition before the word economy.
However, the main merit of Montchretien is not that he gave the name new science, but in the fact that in his "Treatise", specially devoted to economic problems, he for the first time singled out a special subject of research, different from the subject of other social sciences. It is from this moment that two aspects begin to be distinguished in the general concept of "economy": the economy as a system economic activity and economics as a system of scientific knowledge about economic activity. And in the economics the process of differentiation of knowledge began. On the one hand, theoretical economic sciences are being formed, on the other hand, applied ones. Now economics is a system of disciplines about economics, the leading of which is political economy, which plays the role of a theoretical foundation, performs in relation to all other economic disciplines methodological function. See diagram 3.
Scheme System of Economic Sciences
In the process of development of political economy as a science, several stages can be distinguished.
Political economy as a science began to take shape only with the emergence of capitalist
system, and therefore the object of her study was not economics in general, but the economics of the capitalist mode of production. And since capitalist relations began to take shape primarily in trade, this was reflected in theoretical developments the first economists who researched; this system. In particular, based on pure
superficial assessment of market processes, they: 1) identifying wealth with money, believed that wealth is only that which can be realized in money, gold; 2) production was considered only as a prerequisite for the creation of wealth; 3) circulation (trade) was considered the direct source of wealth, because there goods are converted into money and profit arises due to the sale of goods for more than they were bought.
However, not every turnover was considered a source of wealth, but only trade between countries (international), since it is it that increases the amount of money in the country, while internal trade only transfers money from one hand to another, without bringing profit to the country. Hence the general conclusion: the balance in foreign trade should be active, that is, we should buy less abroad and sell more. Proceeding from this, the labor employed only in trade, primarily international, was considered productive, since it (as it looked outwardly) most contributed to the accumulation of the country's wealth.
This first direction of political economic thought, which received the name mercantilism in the literature (from the Italian "mercante" - merchant, merchant), began to take shape as early as the last third of the 15th century, but gained wide development from the 2nd half of the 16th century. The most famous representatives of mercantilism were the English economists William Stafford (1554-1612) and Thomas Maine (1571-1641), the Italian G. Scaruffi (1519-1584), the Frenchman Antoine Montchretien and the Russian Ivan Pososhkov (1652-1726). .).
The policy of mercantilism (accumulation of money), protectionism^! and state regulation of the economy in the era of the formation of capitalism (15-18 centuries) was dominant in European countries - from Portugal to Muscovy. In particular, starting from the second half of the 17th century, it was widely used by France. The theory of mercantilism was successfully developed by Italian specialists. In Germany, mercantilism in the form of so-called cameralistics^7! was the official economic doctrine in the early 19th century. However, the leading role in the development of the ideas of mercantilism and the implementation of the policy of mercantilism was played by English economists. This is explained by the fact that England took the path of capitalist development earlier than other states of Europe, and her bourgeoisie had more experience in establishing a new social and economic system.
--;t-------- 3 development of capitalism, due to the fact that
classical capital from the sphere of circulation penetrates into the sphere of
POL1TECONOM1Ya
And production (And the fundamental is fixed there),
the main provisions of mercantilism are beginning to lose relevance: new demands are on the agenda - freedom of trade and entrepreneurship. In political economy, this was reflected in the fact that the concept of mercantilism gave way to the theoretical views of the physiocrats in France and classical school in England. The second stage in the development of political economy begins.
Physiocrats^ - representatives of one of the directions of classical political economy, which arose in France in the middle of the 19th century. as a reaction to mercantilism. They, unlike the mercantilists, saw the source of wealth not in the sphere of circulation (trade), but in production. This is their merit. At the same time, the Physiocrats limited production to agriculture only. They considered industry to be an unproductive branch of the economy, and therefore all those employed in this area belonged to the "barren class"!9!. Outstanding representatives of Physiocratism in France were: Francois Quesnay (1694-1774), Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727-1781), Victor Mirabeau (1715-1789). Physiocratic theories were also developed in Italy, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Poland and other countries.
Political economy reached its peak at this stage in the writings of representatives of the English classical school. These are: William Petty (1623-1687), Adam Smith (1723-1790) and David Ricardo (1772-1823). The main scientific achievements of the classics are the desire to identify deep patterns in public life; setting the production process at the center of the theoretical system, and any production, and not just agricultural, as among the physiocrats; the beginning of the labor theory of value; identification of the non-labor nature of entrepreneurs' income^10^. It is thanks to these gadgets that this school was called classical.
І8 ". The term "physiocrats" comes from two Greek words: jusiv - nature and
"kratos" - power, strength.
Ye! Physiocrats for the first time consider bourgeois society as a class society, singling out in
it has three classes: farmers, the only productive class; owners (mainly
land owners) third class - everyone else, that is, everyone who is employed in others, except
agriculture, industries.
PO) D. Ricardo even discovered a pattern that expresses the relationship between
paid labor ( salary workers) and unpaid (profit
entrepreneur), and proved that profits increase or decrease in the same proportion as
in which it decreases or increases wage.
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The high degree of maturity revealed its internal contradictions. This inevitably gave rise
political economy new directions in the development of political economy, namely
pragmatic and proletarian political economy (19-20 centuries).
Representatives of pragmatic political economy, firstly, based on the concept of limited factors of production, focused on the issues of using the latter to make a profit, economic growth for the benefit of entrepreneurs. Secondly, as the ideologists of the bourgeoisie, they considered their main task to be direct defense, all sorts of embellishment of the bourgeois system, not stopping even at the default contradictions of capitalism. But historical experience has proved important role social issues in the development of human society, so the pragmatists of the 20th century. are forced to resort more and more often to the consideration of socio-economic issues in economic theory, although they are mainly assigned a secondary role.
