The subject and method of economic theory

The economy is an area of activity with the goal of creating spiritual and material benefits to meet the most diverse needs of people.

The subject and method of economic theory Consider socio-economic relations between individuals in the process of distribution, production, exchange and consumption of products and services. First, let us consider the subject of economic theory, which is the sphere of distribution and production of goods and services under the condition of limited resources. For a more complete reflection of economic reality, the theory of economics includes many separate sciences: a general economic theory that studies in general economic civilization and private economics that study individual parts of the economic space, such as labor economics, statistics, management, finance theory , accounting , Marketing, economy of agriculture and industry. The political economics, the theory of evolutionary economics and some others are claimed for the status of general economic theory.

Considering the subject and method of economic theory, one can not help saying that it studies economic laws in order to increase efficiency, economic growth, full employment, economic freedom, stable price level, economic security, fair distribution of incomes, trade balance.

The main methods in the economy include: scientific abstraction, analysis and synthesis, qualitative and quantitative analysis, observation and experiment, and many others.

These are, in general terms, the subject and method of economic theory.

Now there are many different educational and methodical manuals. In textbooks on economics you can often find the title of the chapter or paragraph "Subject and method of economic theory", and we are not without sin - they paid tribute to the tradition, although this is not entirely true. It would be more correct to write "The subject and methods of economic theory", because there is no one, single, universal method in the economy. There are a lot of them, a whole complex, and we will now consider them.

Methods are scientific methods, ways of understanding the economy, understanding economic development. The theory of economics is based on the following methods: simple (generalization, observation, grouping, comparison) and developed: analysis and synthesis, quantitative and qualitative approaches, historical and logical, modeling, formalization and others.

Formation and development of economic theory Can be considered in several stages, starting with the Ancient Greek period:

1) the era of antiquity: the basis of analysis, laid down by Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon (V-IV century BC), studied the slave system, subsistence farming ;

2) the era of feudalism, during which the ratio of natural and commodity economy was studied, a high assessment was given of the role of labor, of the interaction between farms;

3) the era of bourgeois political economy: mercantilists (16th - 17th century) paid great attention to the sphere of circulation; Classical political economy (17th - 19th century) connected wealth with the sphere of production, first in agriculture, and then in other branches of production. The economists of this period developed a theory of value ;

4) the development of the political economy of labor: in Marxism, the economic system is analyzed from the point of view of the interests of the working class. On the basis of Marxism, Social-Democracy and Leninism appear;

5) 20th century: neoclassicals investigated pricing and equilibrium in market mechanisms; The emergence of state-monopoly capitalism, Keynesianism, liberalism.

In recent decades, it can be noted: institutionalism; Postindustrial economy; Theory of transition to a market economy.