Mercantilism and the Physiocrats. Classical school. Utopian socialism and communism.

Mercantilism

The term “mercantilism” (from the Italian mercante - merchant, merchant) was introduced into circulation in the 18th century by the English economist Adam Smith. This term is customary to designate a system of economic views, which, apparently, was quite widespread in Europe in the second millennium AD and has come down to us in written form thanks to some publications of English, Italian and French authors of the 16th-17th centuries. Mercantilism was widespread in other countries, but only in the works of the English William Stafford (1554-1612), Thomas Men (1571-1641), the Frenchman Antoine Montchretien (1575-1622), the Scotsman John Lowe (1677-1729), and the Italians Gaspar Scaruffi (1519-1584), Antonio Gevonesi (1712-1769) and some other economists, mercantilistic views acquired complete outlines.

Living in different countries and sometimes unaware of each other’s existence, these authors expressed surprisingly similar views, which makes it possible to interpret mercantilism not only as a theory, but also as part of a certain cultural and political tradition.

Before the Renaissance, European culture had a widespread idea of ​​the conquering hero as the embodiment of all virtues, an ideal to follow. A successful raid on someone else’s, and sometimes on one’s own, territory, robbery and ruin, according to the morality of that time, were considered quite acceptable and legal way enrichment. This tradition, which emerged from antiquity, functioned successfully in the Middle Ages.

The Renaissance gave rise to new approaches to many socio-cultural processes, including the idea of ​​wealth and the sources of its origin. Social ideals have changed; the hero of that time was no longer a warrior-conqueror, but a successful merchant, artisan, artist (let us recall at least the professional status of the heroes of Boccaccio’s short stories). The theoretical concept that later substantiated this shift in public consciousness was mercantilism.

Our economic textbooks most often recorded only the external part of the concept of mercantilism, concluding that mercantilism as a theoretical school mistakenly considered wealth in the form of a monetary metal with a source of growth in the sphere foreign trade. Of course, mercantilism as a specialized part of the social consciousness of that era reflected new stereotypes of thinking that fixed money as the main, and sometimes the only component of material well-being and wealth. But at the same time, the concept of mercantilism was not as primitive as it was interpreted in Soviet textbooks of political economy; it was characterized by a certain complexity.

The fact is that mercantilism was a significant breakthrough in cultural tradition feudal-fragmented Europe and was the economic and theoretical justification for the process of creation and functioning of national states on the principles of political absolutism. In accordance with these processes, people living on the territory of a particular state began to be considered as a single social organism (nation, people). Nations compete with each other by entering into economic relations. The most common form of economic relations between states at that time was foreign trade. One nation sold to another nation those goods which it had in abundance, acquiring those goods which it lacked. The money of that time was primarily precious metals, and it was in them that the value of goods and

calculations were carried out according to trading operations. Therefore, it is natural that the positive result of foreign trade was associated with the excess of exports over imports and was recorded by the concept of a trade surplus.

In addition, mercantilism for the first time defined the managerial functions of the sovereign and ruler. If in the ancient tradition, which continued to be preserved in the early Middle Ages, the sovereign was considered as a ruler, the conqueror of his subjects, who had all rights to their property and even to life, then mercantilism considered the ruler as the supreme manager, the father of the nation, who was obliged to carry out economic policies leading to the enrichment of the nation as a whole. Economic policy state, which, according to mercantilists, led to an increase in national wealth, was protectionism, the meaning of which was to fully support the domestic merchants in foreign markets and in restrictions imposed on foreign merchants in the domestic market. Thanks to such a policy, the competitiveness of the nation was supposed to increase and the production of export-oriented products to increase. An indicator of the effectiveness of state policy and the wisdom of the government was the active trade balance (excess of exports over imports) and the influx of gold into the country.

There are early and late mercantilism. Early mercantilism arose before the Age of Discovery, and its central idea was that of the “balance of money.” During this period, there was a process of creating centralized states and eliminating feudal fragmentation in Europe. Frequent wars required the creation of regular armies and led to the need for constant replenishment of the state treasury. Therefore, the government's economic policy during this period was of a clearly fiscal nature. Successful tax collection could only be ensured by creating a system in which private individuals were prohibited from exporting precious metals outside the state. Foreign merchants were obliged to spend all the proceeds received from the sale of their goods on the purchase of local goods; the issue of money was declared a state monopoly. To attract money from abroad, governments resorted to "damaging" coins by reducing their weight or fineness while maintaining the denomination, which led to the depreciation of money. It was believed that as a result of depreciation, foreigners would be able to purchase more local goods with their money and would therefore be interested in converting their money into the depreciated money of another country.

As a result of the Great Geographical Discoveries, cheap silver and gold poured into Europe, primarily through Spain. It would seem that the economic ideal has been achieved. But the more monetary metal entered European markets, the faster the process of their depreciation went. A constant rise in prices for goods began, which gradually strengthened the economic position of the productive strata of society (artisans, peasants) and weakened the position of the noble and military class, which received salaries in the form of depreciating money.

Late mercantilism places the idea of ​​a trade balance and fiscal focus at the forefront economic policy is being replaced by a policy based on economic considerations. It was believed that the state became richer, the greater the difference between the cost of exported and imported goods. This situation could be achieved in two ways. Firstly, the export was encouraged finished products and the export of raw materials and the import of luxury goods was limited. Secondly, the development of intermediary trade was stimulated, for which the export of money abroad was allowed. At the same time, it was considered necessary to buy as cheaply as possible in some countries and sell as expensively as possible in others. This approach imposed high import duties, paid export premiums, and governments sought to ensure security

foreign trade communications, provided various privileges trading companies, issued government subsidies for the development of export-oriented and import-substituting industries.

In general, the mercantilist policy of states was quite productive for many countries, but gradually led to serious confrontation between countries competing in the foreign market and led to mutual restrictions in trade. Another drawback of the policy in the spirit of mercantilism was the gradual slowdown and then the decline of industries oriented towards domestic markets. Thus, the consistent mercantilist policy in France during the period of Richelieu and Colbert led to a deterioration in the situation in the field of agriculture and crafts, focused on local needs, and generated a constant increase in tax pressure on most of French society. To ensure ever-increasing government spending, sooner or later the government was forced to switch to the use of paper money circulation, which at this stage led to a rapid depreciation of paper money and disruption of the economic system. Thus, already in the 18th century, logically completed mercantilism became a brake on economic development and came into conflict with the real needs of economic systems in Europe. At the same time, it should be noted that many concepts and principles of the mercantilist doctrine have successfully survived their time and are widely used in modern theory and practice.

Physiocrats

The term "physiocratism" (power of nature) was coined by Adam Smith. The French physiocrats themselves called themselves economists. The theory of physiocratism developed in Germany, Poland, Sweden and other countries, but only in France did this system of views acquire its most developed form and exist in the form of a theoretical school. The founder of the physiocratic doctrine was François Quesnay (1694-1774), the most important representatives were Victor de Mirabeau (1715-1789), Dupont Neymour (1739-1817) and Jacques Turgot (1727-1781).

Physiocratism was a natural reaction of French intellectuals to the shortcomings of the mercantilist policy of Colbertism, which were mentioned in the previous section. The physiocrats considered wealth not money, but “the products of the earth.” Agricultural production, and not trade and industry, from their point of view, is the source of the wealth of society, which is determined by the “natural” law established by God himself.

For physiocrats, the wealth of a nation increases if there is and is constantly reproduced the difference between the products that are produced in agriculture and the products that were used to produce these products during the year, that is, the so-called land rent in in kind. F. Quesnay called this difference “pure product” and considered the only “productive class” in society to be the landowner class. Quesnay argued that “among all the means for acquiring property, there is not one that would be better, more profitable, more pleasant and decent for a person, even more worthy for a free person, than agriculture.”

The main work of F. Quesnay " Economic table" (1758) contains a diagram of the division of society into three main classes:

1) productive class of farmers;

2) class of land owners;

3) “sterile class” - people not employed in agriculture.

All three public class are in a certain economic interaction. Through the mechanism of buying and selling products, the process of distribution and redistribution of the “pure product” occurs and the necessary prerequisites are created for the constant resumption of the production process, that is, reproduction. F. Quesnay sees this process as consisting of the following stages:

Farmers rent land for money from landowners and grow crops on it;

The owners buy products from farmers and industrial products from artisans, as a result of which part of the money they receive for renting land goes to rural owners and artisans;

Farmers purchase manufactured goods from industrialists;

Industrialists purchase agricultural goods from farmers.

As a result, farmers again receive cash for renting land.

Thus, economic process was presented to the physiocrats as a natural harmony, which could even be described strictly mathematically. Subsequently, this idea was further developed in various attempts to construct mathematically accurate models of production and distribution of products, and in modern economic science it exists in the form of numerous industry and product balances, intersectoral models, formalized versions of theories of macroeconomic equilibrium and economic growth.

An integral part of the economic theory of physiocratism is the idea of ​​government non-interference in the natural course of economic life. If we proceed from the scheme proposed by F. Quesnay, there is simply no room left for any conscious, active government policy in the field of economics. More precisely, according to F. Quesnay, the state must establish laws that would correspond to the “natural laws” of nature, and on this economic functions states can be considered exhausted.

An attempt at practical implementation economic concept The physiocrats were undertaken by the Frenchman Jacques Turgot, who in 1774 was first appointed Minister of the Navy, and then, in the period 1774-1776, took the post of Comptroller General of Finance. While in this post, J. Turgot carried out a number of reforms of a physiocratic nature, the focus of which was aimed at reducing the role of the French state in the economic life of the country. Restrictions on grain trade were abolished, guild corporations and guilds were abolished, peasant in-kind contributions to the state were replaced by a cash tax, and government spending was reduced. Perhaps the most important element of J. Turgot's reforms was the taxation of the noble class, which had previously paid no taxes at all. In the future, it was planned to completely abandon the collection of taxes from peasants, replacing them with a single land tax on nobles. Such a policy was naturally accompanied by serious opposition from the privileged classes; Court intrigues began, and as a result, the reformer was forced to resign. After his departure, Louis XVI canceled all the innovations of J. Turgot, and France began its unbridled movement towards the social upheavals of the Great French Revolution.