The difference between the representatives of pragmatic political economy and their predecessors lies in the fact that the representatives of classical political economy sought to reveal the true laws of the formation and development of the social system in which they lived (capitalism). Therefore, A. Smith and D. Ricardo derived the desire for profit, capital accumulation from the laws of production. Pragmatists, in order to apologia for capitalist production, confine themselves to describing and superficially classifying the outward appearance of economic processes and not revealing their essence, while the laws of production themselves deduce from economic interests bourgeoisie, the desire for profit.
Pragmatism, taking into account the interests of the ruling class of the capitalist society - the bourgeoisie, since the 30s of the 19th century, has become the dominant direction in the development of political economy. It was founded by the English economists Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), James Mill (1773-1836) and the Frenchman Jean Baptiste Say (1766-1832). In the 20th century. among its representatives we see such well-known economists as John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), Friedrich Hayek (1899-198) - Great Britain, Wesley Claire Mitchell (1874-1948), Paul Samuelson (b. 1915) - USA.
As a counterbalance to pragmatic political economy in the middle of the 19th century. proletarian political economy emerges. Its foundations were laid by the ideologists of the working class Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) - Unlike pragmatic political economy, which perpetuates the bourgeois system, proletarian (later it became
called Marxist), revealing the internal contradictions of capitalism, proves that capitalism, just as naturally as it came to replace feudalism, must give way to a new, more progressive social order - socialism. Marxist political economy was developed in the works of VL. Lenin (1870-1924), and the practical implementation of its ideas was found in the construction of the world's first socialist state - the Soviet Union (1922), the reasons for the collapse of which are the subject of research by future economists and political scientists.
The line that separates these two directions in Modern stage
political economy, is the attitude to the ownership of the means of production. Representatives of pragmatic political economy defend the private form of ownership as the basis of the social system. Marxists, on the other hand, believe that such a basis that can ensure the highest efficiency in the development of social production is social ownership of the means of production. Historical experience shows that the opposition of these two forms of ownership, giving rise to quite serious social cataclysms, hinders social progress. Both forms in their versatility can contribute to socio-economic development. The problem lies only in how they are used in relation to specific conditions and the degree of development of the productive forces of society. This, in particular, is the number one problem for modern Ukraine, whose economy is in transition.
It is precisely the problem of combining the positive features of the pragmatic school, which has significant improvements in elucidating the patterns of microeconomic processes, and classical and Marxist political economy with their undoubted achievements in the field of solving social issues and identifying patterns in the passage of macroeconomic processes, that should be dealt with by political economy on the modern new stage of its development. Therefore, these problems will be the focus of our course. See diagram 4.
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Functions of political economy
Methods of political economy
The system of economic laws of society
Industrial relations system
The subject of political economy
Historical stages in the development of political economy
TOPIC 1. Subject and method of political economy
Patterns of its development
main view human activity is the production of material goods to satisfy their needs.
As the products of labor were made, knowledge arose of how to organize production. This knowledge was recorded in the form of commandments and rules, as evidenced by the Egyptian papyri, the tables of King Hammurabi (Byzantium), the ancient Indian Vedas, the Jewish Torah, the works of scientists from Ancient China and Greece, the Bible.
Thus, in the ancient Indian "Laws of Manu" (IV-III centuries BC), the social division of labor is described.
In the works of Confucius (551-479 BC), the difference between mental and physical labor is explored, the first being the monopoly of the upper strata of society, the second being the lot of the common people.
The economic views of the ancient Greek thinkers Xenophon (430-345 BC), Plato (427-347 BC), Aristotle (384-322 BC) can be considered the starting points of the economic science, because they contained:
Evaluation of the value of the product by labor;
The idea of utility as the basis of the value of goods;
Consideration of commodity exchange as an exchange of equivalents.
Aristotle introduced the term "oikonomia" (oikonomia): "oikos" from the Greek. - house, economy, "nomos" - teaching, law. Thus, "economy" - these are the laws of housekeeping, since in the conditions of slavery "house" was an independent economic unit.
Aristotle in his writings explored the concepts of value, price, quantity of labor, etc. He shared the concepts of "economy" (the science of managing for the sake of satisfying needs) and "chremastika" (the art of making a profit).
The Bible has thoughts about fair price, public assessment of the value of goods, about wealth.
These historical documents were the germs of the future economic science of the organization and conduct of production.
But all these views did not represent a holistic teaching.
In the context of overcoming feudal fragmentation and the formation of centralized states in Europe, there are attempts to determine the rules for running not a separate economy, but a nationwide one, i.e. at the state level.
In this regard, the concept of "economy" acquires a new meaning and turns into "political economy" ("politeia" - from the Greek. - state structure), i.e. laws of conducting the state (public) economy.
Formation economic doctrines into an independent field of knowledge occurs by the 17th century.
For the first time the concept of "political economy" was introduced by the French economist Antoine de Montchretien in 1615 in his "Treatise on Political Economy", containing advice on running a state economy and increasing wealth.
The development of political economy as an integral science took place in stages.
1) The first economic doctrine that systematized the accumulated knowledge was mercantilism(XVI - XVII centuries).
This is the period of the formation of capitalism, the birth of manufactories (industry), the development of the social division of labor, the formation domestic markets and world trade, growth monetary circulation in Europe.
This scientific school was the first to attempt to build a theory of the social system solely on the basis of economics.
The representatives of mercantilism were Antoine de Montchretien (1575-1621) and Jean-Baptiste Colbert in France, Thomas Mann (1571-1641) in England, A. Ordyn-Nashchokin in Russia.
They considered the enrichment of the state and the population to be the purpose of the functioning of the public (national) economy. And since they considered money to be the embodiment of wealth, they studied the sphere of circulation, and saw the main task in ensuring the abundance of gold in the country.
