Lange General Problems

Political Economy
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4831-4843-4
Verlag: Elsevier Science & Techn.
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 370 Seiten, Web PDF

Political Economy, Volume I: General Problems provides a systematic treatise on political economy. This book discusses the state of economic science and the course of economic development in different parts of the world. Organized into seven chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the social or political economy as the study of social laws governing the production and distribution of the material means of satisfying human needs. This text then examines the basic regularity encountered by political economy in its analysis of the social laws governing human economic activity, which is formed by the dependence of production relations on social productive forces. Other chapters consider the objective character of economic laws. This book discusses as well the concern of economic history in the development of concrete economic progress. The final chapter deals with the differences of opinions and interpretations in the development of science. Economists will find this book useful.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lange, Oskar

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Front Cover;1
2;General Problems;4
3;Copyright Page;5
4;Table of Contents;6
5;FOREWORD TO THE FIRST POLISH EDITION;12
6;FOREWORD TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION;14
7;CHAPTER ONE. THE SUBJECT MATTER OF POLITICAL ECONOMY ELEMENTARY CONCEPTS;16
7.1;Human needs and means of satisfying them;16
7.2;Production, labour;17
7.3;Means of production and means of consumption;18
7.4;Social nature of production and distribution;19
7.5;Productive and non-productive labour (services);21
7.6;Economic relations;23
7.7;Production relations and social productive forces;25
7.8;Distribution relations and production relations;27
8;NOTE ON THE EXPRESSION "POLITICAL ECONOMY" AND RELATED TERMS;28
9;CHAPTER TWO. MODES OF PRODUCTION AND SOCIAL FORMATIONS THE MATERIALIST INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY;30
9.1;Dependence of production relations on social productive forces;30
9.2;Ownership of the means of production as basis of production relations;31
9.3;Modes of production;32
9.4;Antagonistic and non-antagonistic modes of production;35
9.5;Law of necessary conformity between production relations and character of productive forces;36
9.6;Social consciousness;38
9.7;Concept of social formation. Base and superstructure;41
9.8;Law of necessary conformity between superstructure and economic base;45
9.9;Conservative character of social relations and social consciousness;47
9.10;Dialectical processes in social development;55
9.11;Social development in antagonistic formations: class struggle and social revolutions;56
9.12;Classes and social strata;58
9.13;Historical materialism;59
10;NOTE ON SOME FORMULATIONS AND ON THE NAME OF "THE MATERIALIST INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY";61
11;CHAPTER THREE. ECONOMIC LAWS;64
11.1;General concept;64
11.2;Laws of causation, concomitance and functional relationship;64
11.3;Objective character of economic laws;65
11.4;Economic laws and laws of political economy;66
11.5;Stochastic (statistical) character of economic laws;67
11.6;Technical and balance laws of production;73
11.7;Laws of human behaviour and laws of interplay of human actions;74
11.8;Historical scope of economic laws;78
11.9;Scope of technical and balance laws of production;79
11.10;Laws specific to a given social formation;80
11.11;Laws resulting from the influence of superstructure;83
11.12;Mode of operation of social formation;85
11.13;Basic economic law of a social formation;87
11.14;Economic laws and dialectic social processes;89
11.15;"Economic law of motion" of a social formation;91
11.16;Spontaneity in operation of economic laws;92
11.17;Socialism overcomes spontaneity of economic laws;95
11.18;Economic laws under socialism;97
11.19;Objective character and spontaneity of economic laws;99
11.20;Dialectic processes in the socialist formation;101
11.21;Socialist formation opens new epoch in human history;103
11.22;Practical significance of knowledge of economic laws;105
12;CHAPTER FOUR. THE METHOD OF POLITICAL ECONOMY;107
12.1;Political economy as a theoretical discipline;107
12.2;Economic sciences, their subject matter and relations to each other;107
12.3;Applied economics, its branches;108
12.4;Political economy and economies of various social formations;108
12.5;Political economy of pre-capitalist formations;110
12.6;Political economy of socialism;113
12.7;Role of abstraction in political economy;117
12.8;Economic categories, laws of political economy and economic theories;119
12.9;Historical basis of abstraction in political economy;123
12.10;Abstractions in political economy and the concrete nature of economic processes;127
12.11;Successive concretization of abstractions of political economy;129
12.12;Marx's "Capitalas" example of successive concretization;132
12.13;Econometrics as an instrument in concretization of laws of political economy;133
12.14;Verification of laws of political economy and economic theories;135
12.15;Practical identification of economic categories;136
12.16;Degree of agreement of laws and theories of political economy with the real economic process;139
12.17;Statistical verification;140
12.18;Modes of inference in political economy;148
12.19;Role of deduction in political economy;151
12.20;Axiomatization and formalization—role of mathematics in political economy;152
12.21;Premisses in deduction are results of induction;154
12.22;Reductive inference as instrument of verification;156
12.23;Economic policy as the practical application of political economy;159
13;CHAPTER FIVE. THE PRINCIPLE OF ECONOMIC RATIONALITY POLITICAL ECONOMY AND PRAXIOLOGY;163
13.1;Economic activity and technique;163
13.2;Traditional character of economic activity in natural economy;165
13.3;Separation of gainful activity from household activity in acommodity-money economy. Change in structure of ends of economic activity;169