J. Turgot became famous not only as a prominent statesman, but also became known as one of the greatest theorists. His main work, “Reflections on the Creation and Distribution of Wealth” (1776), contains not only the already familiar provisions of the physiocratic school in the spirit of F. Quesnay, but also a number of provisions new to this teaching. Thus, his work contains the proposition that a pure product is produced not only in agriculture, but also in industry; the class structure of society according to Turgot is more complex than according to Quesnay, due to the fact that there is differentiation within each class; J. Turgot divides the “sterile class” into the class of entrepreneurs and hired workers. In addition, it lays the scientific basis for the analysis of wages of employees, which reduces the means of subsistence to a minimum as a result of competition between persons of hired professions in the labor market. A major contribution of J. Turgot to the development of economic science was the formulation of the “law of diminishing land product,” according to which an increase in the application of labor to the land leads to the fact that each subsequent labor expenditure turns out to be less productive, that is, the law of diminishing soil fertility operates, which in modern economic theory is interpreted in the form of the law of diminishing returns.

Thus, if the practical implementation of physiocratic teaching was clearly unsuccessful, then the theoretical contribution of this school can hardly be overestimated. In any case, it is well known that it was acquaintance with the works of the French physiocrats, as well as personal acquaintance and communication with them, that stimulated the interest in economic problems of the founder of the English classical economic school, Adam Smith.

Classical school

The classical school of political economy is one of the mature trends in economic thought that has left a deep mark in the history of economic teachings. The economic ideas of the classical school have not lost their significance to this day. The classical movement originated in the 17th century and flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries. early XIX century. The greatest merit of the classics is that they placed labor as a creative force and value as the embodiment of value at the center of economics and economic research, thereby laying the foundation for the labor theory of value. The classical school became the herald of the ideas of economic freedom and the liberal direction in economics. Representatives of the classical school developed a scientific understanding of surplus value, profit, taxes, and land rent. In fact, it was in the depths of the classical school that economics.

The first representative and progenitor of the classical school should be considered the English economist William Petty (1623-1687), whom K. Marx called “the father of political economy and, in some way, the inventor of statistics.” Petty owns scientific developments in the field of taxation and customs duties. He considered the sphere of production to be the source of economic wealth, which brings him closer to the authors of the labor theory of value.

The classical school is represented by several founders and a number of talented popularizers and interpreters. Without going into a more subtle analysis, then all the so-called classical economic school can be represented by at least four names: Adam Smith (1723-1790), David Ricardo (1772-1823), Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).

Like their predecessors, the founders of the classical school viewed economics as the study of wealth and how to increase it. The fundamental work of A. Smith, published in 1776, was called: “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.” A. Smith proceeds from the fact that the wealth of a nation is embodied in products that are consumed by the people inhabiting a given country. The greater the ratio between the amount of products consumed and the population of the country, the higher the level of material wealth. The ratio itself, in turn, depends on two factors: labor productivity and the proportion of division of society into productive and unproductive classes. The first factor, according to A. Smith, should be considered as the most significant. Labor productivity is determined by the so-called division of labor and the level of capital accumulation. Consequently, the progress of society, the growth of wealth

ultimately depend on the level of capital accumulation and the methods of its use.

The division of labor, which represents the functional specialization of workers within a separate enterprise, is considered as a natural and indispensable path for the development of production. The higher the degree of specialization of production, the stronger the connections between them, the greater the propensity for market exchange. It is interesting that if, according to Aristotle, either the seller or the buyer necessarily wins in the exchange process, then, according to A. Smith, the exchange is equally beneficial to both the seller and the buyer. The transaction price, according to A. Smith, is based on the so-called value, which is nothing more than the amount of labor spent on the production of a product. Thus, the higher the degree of division of labor and the level of capital accumulation, the more output can be produced. A natural question arises: how should the process of capital redistribution between different sectors proceed in the economy? A. Smith does not see a problem in this. If on the market the price of a product turns out to be higher than its “natural price,” which is determined by labor costs, the number of sellers willing to produce and sell this product will increase and capital will accumulate in enterprises producing this particular product. Thus, the “invisible hand” of the market itself will regulate the process of capital accumulation in the required amount and in the desired direction.

It is interesting that with such an interpretation of economic life, any actions of governments on economic regulation should be assessed only negatively, since they violate effective work"invisible hand" of the market and lead to a slowdown in the process of capital accumulation and, as a result, to a decrease in labor productivity. “In order to raise the state from the lowest level of barbarism to the highest level of prosperity, all that is needed is peace, light taxes and tolerance in government; the natural course of things will do the rest,” wrote A. Smith. Hence, from the time of A. Smith to the present day, the motto of pursuing economic policy according to the principle of “laisses fair” has been popular, which means “let everything go by itself, naturally, without external coercion.” Smith was a supporter of the mechanism of market self-regulation based on free prices that depend on supply and demand.

The content of his fundamental work “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” which consists of five books, testifies to how multifaceted A. Smith’s penetration into economic theory was:

1. "The causes of the increase in the productivity of labor, and the order in which its product is naturally distributed among the classes of the people."

2. "On the nature of capital, its accumulation and application."

3. "On the development of well-being among different nations."

4. "On systems of political economy (essay on the history of economic doctrines)."

5. "On the income of the sovereign or the state (the doctrine of finance)."

Adam Smith not only inscribed his name in golden letters in the history of economic science, but also entered it as a pioneer who earned the title of “father of economics.”

The significance of the economic concept proposed by A. Smith is so great that all that remains is to refer to the statement on this matter by the historian Henry Buckle, author of “The History of Civilization in England.” He wrote: “It can be said of Adam Smith, without fear of contradiction, that this lonely Scotsman, by the publication of one work, did more for the welfare of mankind than could ever be done by the combined abilities of all statesmen and legislators about whom reliable information has been preserved in history."

A representative of the classical school, the Englishman T. Malthus, made a bright, original contribution to economic science. T. Malthus's treatise "An Essay on the Law of Population", published in 1798, made and continues to make such a powerful impression on the reading public that discussions about this work are still ongoing. The range of assessments in these discussions is extremely wide: from “brilliant foresight” to “anti-scientific nonsense.”

T. Malthus was not the first to write about demographic problems, but, perhaps, was the first who tried to propose a theory describing the patterns of population change. As for his system of evidence and statistical illustrations, a lot of claims were made against them already at that time. In the 18th-19th centuries, the theory of T. Malthus became known mainly due to the fact that its author first proposed a refutation of the widespread thesis that human society can be improved through social reform. For economic science, T. Malthus’s treatise is valuable for its analytical conclusions, which were subsequently used by other theorists of the classical and some other schools.

As we know, A. Smith proceeded from the fact that the material wealth of society is the ratio between the volume of consumer goods and the population. The founder of the classical school paid the main attention to the study of the patterns and conditions of growth in production volume, but he practically did not consider issues related to the patterns of population changes. T. Malthus took upon himself this task.

From the point of view of T. Malthus, there is a contradiction between the “instinct of procreation” and the limited availability of land suitable for agricultural production. Instincts force humanity to reproduce at a very high speed, “in geometric progression.” In turn, agriculture, and only it produces the food products necessary for people, is capable of producing these products at a much lower speed, “in arithmetic progression.” Consequently, any increase in food production will sooner or later be absorbed by the increase in population. Thus, the cause of poverty is the relationship between the rate of population growth and the rate of increase in living goods. Any attempt to improve living conditions through social reform is thereby negated by the growing mass of people.

T. Malthus associates the relatively low growth rate of food products with the action of the so-called law of diminishing soil fertility. The meaning of this law is that the amount of land suitable for agricultural production is limited. The volume of production can grow only due to extensive factors, and each subsequent plot of land is included in the economic turnover with more and more costs, the natural fertility of each subsequent land plot lower than the previous one, and therefore the overall level of fertility of the entire land fund as a whole tends to decrease. Progress in the field of agricultural technology in general is very slow and is not able to compensate for the decline in fertility.

Thus, by endowing people with the ability for limitless reproduction, nature, through economic processes, imposes restrictions on the human race that regulate population growth. Among these limiters, T. Malthus identifies: moral limiters and poor health, which lead to a decrease in the birth rate, as well as vicious life and poverty, which lead to an increase in mortality. The decline in the birth rate and the increase in mortality are ultimately determined by the limited means of subsistence.

From this formulation of the problem, in principle, completely different conclusions can be drawn. Some commentators and interpreters of T. Malthus saw in his theory a misanthropic doctrine that justifies poverty and calls for wars as a method of eliminating the surplus population. Others believe that T. Malthus laid the theoretical foundations for the policy of “family planning,” which has been widely used over the past thirty years in many countries around the world. T. Malthus himself only emphasized one thing in every possible way - it is necessary for each person to take care of himself and be fully responsible for his own hindsight.

Another representative of the classical school, D. Ricardo, did not receive a systematic education and was a professional stockbroker. Having amassed a decent fortune, he became interested in philosophical and economic theories and only at the age of 30 published his first work. The largest work of D. Ricardo was the work “Principles of Political Economy and Taxation” published in 1817. Having become a member of parliament in 1819, he took part in the development of many legislative acts of an economic nature.