In this regard, the mercantilists believed that the source of the wealth of society was foreign trade, through which more gold could be accumulated in the country.
Thus, the mercantilists laid the foundation for the state economic policy - protectionist policies under which the state should patronize the national industry and trade, provide profitable terms export and employment of labor force, set high customs duties on imports, prohibit the export of gold from the country, maintain a surplus trade balance, etc.
A historical example of such a policy in England in the 15th century was the law on “fencing” of lands (peasants were driven off their lands, thereby depriving them of their livelihood and forcing them to leave for the cities to be hired by manufactories. This provided the emerging capitalist production with hired labor), labor laws - on the establishment of a 12-14 hour working day.
However, the mercantilist theory did not give a complete picture of the functioning economic system, since she considered trade to be the main source of national wealth.
2) A deeper analysis of the functioning of the economy was undertaken classical school that developed in Western Europe in the 18th - early 19th centuries.
Its founders were the English economist William Petty (1623-1686) (the main works are "Treatise on taxes and fees", "Political arithmetic", "Something about money") and the French economist Pierre Boisguillebert.
The classical school actually turns political economy into a true science (a system of knowledge).
Its representatives transferred the study of the economy from the sphere of circulation to the sphere of production, because. considered the source of social wealth production, and accordingly - human labor.
The direction of the classical school was the theory physiocrats, the founders of which were the French economists Francois Quesnay (1694-1774) and Anne Robert Jacques Turgot.
Name of the theory physiocrats- from the Greek words: Phisis - nature, kratos - power.
Physiocrats believed that the source of wealth is labor, but only in the field of agriculture.
In the "Economic Tables" F. Quesnay (1758) analyzes social reproduction from the standpoint of the proportionality of natural and cash flows in the movement of the social product.
The financier J. Turgot formulated the law of diminishing fertility, which today is interpreted as the law of diminishing productivity (return): an increase in the application of labor to the land leads to the fact that each subsequent labor input is less productive.
The largest representative of the classical school is the English economist Adam Smith (1729-1790).
His main work is An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The central idea is the liberalization of the economy, that is, minimal state intervention in the economy, market self-regulation based on competition and free pricing.
A. Smith laid the foundations of the labor theory of value, showed the importance of the division of labor as a condition for increasing its productivity, and formulated the principles of rational taxation.
A later representative of the English classical school is David Ricardo (1772-1823). His main work is "Principles of Political Economy and taxation» (1817).
D.Ricardo considered A.Smith's law of value to be the foundation of the theory of political economy. The only source of value is the labour, which underlies the incomes of the various classes. From this, D. Ricardo concludes that profit is the result of the worker's unpaid labor.
D.Ricardo revealed the downward trend in the rate of profit, revealed the mechanism for the formation of differential rent.
The principle of comparative costs of D. Ricardo is still used today to justify the effectiveness of international specialization and cooperative production.
The main provisions of the theory of the classical school are reduced to the following conclusions:
1. The object of study of political economy should be material production.
2. The source of social wealth (wealth of nations) is productive labor.
3. Labor is the measure of the value of all commodities.
4. Social production develops according to its own laws, which are of an objective nature.
5. The labor of a hired worker is a source of income for all strata of society: landowners, industrialists, bankers, workers.
6. The economic interests of different classes and social strata are opposite.
7. The state must carry out economic policy.
8. Capitalism as social order is the natural and eternal order.
9. Competition makes the economy a self-regulating system.
10. The expedient is the absence of state intervention in the economy (the policy of economic liberalism) and the encouragement of private enterprise.
3) Representatives of the critical direction in political economy - economic romanticism(S.Sismondi), utopian socialism(Sh. Fourier, T. More, R. Owen), Ricardianism(W. Thompson and J. Gray) (XVI - XIX centuries) revealed the vices and diseases of society, painted pictures of a happy future, but did not see real economic ways his achievements.
4) In the XVIII-XIX centuries. there is a so-called petty-bourgeois political economy, the object of study of which are external economic dependencies.
The main representative is Jean Baptiste Say (1767-1832). JB Say was a supporter of economic liberalism, idealized the free market, denied the possibility of economic crises.
He formulated the so-called Say's Law: "Supply creates its demand", according to which the economy always reaches equilibrium.
5) Marxism(XIX century) - a direction of political economy that explored the laws of development of capitalism and created the concept of socialism (communism) as a new economic system.
The founders of this trend are the German economists and sociologists Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels. Their research was continued by V.I. Lenin, who created the theory of imperialism.
The main work of K. Marx - "Capital" (1867) in 3 volumes. Volume IV - "Toward a Critique of Political Economy" - is a critical analysis of all pre-Marxist theories in political economy.
"Capital" is a theoretical study of all phases of social reproduction - the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods. The basis of this theory is the works of the classics of political economy Adam Smith and David Ricardo.
The most important provisions of Marxism:
1. The doctrine of socio-economic formations.
2. The theory of surplus value.
3. The doctrine of the dual nature of labor embodied in the commodity.
4. Theory of reproduction and economic crises.
5. The theory of absolute rent.
6. Analysis of the evolution of forms of value and the emergence of money.
Marxist theory considered private ownership of the means of production to be the basis for the exploitation of workers under capitalism, predicted the inevitability of the death of capitalism, the destruction of private property and the victory of communism due to the opposition of the economic interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
This idea was developed by V. I. Lenin in his work Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916).
Marxist political economy had a pronounced class character, reflecting the interests of the proletariat.
6) Historical School L. List and the new historical school of K. Bucher, W. Sombart focus on the fact that no socio-economic form is perfect, it is constantly being improved, therefore economic theories cannot be equally applied to different countries.