13.4;Rationality—the characteristic of gainful activity;172
13.5;Quantification {measur ability and commensurability) of the end and means of gainful activity. Category of profit;175
13.6;Calculation and book-keeping in capitalist enterprises;176
13.7;Maximization of profit—an economic necessity for a capitalist enterprise;179
13.8;Principle of economic rationality as historical product of capitalist enterprise;184
13.9;Planning of social economy—realization of socialeconomic rationality;192
13.10;Basic problems in social economic planning;195
13.11;The method of social economic balances;197
13.12;Praxiology—the science of rational activity;203
13.13;Branches of scientific research belonging to praxiology: operations research and the science of programming. Cybernetics—a scienc eauxiliary to praxiology;205
13.14;The principles of programming;208
13.15;Marginal calculus;212
13.16;Linear programming;213
13.17;Methodological links between political economy and praxiology;215
13.18;Certain laws of political economy are conclusions deduced from praxiological principles of behaviour;216
13.19;Study of economic laws by deduction dependent on the rationalityof economic activity;217
13.20;The need to establish empirically the scope of the methodological knowledge applied in practice;219
13.21;General appraisal of the significance of praxiology in the rationalization of economic activity;221
13.22;APPENDIX THE MATHEMATICAL FOUNDATIONS OF PROGRAMMING;222
14;CHAPTER SIX. THE SUBJECTIVIST AND THE HISTORICAL TREND IN POLITICAL ECONOMY;241
14.1;The Marxist and other trends in political economy. Their relation to classical political economy;241
14.2;Subject matter of political economy according to the subjectivist conception: analysis of man's relation to goods on the basis of the economic principle;246
14.3;The concept of utility according to the subjectivist conception;249
14.4;The separation of subjectivist economic theory from the problemof social relations;255
14.5;The subjectivist trend and economic laws;257
14.6;The transformation of economic laws into praxiological principles of behaviour;258
14.7;The role of exchange in subjectivist economic theory;259
14.8;Subjectivist trend implies the liquidation of political economy;262
14.9;Limited and historically conditioned scope of the economic principle;265
14.10;Is there a striving for the maximization of utility in household activity?;267
14.11;Factors working against the rationalization of household activity under capitalism;276
14.12;Final assessment of the subjectivist trend;279
14.13;Historical trend;279
14.14;The theoretical character of political economy discarded;280
14.15;Max Weber's work in the light of the materialist interpretation of history;286
14.16;Unhistorical nature of the methodological basis of the theories of Sombart and Max Weber;290
14.17;Final assessment of the historical trend;291
15;CHAPTER SEVEN. THE SOCIAL CONDITIONING AND THE SOCIAL ROLE OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE;293
15.1;Two factors causing differences of opinion in science: internal dialectic of cognition and social conditions of development of science;293
15.2;Interest, material means and freedom from prejudice — social basis of scientific development;296
15.3;The struggle of the bourgeoisie and lay intellectuals for the development of the natural sciences;297
15.4;Factors impeding natural sciences in the last phase of capitalism;300
15.5;The origin and development of political economy connected with the capitalist mode of production;301
15.6;Change in bourgeois attitude after the appearance of class conflict between proletariat and bourgeoisie;303
15.7;The attitude of the bourgeoisie to political economy in the early period of capitalist development;305
15.8;Political economy becomes a science of the proletariat;308
15.9;Division of political economy into Marxist and bourgeois;310
15.10;Achievements and development of the Marxist trend;311
15.11;Bourgeoisie tends to liquidate political economy;312
15.12;Historical trend —an expression of compromise of the German bourgeoisie with feudal elements and the Prussian monarchy;317
15.13;Need for economic knowledge in the management of capitalist economy;319
15.14;Practical needs of the bourgeoisie under monopoly capitalism;320
15.15;Development and function of applied economic sciences and auxiliary sciences. Econometrics, social accounting, operations research, programming, cybernetics;321
15.16;Influence of the Great Depression on bourgeois economic thought;323
15.17;Keynes' theory and theories of the business cycle;324
15.18;Theory of economic growth—historical circumstances of its origin;325
15.19;Petty bourgeois critique of capitalism;326
15.20;Critique of monopoly capitalism by ideologists of the petty and middle bourgeoisie;328
15.21;Professionalization of economic science;329
15.22;Petty bourgeois and national bourgeois critique of imperialism;331
15.23;The theory of imperfect competition;331
15.24;Impossibility of complete liquidation of political economy by the bourgeoisie;334
15.25;Full development of political economy only possible in connection with the labour movement;334
15.26;Social conditions and the truth of scientific cognition;337
15.27;Science and ideology;338
15.28;Conservative, progressive and reactionary ideologies Compromise ideologies;338
15.29;Social apperception and the mental horizon of social classes and strata;340
15.30;Ideologies obscuring and ideologies revealing reality—their importance for scientific cognition;342
15.31;Progressive ideologies as a stimulus in the development of political economy;347
15.32;Class conditioning of the development of political economy;349
15.33;Only the working class is interested in full scientific knowledge of economic laws;349
15.34;The working-class movement's struggle to purge its ideology of all elements obscuring reality;352
15.35;Union with scientific socialism as the indispensable basis of the further development of economic science;355
16;INDEX OF NAMES;358
17;SUBJECT INDEX;364