Being a strict follower of A. Smith and T. Malthus, D. Ricardo made a significant contribution to the development and clarification of various specific problems of economic theory. Based on the labor theory of value and the general concept of classical analysis, he proposed the theory of “comparative costs” (comparative advantages), which became theoretical basis The policy of “free trade” (free trade) and in modern versions is used to justify and develop the so-called “open economy” policy.

The general meaning of this concept is that if the governments of different countries do not impose any restrictions on foreign trade with each other (tariffs, legal bans on exports or imports, etc.), the economy of each country begins to gradually specialize in production those goods whose production requires less labor time. This results in more efficient use of resources and produces higher output than before specialization. By selling some of the additional output, a nation can purchase more of those goods that it does not produce itself. In this case, all participants in foreign trade benefit. Consequently, free trade allows countries to consume no less (and perhaps more) quantities of goods than before specialization, minimizing the labor time required to create a given volume of goods.

The practical problem that arose from the theory of "relative costs" was, firstly, to remove by legislative means most restrictions on foreign trade in Great Britain and, secondly, to persuade or compel the governments of other countries to do the same, with which are traded by English entrepreneurs. It cannot be said that the British government succeeded in the practical implementation of D. Ricardo’s theory, since it itself periodically introduced restrictions on the import of various goods, following the lead of various segments of society. But at the official level, in relation to other European states, free trade became a kind of banner of English politics in the 19th century.

The fourth representative of the classical school, J. S. Mill, received an education that was amazing in scope and content and published his first works on economic theory at the age of 16. Contemporaries called him a thinking machine. J. S. Mill first served in the East India Company, then was a member of parliament, but he devoted all his free time, and he worked 14 hours a day, to intellectual activity. He published many works on philosophy, sociology and economics. The crowning achievement of his scientific activity was the voluminous book “Principles of Political Economy” (1848), which in the second half of the 19th century was an encyclopedia and the main teaching aid in economic theory in most countries of the world.

Mill himself tried in every possible way to avoid mentioning his contribution to the development of classical economic theory and saw his task only as writing an updated, more systematized version of the works of his predecessors, taking into account the new level of scientific knowledge and ideas that were advanced for his time. Therefore, many theorists consider Mill's Principles of Political Economy to be, at best, a talented compilation. In fact, he expressed many very subtle and valuable ideas, thoughts, comments regarding the classical heritage and laid the foundations for a number of fundamental concepts and provisions that his predecessors did not have and which began to be actively used in economic theories already in the 20th century. It should be noted that the heritage of the classical school is much more diverse and can be represented by a dozen more names of theorists of this direction.

It should also be noted that in the second half of the 19th century, the single stream of economic theory seemed to split into two independent streams. On the one hand, this direction has emerged economic analysis, which later received the generalized name of Marxism. On the other hand, the so-called marginal theory appears, which then turns into the largest neoclassical school.

Utopian socialism and communism

Socialist and communist ideas have been maturing in society since the 16th century. But the most fertile soil for their development developed towards the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, when such unseemly features of the emerging capitalist economic system as the accumulation of capital in the hands of a few, the deepening of private property, the polarization of wealth, and the plight of the proletarians were fully revealed. All this caused criticism of capitalism. Not seeing how it was possible to improve the existing economic relations, which seemed unfair, many outstanding minds of mankind acted as champions of utopian socio-political and economic systems based on the principles of collectivism, justice, equality, brotherhood and thereby supposedly devoid of the vices of the bourgeois system.

The views of the utopian socialists were not based on any strict theories and were not based on economic basis, these were the dreams and reasonings of philosophers, guided by good intentions and idealized ideas.

Utopianism as a socio-economic doctrine arose in the 15th century. Among its first representatives is the English humanist and writer Thomas More, who wrote the book “Utopia,” containing a description of the ideal system in the fantastic country of Utopia, where there is no private property, production and life are socialized, labor is a universal responsibility, and distribution is carried out according to needs.

Italian philosopher and politician, poet, Dominican monk, who spent 27 years in prisons (where he mainly worked), Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639)

wrote the book "City of the Sun". This wonderful city had an ideal community. People lived without families and private property, children were raised by the state, compulsory labor lasted 4 hours a day, science and education flourished. Alas, all this existed only in the imagination of the brilliant author.

The Frenchman Gabriel Bonneau de Mably (1709-1785) considered large land ownership to be the main economic evil. Based on the premise that good citizens are more important than bountiful harvests, he suggested not stopping in the face of threats of loss economic efficiency in the name of social justice.

The world-famous French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1842) argued in his essay “Discourses on the Beginning and Foundations of Inequality...” main source economic and social ills - the concentration of property in the hands of a few, and defended the right of the people to the violent elimination of injustice.

One of the first critics of capitalism was the Swiss economist Jean Charles Leonard Simond de Sismondi (1773-1842). Sismondi contributed to the establishment in public opinion of a new understanding of the ancient Roman term “proletariat” as a poor, oppressed layer of workers. He saw in political economy the science of improvement social mechanism for the sake of people's happiness.

The French stand at the pinnacle of utopian socialism Claude Henri Saint-Simon

(1760-1825), Charles Fourier (1772-1837) and the Englishman Robert Owen (1771-1858). All of them predicted the death of capitalism, insisted on the need to change the social system in the name of creating a new social formation, which Saint-Simon called industrialism, Fourier - harmony, and Owen - communism.

Fourier considered the primary cell of the future society to be a “phalanx”, which combines industrial and agricultural production. He believed that in

In the future society, work will become a necessity and a pleasure, and the opposition between mental and physical labor will disappear.

Saint-Simon believed that in the future society of "industrialists" the bourgeoisie and proletarians would form a single class. Saint-Simon saw the main features of the system he proposed in compulsory labor, the unity of science and production, scientific economic planning, and the distribution of the social product.

Owen proposed the creation of self-governing "villages of community and cooperation" devoid of private property, class, exploitation and other antagonisms. He even tried to carry out his philanthropic plans at a spinning mill, where he served as manager. Owen proceeded from the need to build the preached systems peacefully, through the dissemination of ideas of equality and social justice, without revolutions and wars. Rousseau came to this conclusion at the end of his life.

Seeing firsthand the weakness and unfoundedness of the theoretical views of the utopian socialists and the helpless attempts to build real communes, supporters of the socialist idea tried to lay a more reliable foundation for communism. The German scientist, philosopher, economist Karl Marx (1818-1883), who deeply penetrated into the essence of economics and developed his own system of views on theoretical economics (political economy), took on the solution to this historical problem. He relied mainly on the labor theory of value and the views of the classical school, but significantly changed many of their provisions. To a certain extent, the ideas and plans of the theory developed by K. Marx were supplemented and somewhat reworked by Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924). This theory was called scientific socialism (communism) or Marxism-Leninism.

Together with Engels, Marx wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), which discussed the principles of a communist society. What was written on the manifesto banner? Abolition of private ownership of land and means of production, introduction of collective property belonging to all members of society, centralization of money, capital, transport in the hands of society, the same

duty of labor for all, solution economic issues according to the general plan.

The “Manifesto” remained a programmatic work for each state trying to build a socialist and, on its basis, a communist society, but it did not contain a theoretical justification for the programmatic demands of the communists.

Most complete economic theory K. Marx was presented much later in the never completed book “Capital” (the first volume appeared in 1867, the next two volumes were published after the author’s death in 1885 and 1894, respectively).

Marx has been interpreted so much and in such a variety of ways that under the layers of interpretation it is sometimes difficult to discover the own views of the founder of Marxism.

In addition, K. Marx created a system covering all social sciences, therefore the purely economic component of his system is hidden by philosophical, sociological, and historical ideas. And finally, in Russia, where it is believed that the economic system of Marxism was put into practice for the first time in the world, the attitude towards this man and his theories is largely ambiguous and often stems not from the essence of his theory, but from how Marxism influenced destinies of people. Therefore, without entering into a discussion on this issue, I would like to note only the following. Firstly, it is not a fact that everything that was consecrated in the name of Karl Marx in our country is related to Marxism. Secondly, in terms of the depth of his analysis of economic problems, K. Marx hardly has any competitors among the theorists of the 19th century, and this fact is recognized by professional economists all over the world.

K. Marx proceeds from the idea of ​​the classical school that the price of a product is based on the so-called value (exchange value) or the value of this product, which is determined depending on the amount of labor spent on its production. Further, in contrast to the classics, he clarifies that labor costs that determine the value are not individual, but socially necessary, that is, numerically equal to the number of working hours that are required on average to produce a product at this level production development. Thus, only hired labor, the proletariat, produces value.

The second participant in this process is the entrepreneur, the capitalist who is the owner of the main type of wealth, the owner of capital. Capital is embodied in buildings, machines, tools, raw materials, in everything with which hired workers produce products. Historically, all means of production are concentrated in the hands of some people, so other people are forced to sell their labor to capitalists in order to survive. The capitalist, like any buyer of goods, pays labor power at a cost that is equal to the socially necessary labor time spent on the production of consumer goods consumed by the worker and his family. The worker works during the working day, producing more value than his labor power is worth. Since the owner of capital is the entrepreneur, the excess value, surplus value, is appropriated by the capitalist. By appropriating surplus value, the entrepreneur capitalizes part of it, that is, transforms it into additional portions of capital. There is a process of gradual accumulation of capital, therefore, even if capital was initially obtained through the labor efforts of the capitalist himself, sooner or later it becomes the result of the appropriation of the fruits of someone else's labor.

According to K. Marx, the capitalist, when making any economic decisions, is guided by the “absolute law” - maximizing the amount of surplus value. He is driven to this not only by natural greed, but also by competition from other capitalists. A kind of natural selection among capitalists leads to the fact that only those who extract the maximum possible surplus value by exploiting wage labor retain their position in the capitalist class. The capitalist who does not maximize surplus value cannot accumulate capital, loses his competitive position, sooner or later becomes poor and drops out of the capitalist class.