7) Marginalism(XIX-XX centuries) (from the English. Marginal - marginal) - a theory that considers the economy as a system of interconnected economic entities and explains economic processes based on limit values: marginal revenue, marginal cost, marginal product, marginal utility, etc.
The founder of marginal analysis is the French mathematician, philosopher and economist Antoine Cournot (1801-1877).
In the second half of the 19th century, the Austrian school of marginalism arose, whose representatives were Karl Menger (1840-1921), Friedrich von Wieser (1851-1926), Eugene Böhm-Bawerk (1851-1914).
The contribution of the Austrian school was the theory of marginal utility, according to which the price of a good is determined by the utility of the last unit of product available - this is a subjectivist approach to determining the value of labor products.
The mathematical apparatus for analyzing limiting values was developed by representatives of the mathematical school: the Swiss Leon Walras (1834-1910), the English economist William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882), American economist John Bates Clark (1848-1938).
8) In the 90s of the XIX century. based on the development of this theory appeared neoclassical direction(A. Marshall, J. B. Clark), which is a compromise between different areas in economic theory.
Neoclassical theory is based on the principle of non-intervention of the state in the economy, freedom of enterprise and market forces.
9) Keynesianism(XX century). Representatives: English economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), N. Kaldor, E. Eichner, J. Davis.
J. Keynes developed the theory of effective demand, achieved through state regulation market economy through financial and monetary policy, as well as the theory of anti-crisis regulation.
The variety is post Keynesianism, seeking to update and supplement the theory of J. Keynes in modern conditions.
10) In the XX century. there is an institutional-sociological direction ( institutionalism).
Representatives: Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), Wesley Mitchell, (1874-1948) - specialist in industrial cycles, John Galbraith (1909), Robert Coase. They consider the economy as a system in which relations between economic entities are formed under the influence of both economic and non-economic factors, "institutions", by which they understand the state, family, trade unions, moral, ethical and psychological norms. This area also includes modern theories neo-institutionalism; industrial, post-industrial, technotronic and information society.
11) Neoclassical synthesis. Representatives: John Hicks (1904) and Paul Samuelson (1915). It is proposed, depending on the state of the economy, to use either the Keynesian recommendations of state regulation, or classical recipes. Achievements of this direction were: research of problems of economic growth; theory of general economic equilibrium; substantiation of the theory of taxation.
12) Neoliberal direction presented:
BUT) theory of monetarism Milton Friedman (1912), USA. This is the theory of stabilizing the economy through state control over the money supply.
B) economic liberalism(neoliberalism), ordoliberalism, dirigisme. Representatives: American economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), English economist Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992), German economist L. Erhard, French economist M. Allais.
essence economic liberalism: the market is the most efficient management system, therefore it is necessary to ensure the freedom of subjects economic activity. The role of the state is defined in the statement of L. Erhard: "Competition wherever possible, regulation where necessary."
13) Modern economic theories and schools late XX - early XXI centuries very diverse. These are: modern theories of institutionalism, modern monetarism, economic theories developing countries, economic theories of countries with transitive economies; economic theories of the world economy; theories of global development of society, etc.
Modern trends are characterized by a reorientation towards a combination of macro- and micro-approaches to the analysis of economic phenomena. This makes it possible to link theory with practice and obtain fundamentally new results in economics.
The historical stages in the development of economic thought are presented in Scheme 1.1.
Institute of Economics and Management (Simferopol)
Department of Economic Theory
Malakhova V. V.
Political Economy
Teaching aid for self-study of the discipline
Simferopol, 2003.
The manual contains educational materials necessary for independent study of the discipline "Political Economy".
The main elements of the manual are a program annotation, a brief summary of lectures, questions for preparing for seminars, practical and test tasks for self-examination of students' knowledge, guidelines for the preparation of abstracts and term papers, criteria for assessing students' knowledge, terminological dictionary, list of references.
Malakhova V.V. Political Economy: Educational and Methodological Guide. - Simferopol, 2003, 204 p.
Reviewers:
Efremov A. V., Doctor of Economics, Professor; Kondrashova G.P., candidate of economic sciences, associate professor.
Under general edition doctor of economic sciences, professor Uzunov V.
Scientific editor, candidate of economic sciences, associate professor Marinina I. D.
Foreword
The essence of the economic reforms carried out in Ukraine is to make every person an active participant in the economic life of society. Higher school is designed to form economic thinking in a young specialist based on a deep understanding of the phenomena, processes and relationships in the economic system of society, as well as ways and means of solving economic problems.
The main objective of this teaching aid is to assist students in the study of political economy.
The main idea of the manual is the complexity of providing sections of the course, which makes it possible to orient students in the use of the proposed material during classroom, individual and independent work.
The list of topics presented in the manual, and their content correspond to the current regulatory program for the discipline "Political Economy". Each topic of the course has a structure that is adequate to the main objectives of the manual and is represented by the corresponding blocks:
1. In software annotation the general boundaries of the topic and the logical sequence of the presentation of the material are outlined.
The task of the program annotation is the orientation of students within the framework of the subject of study.
2. Reference abstract of the lecture briefly describes the content of each of the topics of the course. During the lecture, students having reference abstract, can, without being distracted by the recording of the lecture, focus on understanding the material, or can make the necessary additional notes.
3. Staging problems of the seminar continues the learning cycle
- Questions for preparation for seminars;
- Terms and concepts that you need to know on the topic;
Abstract topics.
One part of the tasks is relatively simple and is almost always performed orally, while the other part requires serious thought, and sometimes explanations from the teacher or collective discussion. Most of the assignments are done in writing.
5. Headings containing concise descriptions of portraits, quotations, opinions and paradoxical statements of the largest economists, politicians and philosophers, make you seriously think about the nature and significance of economic relations for each person.
Among them: Rep.! - repeat;
Check out the dictionary!- you will have to work with reference literature, write out the meanings of terms, economic concepts, learn to classify them and apply them in practice.
Quote - the heading title speaks for itself. These are quotations from classical economic works, designed to arouse interest in this, of course, vital science.
It is interesting! - entertaining facts from the history of economics and economic thought.
6. Tasks offered to students in some topics are aimed at mastering and developing skills related to the logic of thinking, practice and technology for calculating indicators, analysis and synthesis economic information. A solution is proposed for typical tasks on topics.
7. At the end of the study of the topic, students are offeredtests for self-examination of knowledge and assessment of their readiness for further
After working through the above blocks, the student should have necessary knowledge, skills and abilities for their further application.
Applications located at the end of the manual are intended for a deeper study by students of the discipline "Political Economy":
1. Dictionary of basic economic terms.
3. Subjects of abstracts on political economy.
5. Subjects of term papers.
6. Criteria for evaluating course work.
7. Approximate tickets for the exam.
8. Criteria for assessing students' knowledge in the exam.
9. List of literature recommended for study.
Educational and methodological support for the study of the discipline
TOPIC 1. Subject and method of political economy
Program annotation
The origin and development of political economy. The main directions, schools and currents in political economy. Development of economic thought in Ukraine.
subject of political economy. Explanation of the subject of political economy by different schools. Economic theory and political economy: communication problems.
Methods economic research. General methods of scientific knowledge and their use.
Functions of political economy: methodological, cognitive, practical, planned-prognostic, ideological. Political economy and justification of economic policy. The place of political economy in the system of economic sciences.
Reference abstract
Political economy is an integral part of economic theory. Economic theory consists of political economy, macroeconomics, microeconomics, history of economic doctrines.
Macro- and microeconomics concretize the general theoretical provisions of political economy. Macroeconomics at the country level, microeconomics at the level of individual industries.
In general, economic theory is the methodological basis of all economic disciplines.
The origin and development of political economy
Economic- economic problems have always been at the center of people's attention. We meet fixed economic problems in myths, legends, religious beliefs. The first scientific problems are also encountered in antiquity within the framework of a single philosophical science.
The accumulation of large volumes of economic knowledge leads to their division and isolation. The emergence of special studies dates back to the beginning of the 17th century. (the birth of capitalism and the formation national markets). This is where the term political economy came from. It was first applied by the French mercantilist Antoine de Montchretien in 1615 in his Treatise on Political Economy, addressed to
king and queen. Mercantilism is the first school of political economy. It comes from the Italian word "mercante" - (merchant). Representatives of this trend identified the wealth of the society with gold, and trade was considered the source of wealth. The mercantilists contributed to the disintegration of feudalism and the primary accumulation of capital.
Classical PE arose in connection with the penetration of capital into the sphere of production. Classical PE was the dominant school in the 2nd half of the 18th - beg. 19th century The first representatives of this school - the physiocrats (nature and power), the founder of Francois Quesnay, considered production, but only agricultural, to be a source of wealth. Their main merit is that it was the first attempt to analyze social reproduction.
The merit of representatives of the classical PE William Petty, Adam Smith, David Ricardo is that they substantiated a number of important theoretical provisions: 1) the source of social wealth is everything social production; 2) introduced the method of abstraction, which opens up the possibility of penetrating into the deep essence of the phenomena under study; 3) laid the foundations of the labor theory of value; 4) investigated the mechanism of reproduction of social capital. 5) made an attempt to explain the laws governing economic phenomena; 6) advocated limiting state intervention in the economy and for free trade.
AT middle and second half of the 19th century. in the writings of Sismondi and Proudhon, a petty-bourgeois PE developed. It reflected the interests and views of small commodity producers; failed to discover the laws economic development and therefore was infertile.
Marxist doctrine entered the arena of economic theory from the middle of the 19
in. as one of the peaks of theoretical thought of that time. It basically stays that way.
AT "Capital" is given a fairly deep theoretical reflection of the conditions for the development of free competition capitalism in the 18th century. 19th century It was the economic doctrine of Marxism that was a solid foundation for the formation of PE as a science with a clearly defined subject. Given by K. Marx, the analysis of production relations in unity with the productive forces, the creation of a system of economic categories and laws by him, the analysis of the internal inconsistency of the economic system are generally recognized by world science. Marxism introduced the principle of historicism, which allowed Marx to discover the laws of economic development.
Modern economic theory is characterized by a large number of directions, schools, trends. Main: 1) neoclassical; 2) Keynesian; 3) monetarism; 4) institutional and sociological. They differ in their interpretation of the role of the market and the state, their correlation and interaction in economic development.
1) The neoclassical proceeds from the fundamental position of the classical school about the market and competition as natural conditions for the functioning and development of the economy. The market mechanism of self-regulation is considered the only effective way for the functioning of the economy. government intervention, can lead to disruption of economic equilibrium, to a decrease in efficiency. Neoclassical theory is based on theories of marginal utility and productivity.
2) Keynesianism originated in 30s of the 20th century, due to the need to withdraw the economy from the global crisis of 29-33. J. M. Keynes published in 1936 the work "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money".
Basic provisions: the market mechanism is not able to completely eliminate crises and unemployment, government regulatory intervention is needed, using taxes, subsidies, interest on loans.
3) The focus of monetarists is anti-crisis measures: stimulating economic activity using the financial and credit system, money circulation, inflation to increase demand and spur production.
4) Institutional-sociological direction. The object of research are such public institutions as corporations, trade unions, the state. At the same time, the focus is on universal human values. They oppose the excessive ideologization of public life, the militarization of the economy, indicative state planning of the economy, guaranteed incomes, and the expansion of state social programs, for the organization by the state of the retraining of workers in connection with technological unemployment.