Thus, both employees and capitalists are, as it were, hostages of the existing system, which rigidly sets their behavior patterns. Way out of this vicious circle is determined by the very process of functioning of the capitalist economy. On the one hand, as more and more advanced machines and mechanisms are introduced into production, the need of enterprises for human labor decreases. An increasing proportion of hired workers are falling out of the production process, falling into poverty and losing the opportunity to work ever in the future. On the other hand, the higher the level of accumulated capital, the more intense the competition between entrepreneurs for the amount of surplus value and, ultimately, the lower the profitability from investing in production. To obtain each subsequent unit of income, you initially need to invest more and more funds. The profitability of capital investments will gradually decline, in the long term leading to the fact that further accumulation and capitalization will become simply meaningless. As soon as such a polar state occurs, the capitalist economic system, as K. Marx believed, the end will come.

It remains only through a social revolution on a global scale to eliminate the system of private property, which is the main limiter to further development, and move to public regulation of economic life based on the principles of equality of all people and justice. This is a simplified scheme of the Marxist economic concept, which, if desired, can be criticized, supplemented and complicated.

Of course, in reality, Marxist analysis is much deeper and theoretically more conclusive than we have presented it. Along the way, it is worth noting that K. Marx not only sets out this scheme, but also develops a number of special theoretical issues characteristic of the economy of that period. Among these issues we can name the theory economic cycle, theory of income, theory of wages, theory of simple and expanded reproduction, theory of land rent. In addition, he makes serious historical excursions into the field of politics, legislation, government system. But all these issues are considered by him through the prism of his economic approach and serve to substantiate the same thesis about the inevitability of the socialist revolution and the victory of the new communist system in world history.

The subsequent development of the economic theory of Marxism was carried out by V. I. Lenin

It is difficult to say for sure, since this issue requires very serious study, but it seems that the successor of Lenin’s ideas, J.V. Stalin, finally broke with the idea of ​​world revolution and reformulated the problem, proposing the idea of ​​​​a stage-by-stage creation of a communist society on the scale of a separate state, relying on its own forces.

Concluding a brief analysis of the economic theory of Marxism, it is worth recalling that in the works of the founders of this concept there is no more or less detailed study of the issue of specific mechanisms economic functioning socialist or communist economic system. Everything is limited to individual provisions and phrases, the perception of which depends on the general context of a particular publication. As for subsequent interpretations, they boiled down mainly to quoting the founders of the communist doctrine and to statements that the actual construction of a communist society strictly follows their instructions.

The classics of political economy were William Petty, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, who substantiated that the source of social wealth is everything social production, laid the foundations of the labor theory of value, explored the mechanism of reproduction of social capital, made an attempt to explain the laws governing economic phenomena, advocated limiting state intervention in the economy, and for free trade. Klassik condemned the mercantilists and believed that wealth should be created with the help material production, and not with the help of industry.

The teachings of the classical school are based on the labor theory of value. Basic premises classical political economy:

• 1. research not into the circulation process, but directly into the production process;
• 2. a critical attitude towards the unproductive classes that do not deliver any product (merchants);
• 3. classifying labor involved in material production as productive labor.

Classic model. This direction of economic theory recognized the production of material goods as the real source of wealth. It began to consider economic activity in the form of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of useful things. Classical political economy moved on to the study of the essence of economic phenomena (for example, the exchange of goods for money) and the laws of economic development. Classical political economy created its own doctrine of the wealth of society. She established that nature, figuratively speaking, is the “mother” of wealth. It supplies people with the means of life (fish, fruits, ores, etc.) Labor was proclaimed the “father” of wealth (English economist Petty). He was the founder of the labor theory of value.

According to this model, the system functions in accordance with the rules dictated by the market, and, consequently, the consumer. In cases where, for one reason or another, the response to this impact is insufficient or imperfect, it may be necessary for the state to adjust the impact or supplement the response so that it is better consistent with the general interests.

Economists of the classical school have an extremely negative attitude towards maintaining price levels, creating obstacles to the use of technical inventions, and anything that resembles government support or tacit consent to the activities of a monopoly.

English political economy created the labor theory of value. It argued that the labor of workers producing goods creates their value. The latter compares goods and money with each other.

Smith writes the book “The Wealth of the People”, in which he divides labor into productive and unproductive, talks about 1 the division of labor, 2 the accumulation of capital, 3 the role of taxes, he also touches on the role of the state - the “principle of the invisible hand”, he considers the main task of the economy to be the satisfaction of human needs, and the task of the state is to provide the conditions for the existence of the natural order. Applying the labor concept of value to the study of the capitalist economy, A. Smith founded the theory of surplus value. He believed that factory workers created new value through their labor. The latter only partially goes to them - (ZP), the rest - the surplus value - is appropriated by the capitalists. A. Smith also advocated the triumph of a new social order, in which economic development proceeds in accordance with the objective laws of economics. He considered the “natural order” in the field of economic life to be the dominance of private property, free competition and free trade, and non-interference of the state in economic activity.

A. Smith's ideas were subsequently developed by another English economist D. Ricardo. In his work “The Price of Gold” he laid the foundations of the quantitative theory of money, where he presented his judgments on the theory of value, salary, capital, ground rent, etc. from a critical position.

In classical political economy, a commodity is a product of labor that can satisfy any human need and produced for sale. A product was also considered as a certain material object, since the basis of all economic activity of human society, until recently, was only material production.

In classical political economy, any objects of labor are of a purely material nature, hence human labor, until recently, was mostly physical, and the means of labor also turned out to be purely material. That is, it turns out that man as a being living in the material physical world, carries out its technological activities precisely within the framework of this world. Moreover, all objects of labor turn out to be components of the material technological environment.

The nation's wealth is created in all spheres of material production. Riccardo spoke about the problems of distribution of wealth between owners (entrepreneurs), landowners and employees. Labor is the basis of wealth. Wealth criterion: the richest period will be the period in which each participant in the division (provided that the money is divided equally) will be able to hire more workers.

Classical political economy knows three sources of GDP - labor, capital and land (land rent),

In classical political economy, value is determined by the cost of producing a good.

To countries with classic model primitive accumulation of capital include Holland and England.

Within the framework of classical political economy, a number of new directions appeared, which was associated with the industrial revolution carried out in England. It changed social structure society: on the one hand, the role of the industrial bourgeoisie increased. On the other hand, this caused the impoverishment of small producers and a significant increase in hired workers.

The classics founded the labor theory of value: 1 heterogeneous products of market exchange have the same internal content - value, therefore in the market they are equated to each other in a certain exchange proportion, 2 Value - labor embodied in a product, therefore the equality of goods in value means that they contain the same amount of labor.

The value of a product is determined by the production costs spent on its production. A person is considered only as " economic man", cat. Strives for his own material benefit. The main factor in increasing wealth is capital accumulation. Money is just a medium of circulation. Econ. Growth is achieved by increasing the share of the population, cat. Engaged in productive work and labor productivity. Main factor took away labor productivity – specialization (saving work time, improving work skills, new technologies).

Salary is a “product of labor”, remuneration for labor

Profit is a “deduction from the product of labor”, the difference between the cost of the product produced and the wages of workers

Land rent - payment for the use of land of this quality, paid by the tenant to the owner.

Capital is part of the reserves per cat. The capitalist expects to receive income.

Smith divided capital into fixed and circulating capital (enters into the circulation process and changes form during the production process).

Petits will determine the cost of goods in money, i.e. exchange value. Believed that salary should be regulated by the state (required subsistence level)

Smith distinguished between the natural price of a product (= production costs) and the market price (formed in the market under the influence of supply and demand)

Ricardo includes in the value of goods not only the value created directly by the labor expended on them, but also the value of capital, cat. took part in the production.

Introduction

Classical bourgeois political economy reached its highest development in the works of British scientists Adam Smith and David Ricardo, since Great Britain was the most economically advanced country at that time. It had a relatively highly developed agriculture and rapidly growing industry, and conducted active foreign trade. Capitalist relations received great development in England: the main classes of bourgeois society emerged here: the working class, the bourgeoisie and landowners. The bourgeoisie was interested in a scientific analysis of the capitalist mode of production. Thus, in the second half of the 18th century. In Great Britain, favorable conditions developed for the rise of economic thought, such as the work of the Scottish economist and philosopher A. Smith and his follower D. Ricardo.

Classical political economy has firmly taken its place in the history of economic science and some of their ideas are still relevant, which certainly speaks of their value for economic science.

The beginning of the classical school

It is believed that the classical school was founded by W. Petty, but it should be said that his ideas belong to the school of physiocrats - this is the very beginning of the classical school and does not fully belong to the classical school itself. However, the physiocrats laid the foundations to which the classics later turned more than once. Petty, Boisguillebert, Quesnay, Turgot - all of them can be considered early classics. It was to them that the first theories in the history of economic doctrines belonged. Therefore, I would like to briefly discuss these economists and their main theories.

Physiocrats. Problems solved by physiocrats

He also believed that the formation of wealth occurs in the sphere of material production precisely through labor.

In his theory of money, Petty argued that value is money, therefore money is value because it has the property of the entire commodity world - it is a product of living human labor. The essence of money is that it is the universal equivalent of the commodity world. Petty discovered the functions of money as a measure of value, a medium of exchange, a means of payment for treasure.

In income theory, Petty defined wages as the income of labor and rent as the income of land. His salary is payment for labor, and the amount of the salary is determined by the minimum means of subsistence necessary for the reproduction of the worker, otherwise workers will work less, because they are lazy.

He defined rent as the product of land fertility.

Boisguillebert- second physiocrat. He saw the main task of economic science in the growth of production, and the subject of economic theory in the concept of social wealth, i.e. in a variety of useful goods and things. He created the first theory of overproduction crises, the theory of optimal price. The price should compensate for industry average costs, bring normal profits to the manufacturer and ensure stable demand for this product.

He introduced the principle of laissez faire, i.e. the principle of state non-interference in the economy.

Quesnay- the next physiocrat. He believed, like all other physiocrats, that the only productive sphere is Agriculture, it is in it that national wealth is created. He also considered wealth to be the sum of all goods in society. He created a class structure, according to which the class that works on the lands and creates national wealth is productive, the class of industrialists was considered sterile, and in the class of landowners he saw only land holders.

Turgot- a student of Quesnay, became the last of the early classics. He developed the doctrine of the Quesnay classes and the doctrine of national wealth, and became a worthy completion of the era of the physiocrats.

The physiocrats are being replaced by Smith and Ricardo, representatives of the classical school of political economy in the era of its dawn, which is why their theories are considered the foundations of classical political economy. And since the topic of this work is general characteristics classical political economy, then this coursework will be written about their works.

Smith and Ricciardo - Who are they?

Adam Smith, the founder of classical political economy in every sense, lived in the 18th century (1723-1790). His main work is the book “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” published in 1776. David Ricardo (1772-1823) became a follower of his theory. He wrote the book "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation", in which he continued his study of classical political economy.

Smith sees the subject of economics as the study of the factors of social wealth, while Ricardo considers it necessary to study the distribution of income and the creation of wealth. However, although Ricardo was a follower of Smith, he changed some of his theories in his teaching, therefore, in this work, the theories created by Smith will be considered both by him and by Ricardo. So, I’ll start with perhaps their most famous theory – the theory of value.

Classical school of political economy- direction of economic thought (late 17th century - 30s of the 19th century). Main representatives: W. Petty, A. Smith, D. Ricardo (Great Britain), P. Boisguillebert, A. R. J. Turgot, F. Quesnay (France), J. C. Sismondi (Switzerland). The theoretical constructions of the classical school were based on the idea that the processes of production, distribution and consumption of wealth are determined by objective economic laws. The classical school explored the mechanism of reproduction, money turnover and credit, public finance, developed the labor theory of value. advocated economic freedom, limiting government intervention in the economy. Had a significant influence on the development of economic science.

Leading countries of Western Europe during the period of manufacturing capitalism.

France . The main branch of the economy is agriculture, and the largest class is the peasantry. The main holders of the land are nobles, the workers are peasants who pay rent. The main channels of initial capital accumulation are: tax system, government loans, sale of judicial and financial positions. The process of property stratification and landlessness of peasants. The first manufactories appeared in the 16th century. They produced cloth, linen and silk, their development was supported by the state. The policy of mercantilism is to stimulate the development of state-owned factories and the influx of funds from trade. Metallurgical manufactories developed, the development of internal trade, military and merchant fleet France.

England. England entered the manufacturing period of capitalism in the 16th century. Centralized, dispersed and decentralized manufactories grew in villages. Cloth production developed, and woolen fabrics were exported abroad. Metallurgy and metalworking. Development of shipbuilding and fishing, cotton production, glass, soap, gunpowder. The dispossession of peasants is an agrarian revolution, the acceleration of the development of capitalism in the countryside, and the growth of the productive forces of agriculture. Capitalist farming, dispersed manufacturing. A hired labor market emerged.

Netherlands . The first manufactories with hired labor force arose in the 16th century. There was a significant increase in trade. In agriculture there was also the use of hired labor. The peasant was legally free and leased land from the feudal lord. After the “price revolution,” part of the lands of the ruined feudal lords passed into the hands of farmers. The first bourgeois revolution was caused by the presence of remnants of feudalism, which hampered the development of the productive forces of the countryside and the pressure of feudal Spain. As a result, the United Provinces of Holland arose.

Views of the classical school

In principle, it is theoretically possible to establish equilibrium in the labor market. The mechanism for its establishment, according to the views of the classical school, is as follows: in the first case, that is, when there is a shortage of workers, entrepreneurs are ready not only to attract new workers with unknown wages, but also to increase them in order to fill empty jobs; in the second - the emergence of unemployed people who are ready to work for lower wages.

Based on this, representatives of the classical school saw the cause of unemployment in the demands of employees for high wages. Accordingly, unemployment, in their opinion, could be eliminated automatically, by the market mechanism itself, due to the “pressure” of labor supply on wages down to equilibrium. In other words, from the perspective of economic theory, unemployment itself can reduce wages and increase employment.

An unambiguous answer about the role of the state in the economy follows from the classical concept. If the market has regulators capable of ensuring automatic use of available resources, then government intervention is unnecessary. It was in the classical theory that the principle of state non-interference in the economy in general and in the labor market in particular was formulated.

CONCLUSION

At the beginning of the 19th century. The bourgeoisie was still a rising class, and Ricardo, as its ideologist, developed political economy in a progressive direction, as far as this was possible within the framework of the bourgeois outlook.

Considering capitalism to be an absolutely progressive form of production, Ricardo denied the possibility of general crises of overproduction. He accepted the dogma of Adam Smith, which blocked his path to scientific analysis capitalist reproduction. Like an economist of the era industrial revolution, Ricardo developed political economy in scientific direction and eliminated from it those contradictions in the views of his predecessors that were due to the immaturity of capitalism during the manufacturing period of its development. At the same time, Ricardo came face to face with such economic problems, which within the framework of the bourgeois horizon are insoluble. This primarily relates to the problem of surplus value. Therefore, as K. Marx pointed out, in the person of Ricardo, bourgeois political economy reached its final, insurmountable limit.

The emergence of the classical school

The classical direction in the development of economic science arose during the formation of free competition capitalism. From the 16th century In England, the feudal system entered the stage of decay. Capitalist relations began to develop in its depths. As a result of the expropriation process, the peasantry was deprived of land and replenished the army of hired labor. The bourgeoisification of farmers took place, a “new nobility” appeared, which focused on farming, considering it as a source of cash income.

Capitalist relations also developed in industry. Manufacturing production spread in cloth and mining, shipbuilding, metallurgy, and the cotton industry. Foreign trade has become an important area for investing capital.

England, having pushed aside Spain, France and Holland in foreign markets, began to create its own colonial empire. Colonial plunder became an important source of enrichment for the English bourgeoisie.

Private entrepreneurs needed their own ideologies to justify the advantages of the capitalist economic system over the feudal one. Classical economic theory began to fulfill this mission.

Unlike mercantilists, who were engaged in generalizing superficial phenomena occurring in the sphere of circulation, economists of the classical school studied the internal economic connections of the market system of production organization. The object of their research was material production. Classical economists made a significant contribution to the development of economic science.

Economic views of W. Petty and P. Boisguillebert

William Petty(1623-1687) - founder of the classical school of political economy in England. Among his most famous works are the following: “Treatise on Taxes and Duties”, “Political Arithmetic” and “A Few Words on Money”.

W. Petty is the first author of the labor theory of value, which is based on the doctrine of natural price (cost). He distinguished between internal value, which he called “natural price,” and market price. Cost was determined by the labor expended, establishing a quantitative dependence of the value on labor productivity. The phrase of W. Petty is widely known: “Labor is the father and active principle of Wealth, and land is its mother.”

W. Petty argued that trade is not the source of creating a national economy, and opposed the influx of precious metals, since he saw it as a source of rising prices. He spoke about the existence of a proportion of money for trade exchange: an excess of money leads to higher prices, and a lack of money leads to a reduction in the volume of work performed and a low level of tax payments.

W. Petty created economic statistics(political arithmetic) and proposed a method for calculating national income. For the first time, he gave an analysis of differential rent and believed that it is created by labor and is not a gift of nature. W. Petty determined the price of land as the sum of annual rents for 21 years. (The number of years is determined based on the simultaneous life expectancy of three generations). He considered loan interest to be payment for the inconvenience caused to the lender when lending money. The interest rate should not exceed the rent from the amount of land that can be purchased with a loan.

Along with scientific provisions, there are also erroneous points in the works of W. Petty. Thus, he could not understand the nature of value and confused exchange and use values; believed that value is not created by any labor, but only by that spent on the production of gold and silver, i.e. monetary material.

Pierre Boisguilbert(1646-1714) is considered the founder of the classical school of economic thought in France. He wrote such works as " Detailed description provisions of France", "Accusations of France" and "Treatise on the nature of wealth".

P. Boisguillebert gave a substantiation of the labor theory of value (independently of W. Petty). In it, the value of “true value” was determined by labor costs. He considered the sphere of production to be the source of wealth, and the sphere of exchange assigned the role of conditions for economic development; The concept of “wealth” included not only money, but also the whole variety of goods and things. P. Boisguillebert underestimated the role of money, believing that it interferes with the exchange of goods at “true value”, saw in it the main evil and the cause of national disasters, and believed that in order to eradicate the power of money it is necessary to reduce its role to a simple instrument of circulation. He opposed the one-sided encouragement of industry, defended the development of agricultural production, saw in it the basis of the economic growth of France, and thereby was the predecessor of the physiocrats.

Unlike W. Petty, P. Boisguillebert led a decisive struggle against the policy of mercantilism. In addition, if W. Petty considered money to be the engine of economic development, then P. Boisguillebert saw it as the reason for violations of fair exchange between goods. P. Boisguillebert idealized agricultural production, and W. Petty was a supporter of industrial development.

In general, the French classical school believed that the purpose of production was consumption, and therefore paid more attention to the study of use value. The English school appreciated the importance of capitalism in the development of productive forces and took exchange value as a basis.

The French school expressed the interests of the petty bourgeoisie, and the English school - the industrial bourgeoisie.

Teachings of A. Smith -distinguished representative

classical school.