The economic science of Ukraine in modern conditions must creatively use the world potential of economic thought.
The subject and method of political economy
PE is a social science. It studies the social relations between people that develop in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of life's goods. Economic relations are relations:
1) about the economic connection of workers with the means of production;
2) about the organization of the production process;
3) regarding the appropriation and use of the results of production.
PE finds out the laws that govern the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of life's goods in human society and finds ways and directions of their use.
Economic relations between people are objective; are not dependent on their will and consciousness, because their production and economic activity is objective. Economic relations are systematically organized, their forming factor is the ownership of the means and results of production. There are two subsystems in the system of economic relations:
1) organizational and economic relations;
2) socioeconomic relations.
Organizational and economic relations are relations about the organization of production as a process of creating vital goods.
Socio-economic relations are relations about the possession of factors of production and the use of the results of production. These include: property relations, a set of economic interests, management relations, distribution, exchange and consumption relations.
PE carries out excursions into other sciences, affects political, ideological relations, especially economic and social policy, psychology, and also comes into contact with the sciences that study engineering and production technology.
The main methods of cognition of economic processes are divided into two groups: 1) empirical; 2) theoretical.
Empirical - consist in collecting facts, taking into account all the changes that occur to them, in their grouping, mathematical and statistical processing.
Theoretical methods are a means of penetrating into the deep essence of the studied phenomena, revealing the laws of their functioning and development.
In political economy, theoretical methods consist mainly in abstract reasoning, in putting forward and testing hypotheses, and in hypothetical modeling of economic processes. The method of scientific abstraction is widely used - abstraction from the secondary, non-essential aspects of the phenomenon under consideration in order to highlight the primary, deep properties that reveal its essence.
By means of the abstraction method, economic laws and categories are formed. The best means of testing the hypotheses put forward, the constructed models are experiments, i.e. recreating the relevant processes in the laboratory. In political economy, laboratory experiments are impossible, and economic experiments are very limited. But to some extent, this is compensated by the wide scale of theoretical discussions of scientists-economists, conducted in the press, at conferences, symposiums. When studying facts, putting forward and testing hypotheses, methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction are used.
Analysis - decomposition, dismemberment of the object under study into its component parts. One of the methods is penetration into the deep essence of the studied phenomena.
Synthesis - the study of the subject in the unity and interaction of all its constituent parts, its systemic integrity.
Induction is the construction of generalizing conclusions, theoretical conclusions, economic laws based on empirical observations.
Deduction is a counter, opposite movement of research thought - from general scientific conclusions to particular phenomena with the aim of: 1) scientific assessment; 2) deepening, clarifying, improving the quality of general scientific conclusions, laws.
Economic laws and categories
Economic laws are internal, essential, stable, recurring causal relationships and dependencies of people's economic relations. The objective nature of economic laws is due to the following circumstances:
1) the production of life's goods is carried out on the basis and with the use of objects, laws, forces of nature that exist independently of the will and consciousness of people;
2) the material basis of human life is their continuous exchange with nature; they cannot stop consumption as the most important component of this exchange, and therefore they cannot stop production at their own discretion, they cannot arbitrarily manipulate the volumes and types of production.
Economic laws act as the dominant trend in the socio-economic development of society. They are manifested not in each individual phenomenon or process, but in their entirety over rather long periods of time; they are not demonic overlords who turn people into obedient servants, they determine the general logic of economic development. People are not powerless before these economic laws, they are not deprived of their interests and active initiative in their implementation. Laws are independent of the will and consciousness of people, but not of their activities. Knowing economic laws and carrying out their activities in line with them, people achieve high results in their activities; activities that run counter to them bring difficulties.
Any branch of scientific knowledge carries out typification, classification of the set of studied phenomena. The result of these generalizations in economics are economic categories.
An economic category is a scientific collective concept that abstractly, generally characterizes the essence of many homogeneous, similar economic phenomena. Economic categories are true because there are those relations of which they are a reflection.
Functions of political economy
PE studies the relationship between people in the decisive sphere of their life: in economic activity. The significance of PE in the life of society can be characterized by its functions.
PE as one of the branches of scientific knowledge performs:
1) cognitive function. With it, PE ensures the accumulation of scientific knowledge, the growth of the intellectual potential of society, expands the scientific horizons of people, equips them with knowledge of the objective laws of the economic development of society, the power of scientific foresight.
2) methodological - PE studies production and economic relations of people in their deep essence. This is a fundamental science, it is the methodological basis of all economic sciences. This is a kind of economic philosophy.
3) practical - PE - theoretical background economic policy of the state, enterprises, firms. On the basis of the laws it discovers and its theoretical conclusions, governments, firms determine their program goals, economic strategy and tactics. PE contributes to building economic potential.
4) ideological - PE forms views, public ideas, public consciousness. It is the initial basis for the formation of economic and political thinking.
Questions to prepare for the seminar:
1. The emergence and main stages in the development of political economy.
2. The subject and method of political economy.
3. Laws, principles and categories of political economy.
4. Functions of political economy. The place of political economy in the system of economic sciences.
Terms and concepts
Political economy, economic sciences, mercantilism, physiocrats, utopian socialism, Marxism, economic laws, categories, methodology, analysis, synthesis, scientific abstraction, induction, deduction, economic policy, microeconomics, macroeconomics.
Essay topics
· Interpretations of the subject of political economy by various schools of economists.
· Economic theories of the Ancient World.
· Development of domestic political economy.
· Nobel Prize winners in economics.
Before studying classical political economy in Russia, one should pay attention to the fact that all the theorists of classical political economy discussed above were, with the exception of Marx, English and French. This was due to the leading position of England and France in the specified period of time in the field of economic, political and cultural development. It was left to other European countries and the United States to interpret the theories coming from England and France in accordance with their local socio-economic conditions. Russia was among them. Nevertheless, some original ideas in the economic science of that time were also expressed by Russian scientists.