Adam Smith(1723-1790) was born in Scotland and educated at the universities of Glasgow and Oxford. The appearance of A. Smith’s book “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” marked the completion of the stage in the formation of political economy as a science. In it, the author clearly defined the subject, methodology and general basis of political economy as a special branch of knowledge. The subject of this science, according to Smith, is social economic development and growth in the well-being of society. At the same time, economic development is based on the material (physical) resources of society, the use of which leads to the creation of benefits and wealth of the people.

The methodology of A. Smith's teaching is based on the concept of economic liberalism, the main provisions of which are as follows: the interests of individuals coincide with the interests of society; “economic man,” according to Smith, is a person endowed with egoism and striving for ever greater accumulation of wealth; an indispensable condition for the operation of economic laws is free competition; the pursuit of profit and free trade by A. Smith are assessed as activities beneficial to the entire society; there is an “invisible hand” in the market, with the help of which free competition controls the actions of people through their interests and leads to the resolution of social problems in the best possible way, maximally beneficial to both individuals and society as a whole.

The economic views of A. Smith are based on the following idea: the products of material production are the wealth of the nation, and the value of the latter depends on the share of the population engaged in productive labor and labor productivity. The main factor in the growth of labor productivity is the division of labor or specialization. The result of the division of labor is: saving working time; improving work skills; invention of machines that facilitate manual labor. Money, according to A. Smith, is a special commodity that is a universal means of exchange. He believed that circulation costs should be minimal, and therefore preferred paper money.

In the theory of value, the contradictory views of A. Smith are clearly expressed. In his works he gives three approaches to the concept of “cost”:

The cost is determined by labor costs;

The cost is determined by the labor purchased, i.e. the amount of labor that can be used to purchase a given product. This situation is true for simple commodity production, but under the conditions of capitalist production it is not, since the capitalist receives more in exchange than he spent on labor;

Sh value is determined by income, to which the scientist attributed wages, profit and rent. This definition is called “Smith's dogma” and formed the basis of the theory of factors of production.

Recognizing that the value of a single product, in addition to income, also includes the cost of consumed means of production, Smith, however, argued that their value is created by living labor in other industries, so that, ultimately, the value of the total social product is reduced to the amount of income. Thus, it turns out that the value of the means of production created by the labor of past years has disappeared.

Smith defined wages as “the product of labor,” remuneration for labor. The salary depends on economic situation in a country because as wealth increases, the demand for labor increases. Profit is a “deduction from the product of labor”, the difference between the cost of the product produced and wages workers. Ground rent is also a “deduction from the product of labor”, which is created by the unpaid labor of workers.

Unlike the mercantilists, who identified capital with its monetary form, Smith recognized the extremely important importance of the industrial application of capital and noted the secondary role of loan capital. In his study of the problem of fixed and circulating capital, Smith took a step forward compared to the physiocrats. He considered capital invested in any branch of material production to be productive. However, when distinguishing capital into fixed and circulating capital, Smith proceeded from the erroneous idea that the main content of the circulation process is not the change in forms of value, but the movement of use value. In accordance with this, he classified as fixed capital that part of productive capital that is stationary in the sphere of production in the form of means of production and does not enter the sphere of circulation in its natural form. Smith classified the other part of the means of production, which physically moves and is therefore in the sphere of circulation. working capital. Smith believed that fixed capital does not enter circulation. In fact, fixed capital does not enter circulation in its natural form, but its value circulates. In fact, both parts of capital are in circulation - both the main and the circulating.

Smith considered the principle of complete non-interference of the state in the economy to be a condition for the country's wealth, but he believed that government regulation was necessary when a threat to the common good arose. He formulated four rules of taxation: proportionality, minimum, certainty and convenience for the payer. The scientist defended free trade between countries and showed the mutual benefit of international trade, based on different levels of production costs in different countries.

A. Smith does not complete classical school. He published his main work on the eve of the industrial revolution and the object of his research was capitalism at a relatively immature stage of its development. This circumstance to a certain extent determined the underdevelopment of Smith's economic theory itself, its duality and inconsistency.

Economic doctrine of D. Ricardo

David Ricardo(1772-1823) - economist of the era of the industrial revolution in England, published in 1817 his main work, “Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.” The main provisions of D. Ricardo's research methodology are as follows: the system of political economy is presented as a unity subject to the law of value; recognition of objective economic laws, that is, laws that do not depend on human will; quantitative approach to economic laws, that is, D. Ricardo made an attempt to find a quantitative relationship between such categories as cost, wage, profit, rent, etc.; the desire to identify patterns, excluding random phenomena.

D. Ricardo saw the main task of political economy in determining the laws governing the distribution of product between classes. In his theory of value, he distinguished between consumer and exchange value and believed that the latter was determined by the amount of labor expended, as well as the size and duration of capital investments. The price of a product in the short term is determined by supply and demand, and in the long term - by the costs of producing the product. A change in employee wages leads to a decrease in profits, and vice versa. A decrease in the value of money as a commodity leads to higher wages and higher prices for goods.

Wages, according to D. Ricardo, represent the income of a hired worker, payment for labor, and it depends on demographic processes. The greater the supply of labor, the lower the wages of workers, and vice versa. Salaries are kept within living wage by virtue of the natural law of population size - the “iron law” of wages. The situation of the working class, despite the economic growth, will worsen due to rising prices for agricultural products. The trend of falling wages can be stopped if wages are controlled by the government.

Profit, according to D. Ricardo, is an excess of value over wages: it is a product of the worker’s unpaid labor. He formulated the “law of the falling rate of profit.” Its essence is as follows: a fall in labor productivity in agricultural production will lead to rising food prices and an increase in the minimum wage, which will occupy a large part in the cost of production, and consequently, the rate of profit will decrease.

Rent in the teachings of D. Ricardo is an excess of value over average profit, which is formed due to the different fertility and location of land. He correctly characterized differential rent as the difference between the cost of agricultural products on the best and worst plots. D. Ricardo recognized the effects of the “law of diminishing soil fertility.”

D. Ricardo considered stable monetary circulation to be the main condition for economic growth, and the best base for the monetary system is gold. It is possible to replace gold with paper money, but firm rate. The value of paper money depends on its quantity in circulation.

D. Ricardo formulated the theory of comparative advantage, in which he proved the profitability (advantage) of international trade based on a comparison of comparative costs. The essence of this is that if different countries have a comparative advantage in different export goods, then international division labor and trade between these countries are mutually beneficial.

In general, in the history of economic thought, D. Ricardo is as majestic a figure as A. Smith. But these figures themselves are very different. If the theory of A. Smith contains more significant in-depth generalizations, then the teachings of D. Ricardo laid the foundation for a model approach to the construction of economic theory. As a strict and consistent theorist, capable of obtaining non-obvious conclusions from the analysis of the relatively simple models he proposed, D. Ricardo (with the possible exception of D. Keynes) still has no equal among all economists.

Economic teachings of Zh.B. Say, T. Malthus and J.S. Mill

Jean Baptiste Say(1767-1832) - professor at the University of Paris, author of the “Treatise of Political Economy” (1803), which popularized the ideas of A. Smith. The central place in the teachings of J.B. Say is interested in the famous “law of markets,” the essence of which boils down to the following: the exchange of product for product automatically leads to equilibrium between purchase and sale. According to Zh.B. Seya, aggregate demand And aggregate supply is always equalized or, in other words, the cost of created goods is expressed by total income, with which goods are purchased at cost, therefore crises of overproduction in market economy impossible. He allowed only the possibility of overproduction of individual goods.

We can agree with the first part of this statement, since demand generates supply, but the second part did not justify itself, because in a market economy overproduction is possible - an excess of supply over monetary demand. The fact is that the development of commodity exchange strengthens the contradiction between value and use value, leads to the allocation of money as a special kind of commodity, to the emergence of a gap between acts of purchase and sale.

In his theory, J.B. Say proceeds from the fact that the activities of entrepreneurs and workers are the source of wealth. He considered land, labor and capital to be equal factors in creating value; accordingly, he distinguished three types of income from three main sources: wages (for labor), interest (payment for capital) and rent (payment for land). Money Zh.B. Say assigned the role of an instrument of exchange, since people do not need money, but what they buy with it. Cost of goods, according to Zh.B. Say, depends on the utility of the product, the costs of its production, demand (direct relationship) and supply (inverse relationship). From this we can conclude that Zh.B. Seay abandoned A. Smith's labor theory of value.

T. Malthus(1766-1834) - a prominent representative of economic thought at the beginning of the 19th century. in England. In 1789, he published the book “An Essay on the Law of Population,” the main idea of ​​which was the theory of population. Ten years later, another work of T. Malthus was published - “A Study on the Nature and Increase of Land Rent”, in which he tried to reveal the nature of land rent and the mechanism of its formation.

The main provisions of T. Malthus's population theory boil down to the following: the human ability to reproduce in terms of growth rates significantly exceeds the ability to grow food resources because the population grows in geometric progression, and resource reserves - in arithmetic progression; population growth is strictly limited by means of subsistence. In nature, according to T. Malthus, the correspondence between the population size and the amount of means of subsistence is achieved through epidemics, famine, wars, and backbreaking labor that exterminates huge masses of people.

T. Malthus solved the problem of excessive population growth through changes in wages. Population growth causes wages to fall and limits future population growth. He opposed government support for the poor, as he saw it as rewarding the unwise by taxing hardworking citizens. T. Malthus was also critical of the idea of ​​income equalization. The division between rich and poor is useful.

T. Malthus saw the problem of limited resources in the fact that, firstly, the Earth’s resources are limited, and secondly, due to the involvement of inferior lands into circulation, the return on invested labor and capital will decrease.