Classical political economy began to penetrate Russia in the second half of the 18th century. Its official recognition and teaching at universities began, just as in Western Europe, from the 19th century. At the same time, Russia lagged behind the West in its economic and political development. At the end of the XVIII - beginning of the XIX century. in England and in the first half of the 19th century. already in France
the industrial revolution took place, manual production dominated in Russia. In England, the bourgeois revolution with the corresponding social reforms occurred in the middle of the 17th century, in France - at the end of the 18th century, in Russia and in the first half of the 19th century. absolute monarchy stood firm, society was divided by class rights and privileges, and a significant part of the population consisted of serfs, practically deprived of all rights.
Therefore, in the second half of the XVIII - first half of the XIX century. Russian economic thought had a certain specificity. It developed on two levels. Academic, university economic science, which had close contact with Western Europe, was in line with the global traditions of classical political economy, corresponding to industrial capitalism, which was absent in Russia so far. The practical line of Russian economic thought used the spirit rather than the content of classical political economy and raised mainly the problems of the period of primitive capital accumulation, i.e. problems of money circulation, credit, finance, foreign and domestic trade, the economic role of the state, as well as problems of the economic rights of the nobility, merchants, peasantry and other social strata of Russian society. This chapter will consider the main stages in the development of the theoretical line of classical political economy in Russia.
The first theory of classical political economy that became widespread in Russia was the theory of the physiocrats, and its conductor was the Russian ambassador to France, Dmitry Golitsyn (1734-1803). He had a task from Catherine II to inform her about the activities of the “princes of science” she loved, which also corresponded to his personal inclinations, and therefore, with the advent of the school of “economists” (physiocrats), Golitsyn began to visit their “Tuesdays” in the house of the Marquis Mirabeau. (Subsequently, in 1796, he published a book on the physiocrats and their teachings, “On the Spirit of Economists.”) In 1765, with the blessing of Catherine II, the Free Economic Society was created in St. Petersburg, by analogy with the Parisian club of “Economists”, which existed until 1917. At the same time, the theoretical side of the teachings of the Physiocrats did not attract much attention in Russia. The Free Economic Society in the initial period of its activity was mainly engaged in practical matters Agriculture.
However, in the late 1980s. an important discovery was made in the history of economic doctrines. It was believed that " economic table» F. Quesnay, which served as the first step in the theory of inter-
sectoral balance, had a continuation only after 100 years in the theory of social reproduction of K. Marx. But, as it turned out, the "Economic Table" had a significant development in the recently discovered works of Professor of Kharkov University Josef Lang (1775 (6) -1820). Yesterday's graduate of the University of Freiburg, invited in 1803 to the newly opened Kharkov University, he worked here all his short life and in the works of 1807-1815. first developed a three-sector (but somewhat different than that of Quesnay), then a four-sector model of the national economy. To designate sectors of the economy, Lang, like Quesnay, used the concept of "class". In his four-sector model, the redistribution of gross national product was carried out between producers of the primary product (agriculture and extractive industries), producers of the secondary product (manufacturing industry), commercial and service classes. At the same time, he used linear equations and digital examples from the national economic turnover of the then Russia. Unfortunately, Lang's work was not noticed by his contemporaries and did not influence the development of economic science.
The spread of the theory of A. Smith in Russia had a much larger scale compared to the theory of the physiocrats. There were also personal contacts with Smith. In 1761, two students of Moscow University, Ivan Tretyakov (1735-1776) and Semyon Desnitsky (1740-1789), were sent to study at the University of Glasgow, where Smith, who had not yet written The Wealth of Nations, was professor of moral philosophy. ”, but already considering economic problems in his lectures. In 1767 Desnitsky and Tretyakov returned to their homeland and began to teach at the law faculty of Moscow University. In addition to legal works, they also wrote on general social problems, and Tretyakov had a small economic work, Discourses on the Causes of Abundance and Slow Enrichment of States, Both Among Ancient and Present Peoples (1772), the title of which is very close to the title of Smith's main book, which was published four years later. The economic views of Tretyakov and Desnitsky were close to the early views of Smith, but unlike him, they, not being supporters of "economic liberalism", advocated protectionism in foreign trade and stimulation of domestic production by the state, and also paid more attention to issues of monetary circulation, credit and finance. In addition, in 1781 Desnitsky put forward the concept of social development, within which he gave a history scheme
economy, consisting of four stages: hunting, pastoral, agricultural and commercial. The latter implied a capitalist economy. This scheme anticipated similar schemes of the historical school that appeared in Germany from the middle of the 19th century.
At the beginning of the XIX century. Smith's ideas have already become widespread in Russia, especially since in 1802-1806. "The Wealth of Nations" Smith, was translated into Russian at public expense. This was due to the fact that early XIX in. political economy became part of the university program, and five new universities were opened in Russia in addition to Moscow. The new discipline was initially read mainly by foreign professors. Among them are Christian Schlözer, a professor at Moscow University and the author of the first political economy textbook translated into Russian; Ludwig Yakob, professor at Kharkov University, who wrote works on the Russian economy, and Mikhail Balugyansky, a Ukrainian from Austria-Hungary, the first rector of St. Petersburg University and an assistant to the famous Russian reformer M. Speransky. Since these were mostly German teachers, they taught classical political economy with a touch of cameralistics (disciplines about public administration read in the 18th century. at German universities). In other words, they were not full supporters of the concept of "economic liberalism".
For the first twenty years, Russian political economy was taught under the direct influence of Smith's theory, but gradually Smith moved to a certain height as a symbol of a general direction, and in specific issues, Russian economists increasingly relied on the work of Say, Malthus, to a lesser extent on Ricardo, as well as on the work of less major Western economists. From the 20s. 19th century Sei finally became the main authority, who remained in this capacity until the beginning of the 40s.
In Russia at that time, the most prominent economist and the first Russian academician in political economy was Heinrich Storch (1776-1835). He was born in Riga, studied in Germany and then taught at the First Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg and served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Stor's main work, The Course of Political Economy, which brought him European fame, was published in 1815 in French. Regarding this work, Storch had a conflict with Say, who accused Storch of plagiarism. However, other European scientists had a different opinion. So, the closest friend and follower of Rikar-
Before McCulloch wrote: “This work brought great fame to its author ... In addition to a clear and skillful presentation of the most important principles ... of the production of wealth ... Storch's work has many excellent investigations on subjects that have attracted little attention from English and French economists. .. The writings of Storch, in all fairness, can be placed at the head of all essays on political economy brought from the continent to England. Storch considered his most important contribution to economics to be the theory of civilization, which, in his opinion, supplemented Smith's theory of wealth. It followed from his theory of value, partly close to Say's theory. At the same time, in Say's determination of value, the main emphasis was on factors of production, while in Storch, on the utility of a thing. Based on the priority of utility, rather than materiality, Storch extends the concept of wealth and capital to non-material benefits, to which he attributed the fruits of various services, including those that provide a person with health, knowledge, artistic taste, leisure, security, etc. This is also the source of his extended interpretation of productive labor, which he takes beyond material production. Storch referred to the unproductive class only owners who receive interest or rent for their property, and pensioners. Storch called the combination of the theory of (material) wealth and the theory of (non-material) civilization the theory of people's welfare. Storch's ideas, in particular the idea of the non-material, the so-called human capital received a second birth in the 20th century.
In the mid 40s. 19th century in Russia, writings by critics of capitalism (Sismondi and the utopian socialists) began to circulate. And just like in the West, a certain polarization of positions is taking place in Russian political economy. In particular, in 1847, the first complete textbook of political economy written in Russian was published in Russia - a three-volume book by Alexander Butovsky (1817-1890), who served in the Ministry of Finance. Butovsky, whose work became the main textbook in Russian universities in the following decade, was close to Say's school. Butovsky was criticized by Vladimir Milyutin (1826-1855), at that time a student, and later a professor at Moscow University. On a number of points, he was close to Sismondi with his desire to achieve the well-being of all subjects of the capitalist economy, but did not share the idealization of small-scale production.
Nikolai Chernyshevsky was a representative of the socialist trend in Russian classical political economy.
(1828-1889). He was the editor of the Sovremennik magazine during the revolutionary upsurge of 1859-1861. became one of its ideologists, in 1862 he was arrested and exiled to Siberia, from where he returned only before his death in 1889. All economic work Chernyshevsky were written in 1857-1862. Among them, two works should be singled out: "Essays from Political Economy (according to Mill)" and "Capital and Labor". In the field of theory, he partly relied on Mill, but was mostly close to Owen and dreamed of creating his own "political economy of the working people." Under the working people, Chernyshevsky understood both workers and peasants, and believed that Russia had its own special path to socialism - through the peasant community and the workers' artel, bypassing capitalism.
Chernyshevsky's contemporaries were bourgeois representatives of classical political economy - I. Gorlov, I. Vernadsky, V. Bezobrazov and others. In 1859-1862. Professor of St. Petersburg University Ivan Gorlov (1814-1890) published a two-volume textbook on political economy, which replaced Butovsky's textbook. Professor of Moscow University Ivan Vernadsky (1821-1884) published the first in Russia fundamental research on the history of economic doctrines "Essay on the history of political economy" (1858). These scientists advocated the development of industrial capitalism in Russia and the farming way of developing agriculture. Their activities coincided with the period of reforms in Russia, the main of which - the abolition of serfdom in 1861 - significantly stimulated the development of capitalism in Russia. From the 60s. 19th century Finally, two lines of development of Russian political economy coincided - the sphere of capitalist production became the subject of study of both its theoretical and practical lines. But the paradox lay in the fact that in world economics classical political economy had already largely completed its creative development.
In the second half of the XIX century. classical political economy in Russia, as well as throughout the world, formally retained its dominance, was taught at universities, but its creative potential has already dried up. In the 1870-80s. it is gradually supplanted by the ideas of the historical or, as it was also called, the real school (see below). Among the Russian representatives of classical political economy of the second half of the XIX century. one can obviously single out only the “Kyiv school” (N. Bunge, A. Antonovich, D. Pikhno, and others), which was primarily engaged in the study of pricing in conditions of changing supply and demand.
And finally in the 90s. 19th century in Russia, under the influence of a rapid industrial upsurge and the formation of capitalism, receives
mass dissemination of Marxism. Among the Marxist economists of this time, P. Struve, M. Tugan-Baranovsky, V. Ulyanov (Lenin), S. Bulgakov and others should be mentioned first of all. Russian Marxists during this period had theoretical disputes with another group of Russian socialists - the Narodniks. on the prospects of capitalism in Russia. The Narodniks (V. Vorontsov, M. Danielson) essentially shared Sismondi's theory of realization and argued that the development of capitalism in Russia was hindered. reduction of the market (demand), Marxists, relying on Marx's theory of social reproduction, argued that due to the growing specialization of producers, there are no difficulties for the sale of their products. At the turn of the XIX and XX centuries. Marxism in Russia split into critical and orthodox (out of the four leading economic theorists mentioned above, only Lenin remained on the positions of orthodox Marxism), and at the beginning of the 20th century. critical Marxists have gone over to completely different theoretical positions.