John Stuart Mill(1806-1873) - English economist, philosopher, his main work “Fundamentals of Political Economy” (1848). The main provisions of the research methodology of J.S. Mill are similar to the classical school. The specificity of his views was manifested in the following: he separated the laws of production from the laws of distribution, the first of which are constant, and added the dynamics of political economy to the studied laws of an unchanging society.

Wealth as imagined by J.S. Milla is a set of goods that have exchange value. He included competition among the factors that determine price, citing the fact that the buyer seeks to buy cheaper, and the seller seeks to sell more expensive. Capital is a stock of labor products resulting from savings due to constant reproduction, additional investments of which, in the presence of labor resources, can lead to the expansion of production without a certain limit. The amount of profit must be no less than the sum of interest on capital, insurance premium and management salary.

J.S. Mill proceeds from the quantity theory of money: an increase in the quantity of money with the formation of reserves or an increase in total income will not lead to an increase in prices. Credit does not increase the country's resources, but thanks to it they are increasingly used in production. The source of credit is capital (monetary) not currently used for production purposes. He saw the cause of the trade crisis in a reduction in credit, and the means of overcoming it in increasing the supply of credit.

Views of J.S. Mill's views on wages boil down to the following: the aggregate demand for labor is inelastic, therefore one should recognize the “working fund theory,” according to which society has a stable fund of means of subsistence, the reserves of which are used by capitalists to support workers. This theory, when tested by time, turned out to be untenable.

The ideal of social order by J.S. Mill saw people achieving complete independence without restrictions, except for the prohibition of harming other people, and associated economic progress with scientific and technological progress, increased personal security. He proposed a number of social reforms, in particular, the introduction of a corporate association, which would eliminate wage labor; socialization of land rent through land tax and limiting inequality by limiting the right of inheritance.

Thus, we have examined the views of the leading representatives of the classical school, which is called classical, first of all, for the truly scientific nature of many of its theories and methodological provisions, which underlie modern economic science. It was thanks to the representatives of classical political economy that economic theory acquired the status of a scientific discipline.

Classical political economy studies all areas of the economy: production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods and services. From a superficial description of economic phenomena (for example, the exchange of goods for money), she moves on to the discovery of their essence and the laws of economic development.

Classical political economy in its own way proved the scientific inconsistency of mercantilism. The wealth of a nation is created, the classics believed, not in trade (here the monetary form of value changes to its commodity form), but in production. Production is based on natural laws, and therefore does not require government intervention.

The goal of mercantilism - to raise the welfare of a nation - cannot be achieved in practice through foreign trade. Constant influx into the country precious metal leads to the opposite result. The abundance of money in the state causes an increase in domestic prices, an increase in the price of goods, which reduces the consumption of products by the population.

In classical political economy, two schools were formed - French (physiocrats) and English.

physiocrats (Greek physis - nature + kratos - strength, power) - a school of political economy that arose in France in the mid-18th century. and became widespread in Italy, Great Britain, Germany and other countries. The founder and head of the Physiocrats in France was Francois Quesnay(1694-1774). He tried to substantiate the main idea of ​​his teaching: Agriculture is the only branch of production where that additional “net product” naturally arises, due to which the wealth of the country increases. In agriculture, labor creates more products than are needed for the reproduction of itself and its conditions. This increased productivity of agricultural labor is due to nature itself.

English classical political economy arose and developed in the 17th - 18th centuries. The founders of this theoretical school were William Petty (1623-1687), Adam Smith (1723-1790) and David Ricardo (1772-1823). They made outstanding contributions to the in-depth study of capitalist economics, created their own doctrine of the growth of national wealth.

For the first time, the idea that labor is the most important source of wealth was expressed by V. Petty, who was called the Columbus of political economy. He owns the famous formula: nature is the mother, labor is the father of wealth. Greatest contribution A. Smith introduced political economy into the classical direction of the theory, after which it began to be taught in higher education educational institutions In his main work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), he substantiated the “natural order” in economic life. The foundations of this order were recognized as the dominance of private property, free competition and free trade, and non-interference of the state in economic activity.

Unlike the physiocrats, the English classics believed that wealth is created not only in agriculture, but also in all other branches of material production. They showed that the universal form of wealth is value, embodied in goods and money. Value itself is created by the labor of workers producing goods (the theory of value is studied in detail in topic 4).

When developing the doctrine of market price The classics deeply revealed its dependence mainly on production, on the conditions of supply of goods on the market. However, they did not examine the impact of customer demand on price.

A. Smith and D. Ricardo sought to apply the labor theory of value to the study of the internal content and laws of development of the capitalist economy. They believed that factory workers created new value through their labor. This value only partially goes to them (wages), and a separate part (surplus value) is appropriated by the capitalists. At the expense of surplus value, they pay for bank interest, for renting land from landowners, and receive dacha income (the theory of surplus value is discussed in detail in the 8th topic).

Adjacent to the theoretical heritage of the English classics is the teaching of K. Marx, which differs in its essential features.

Physiocrats(French physiocrates, from ancient Greek φύσις - nature and κράτος - strength, power, domination) - French school of economists of the second half of the 18th century, founded around 1750 by Francois Koehne and called “physiocracy” (French physiocratie , that is, “the dominance of nature”), given to it by the first publisher of Koehne’s works, Dupont de Nemours, due to the fact that this school considered the soil, nature, to be the only independent factor of production. However, this name could characterize the teaching of the physiocrats in another respect, since they were supporters of the “natural order” (ordre naturel) in the economic life of society - an idea akin to the concepts of natural law or natural law in the rationalistic sense of the philosophy of the 18th century.

Provisions

The physiocrats resolved the question of how economic relations between people should develop under the free action of the natural order and what the principles of these relations would be. Like the school of A. Smith, and even earlier, its physiocrats expressed the conviction that giving complete freedom to the operation of natural laws alone is capable of realizing the common good. In connection with this, there is a demand for the destruction of old laws and institutions that delay the unhindered manifestation of the natural order, and a demand for non-interference by state power in economic relations - desires that equally characterize both the physiocrats and the “classical” school. Finally, in both cases we are dealing with a reaction against mercantilism, which unilaterally protected only trade and manufacturing; but the physiocrats fell into another one-sidedness, which the theory created by A. Smith avoided.

Physiocrats contrasted trade and manufacturing with agriculture as the only occupation that provides a surplus of gross income over production costs, and therefore the only productive one. Therefore, in their theory, land (soil, forces of nature) is the only factor of production, while A. Smith placed two others next to this factor, labor and capital - concepts that play such an important role in everything further development political economy as a pure science. In this last respect the physiocrats may rather be considered the predecessors than the founders of political economy.

The term “physiocracy” is used in a double sense, namely, most often in the narrower sense of a well-known economic doctrine, less often in the broader sense of an entire theory of society, with social and political conclusions. The first view of physiocrats is dominant among foreigners, the second is characteristic of the French. There is no doubt that the physiocrats are of primary importance in the history of political economy, but because of this their political views should not be forgotten, making them the most prominent representatives of enlightened absolutism in France.

Physiocrats in Russia

There were no pure representatives of the physiocratic theory in Russia, but the influence of the applied conclusions of their teaching was felt in the first half of the reign of Catherine II. The ideas of the physiocrats were spread among us with the help of French educational literature: Catherine could get acquainted with them from Voltaire and the Encyclopedia. In the Nakaz, an echo of these ideas is the exaltation of agriculture over industry and trade and the view of free trade. But even here these opinions are surrounded by reservations and limitations. However, from the first years of Catherine’s reign, the privileges given to factories in previous times were destroyed, monopolies on the establishment of factories of one kind or another, including state-owned ones, were abolished, benefits from various duties were abolished; finally, the manifesto of March 17, 1775 established the principle of free competition, abolished the concession order for the establishment of industrial establishments and the system of special fees from factories and factories. During the same period, a comparatively more preferential tariff for imports was issued in 1766. Finally, the interest of those around the empress in physiocratic teachings was expressed in the creation - on the model of European institutions founded by supporters of physiocrats - the Free Economic Society (1765). To the question posed by the Society at the request of the Empress for the award, about the property of peasants, several answers were sent, written in the spirit of physiocrats, and these answers were approved by the Society. With the participation of the book. D. A. Golitsyn, the Russian ambassador in Paris, who corresponded with Catherine in the 60s on the peasant issue, even the representative of the school of physiocrats, recommended by Diderot, Mercier de la Riviere, was discharged, who unpleasantly struck the empress with his conceit and too high an idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthat role, which he prepared for himself in Russia as a legislator. After an 8-month stay in St. Petersburg (1767-68), he was sent back to France, and from then on Catherine’s rapid cooling towards the physiocrats began. In her private correspondence, she complains (mid-70s) that “economists” besiege her with intrusive advice, calls them “fools” and “screamers” and does not miss an opportunity to laugh at them. “I am not a supporter of prohibitions,” she says now, “but I believe that some of them were introduced to eliminate inconvenience and it would be unwise and reckless to touch them.” She objects to complete freedom of grain trade and even to the abolition of internal city taxes that followed under the emperor. Elizabeth. In the 80s, Catherine's policy regarding trade and industry finally changed in a spirit opposite to the principles of the physiocrats. In Russian society, the ideas of the physiocrats, as a well-known political-economic doctrine, did not have any noticeable influence: preoccupied with political and philosophical ideas, it paid little attention to political economy. When such interest appeared at the beginning of the 19th century, political economy was already dominated by the ideas of Adam Smith, which penetrated into Russia.

Marginalism(French marginalisme, from Latin margo (marginis) - edge) - a direction in economics that recognizes the principle of diminishing marginal utility as a fundamental element of the theory of value; arose in the 70s. XIX century in the form of the so-called. "margin revolution". The founders of the school (The Revolutionaries) are K. Menger, W. S. Jevons and L. Walras. The main predecessors of this direction (Main Proto-Marginalists) are considered to be the French scientists O. Cournot and J. Dupuis, as well as the Germans J. von Thunen and G. Gossen. The main reason for the emergence of marginalism is considered to be the need to find conditions under which these productive services would be distributed with optimal results between competing areas of use. Such a paradigm shift in economic theory, in turn, was due to the rapid development of industry and applied sciences.

The most important elements of marginalism as a direction of financial science:

1) Use limit values.

2) Subjectivism, i.e. an approach in which all economic phenomena are studied and assessed from the point of view of an individual economic entity.

3) Hedonism of economic entities. Man was viewed by marginalists as a rational being whose goal is to maximize his own satisfaction.

4) Static. Studying the use of rare resources to meet people's needs for this moment time.

5) Elimination of the priority of the sphere of production, characteristic of the economic analysis of the classics.

6) Perception market economy as an equilibrium system.

Theory

The task of marginalism is the study of patterns economic processes based on the use of limit values. Accordingly, all the main categories in marginalist theory are based on the use of quantitative analysis. These are categories such as marginal productivity, marginal cost, marginal utility.

The theory made it possible to apply quantitative methods to the study of economic processes and to effectively use mathematical apparatus in economic science; allowed the creation of economic models; analyze the elasticity of demand and pose the optimum problem. The essence of the marginalist revolution:

A revolution has been achieved in analysis methods. The focus of the analysis has shifted from costs to outcomes. The subjective motivation for the economic behavior of individuals was accepted as the starting point for economic theory. The principle of limitation was first introduced into economic science. Limit analysis emerged.

The setting of tasks has changed. Marginalists focused on static tasks characteristic of short-term periods in which values ​​do not have time to change. At the same time, they analyze various ways using resources to meet needs.

There has been a revolution in the theory of value. The classical approach is rejected, i.e., reducing value to labor costs or other factors. Value is determined by the degree of useful effect, i.e., the degree of satisfaction of needs.

Austrian school(also Vienna School, Psychological School) - a theoretical direction of economics within the framework of marginalism, emphasizing the role of the self-organizing force of the market price mechanism. basis this approach is the assertion that the complexity of human behavior and the constantly changing nature of markets makes mathematical modeling in economics exceptionally difficult(if at all possible). In this situation, the principles of a free economy become the main thing in the sphere of economic policy(Laissez-faire), economic liberalism. Followers of the Austrian school advocate the protection of freedom of contracts concluded by market participants (economic agents) and minimal third-party interference in transactions (especially from the state).

Basic theoretical principles of the Austrian school

Features of the Austrian school:

· refusal to use mathematical research methods;

extreme subjectivity as characteristic almost all school representatives;

· emphasis on studying the psychological characteristics of consumer behavior;

· emphasis on heterogeneity and its time structure of capital in the study of macroeconomic problems, including the study of the nature of the money cycle.

Austrian school economists strongly adhere to methodological individualism, which they describe as the analysis of human activity from the point of view of individual agents. Austrian School economists argue that the only way to construct a meaningful economic theory is to logically derive it from basic principles human activity(human action), calling such a method praxeological. In addition, although natural experiments are often used by followers of the economic mainstream, the “Austrians” point out that experimental verification economic models almost impossible, because normal economic activity people - subject economic research- cannot be reproduced under artificial conditions. In turn, adherents of the economic mainstream, as a rule, are critical of the methodology of the Austrian school.

4. The main directions of economic thought of the 20th century.

The authors of the monograph “History of Economic Doctrines” identify two main directions in the economic theory of the 20th century. These are the theories of “regulated capital” and the theories of “free enterprise” (neoclassicism). IN last years The institutional-social direction is becoming increasingly important.

Supporters of “regulated capitalism”, which include the followers of the English economist J. M. Keynes and the French “dirigists”, highlight macroanalysis - they take as a basis the consideration of the economy as a whole, such problems as national income, accumulation and consumption, aggregate social demand and offer, etc.. This is the direction arose and developed in the 30s of the 20th century, when the global economic crisis of 1929-1933. showed that there is a need government regulation economy.

Representatives of the neoclassical movement argue that based on the market mechanism and competition, balanced growth can be ensured, i.e. balance between supply and demand. They proceed from microanalysis - they approach the study of economics by considering the motives of behavior of an individual enterprise, an individual firm, prices for individual products, and based on this, conclusions are drawn that apply to the entire economy.

The “institutional-social” direction brings to the fore the social relations of people and the role of these relations in understanding economic processes. First of all, they consider the sphere of exchange, forms of market organization, principles of morality. This direction also includes theories that lay the basis for the development of society on direct changes in production technology. 13

Keynesianism. The founder of this direction of economic theory is J.M. Keynes. He developed “ general theory employment." In his opinion, with an increase in employment, national income increases, and therefore consumption increases, but consumption grows more slowly than income, since as income increases, people’s desire to save increases. Thus, an increase in income leads to an increase in savings and a relative decrease in consumption. It is expressed in a decrease in effective demand, and demand affects the size of production and the level of employment. Insufficient development of consumer demand can be compensated by increased costs of new investments. According to Keynes' theory, total employment is determined by three factors: the propensity to consume, the marginal efficiency of investment and the rate of interest..

One of the main provisions of Keynes's theory is the thesis about the decisive role of investment in determining total employment. They must compensate for the lack of consumer demand. Increased investment means more workers are brought into production, leading to increased employment, national income and consumption.14

The followers of Keynes are the English economist J. Robinson, in France - the dirigists, in America A. Hansen and S. Harris.

American Keynesianism has a number of specific features. First, Hansen developed stagnation theory who tried to explain the reasons economic crises. He believes that the reasons for the economic difficulties of capitalism are the weakening of “external impulses” - a slowdown in population growth, a lack of free land, and a slowdown in technological progress.

Hansen and Harris consider the state budget the main mechanism for regulating the economy. They called it a “built-in stabilizer,” designed to automatically respond to cyclical fluctuations and soften them. The mechanism of the “built-in stabilizer” is: income tax, payments for social insurance, unemployment benefits.

Representatives of French dirigisme - G. Ardant, P. Mendes-France, F. Perroux, generally approving the idea of ​​government intervention in the economy, were critical of Keynes' theoretical scheme. They opposed interest rate regulation. F. Perroux put forward the idea of ​​“dominant units,” which included powerful industrial corporations. The purpose of the state is to act as an arbiter and coordinating force for them.

Representatives of post-Keynesianism (N. Kaldor, P. Sraffa, S. Weintraub) proceed from the idea of ​​the internal instability of the capitalist system. They criticize the theories of marginal utility and marginal productivity of factors of production, trying to improve the theory of Keynes by combining his ideas with the concept of Ricardo.

Neoclassical direction. Representatives of this direction are: American economist R. Solow and English economist J. Mead. They proceed from the assumption of the dominance of free competition, in which the owners of factors of production are rewarded in accordance with the so-called marginal products. The main factors of production are fully used, which is achieved by the mechanism of free competition affecting the prices of production factors.

Unlike past theories, modern neoclassicals reject the old concept that the replacement of labor with capital led to an increase in labor productivity, but to a decrease in the productivity of capital. The condition for balanced growth, in addition to free competition, is free monetary system. The central place in neoclassical theories is occupied by the problem of the potential growth rate based on the availability of production growth factors and their optimal use.

One of the currents of the neoclassical direction is neoliberal economic teaching. In the United States, the views of the Chicago “monetary school” became widespread. The leader of monetarism in the USA is M. Friedman. He advocates free enterprise, considering it the most important guarantor of individual rights. Friedman vs. government programs assistance to the least affluent segments of the population. He tries to prove the monopoly role of the monetary factor in the formation and fluctuation of the national income. All his reasoning is based on the postulate of the existence of a highly stable demand function for cash balances(cash and check deposits). This means that the demand for money is tightly linked to the movement of fundamentals. economic indicators, first of all real income per capita. On the contrary, the supply of money is unstable and depends on the subjective decisions of credit institutions. If credit institutions issue an insufficient number of banknotes or issue them in a volume exceeding the actual needs of the economy, the economy will face a crisis. 15

Institutional and social direction. Supporters of this direction are J. K. Galbraith, P. Drakker, J. Fourastier. The most important component of this concept is the theory of “property diffusion,” according to Drakker, the increase in the number of joint-stock enterprises, the distribution of shares among the population is dispersion, diffusion of ownership. The real owners of enterprises are the middle class and workers. The second aspect This theory advocates the concept of a “managerial revolution”. According to Galbraith, with the development joint stock companies, the power of capitalist owners fades into the background or completely disappears and the power of hired managers is established. Third point The concept under consideration is the “theory of revolution in income.” In developed capitalist countries, a revolution has occurred in the distribution of income, which consists of equalizing income between strata and classes of society.

5. 5. paradigms of economics

Paradigm is a scientific hypothesis that explains large-scale phenomena. It arose in the 50-60s of the 20th century. The concept is relatively new, but the theory has been known for a long time.

A new paradigm is always met with hostility

1. arises

2.develops

3.dies off

P. must explain large-scale phenomena and processes and is designed to last for decades.

When old and new paradigms exist, the same facts are explained in different ways. More or less significant ones take place in life.

Paradigms in economic science:

Formative.

The theory was developed by K. Marx and F. Engels in the middle of the 19th century.

The formational paradigm is based on the category of “socio-economic formation,” which in turn includes a system of concepts defined within the framework of this paradigm, such as the method of production of material goods, productive forces, production relations, base, superstructure. The essence of this approach is to identify 5 socio-economic formations (primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and communist), the successive changes of which show the stages of development of the world-historical process. It is assumed that each society in its development, as a rule, goes through all these formation stages.