Foreword to the First Polish Edition
Foreword to the English Translation
Chapter One. the Subject Matter of Political Economy. Elementary Concepts
Human needs and means of satisfying them
Production, labor
Means of production and means of consumption
Social nature of production and distribution
Productive and non-productive labor (services)
Economic relations
Production relations and social productive forces
Distribution relations and production relations
Note on The Expression “Political Economy” and Related Terms
Chapter Two. Modes of Production and Social Formations. The Materialist Interpretation of History
Dependence of production relations on social productive forces
Ownership of the means of production as basis of production relations
Modes of production
Antagonistic and non-antagonistic modes of production
Law of necessary conformity between production relations and character of productive forces
Social consciousness
Concept of social formation. Base and superstructure
Law of necessary conformity between superstructure and economic base
Conservative character of social relations and social consciousness
Dialectical processes in social development
Social development in antagonistic formations: class struggle and social revolutions
Classes and social strata
Historical materialism
Note On Some Formulations and On The Name of “The Materialist Interpretation of History”
Chapter Three. Economic Laws
General concept
Laws of causation, concomitance and functional relationship
Objective character of economic laws
Economic laws and laws of political economy
Stochastic (statistical) character of economic laws
Technical and balance laws of production
Laws of human behavior and laws of interplay of human actions
Historical scope of economic laws
Scope of technical and balance laws of production
Laws specific ta given social formation
Laws resulting from the influence of superstructure
Mode of operation of social formation
Basic economic law of a social formation
Economic laws and dialectic social processes
“Economic law of motion” of a social formation
Spontaneity in operation of economic laws
Socialism overcomes spontaneity of economic laws
Economic laws under socialism
Objective character and spontaneity of economic laws
Dialectic processes in the socialist formation
Socialist formation opens new epoch in human history
Practical significance of knowledge of economic laws
Chapter Four. The Method of Political Economy
Political economy as a theoretical discipline
Economic sciences, their subject matter and relations teach other
Applied economics, its branches
Political economy and economies of various social formations
Political economy of pre-capitalist formations
Political economy of socialism
Role of abstraction in political economy
Economic categories, laws of political economy and economic theories
Historical basis of abstraction in political economy
Abstractions in political economy and the concrete nature of economic processes
Successive concretization of abstractions of political economy
Marx’s “Capitalas” example of successive concretization
Econometrics as an instrument in concretization of laws of political economy
Verification of laws of political economy and economic theories
Practical identification of economic categories
Degree of agreement of laws and theories of political economy with the real economic process
Statistical verification
Modes of inference in political economy
Role of deduction in political economy
Axiomatization and formalization—role of mathematics in political economy
Premisses in deduction are results of induction
Reductive inference as instrument of verification
Economic policy as the practical application of political economy
Chapter Five. The Principle of Economic Rationality Political Economy and Praxiology
Economic activity and technique
Traditional character of economic activity in natural economy
Separation of gainful activity from household activity in acommodity-money economy. Change in structure of ends of economic activity
Rationality—the characteristic of gainful activity
Quantification (measurability and commensurability) of the end and means of gainful activity. Category of profit
Calculation and book-keeping in capitalist enterprises
Maximization of profit—an economic necessity for a capitalist enterprise
Principle of economic rationality as historical product of capitalist enterprise
Planning of social economy—realization of social economic rationality
Basic problems in social economic planning
The method of social economic balances
Praxiology—the science of rational activity
Branches of scientific research belonging to praxiology: operations research and the science of programming
The principles of programming
Marginal calculus
Linear programming
Methodological links between political economy and praxiology
Certain laws of political economy are conclusions deduced from praxiological principles of behavior
Study of economic laws by deduction dependent on the rationality of economic activity
The need to establish empirically the scope of the methodological knowledge applied in practice
General appraisal of the significance of praxiology in the rationalization of economic activity
Appendix: The Mathematical Foundations of Programming
Chapter Six. The Subjectivist and The Historical Trend In Political Economy
The Marxist and other trends in political economy. Their relation to classical political economy
Subject matter of political economy according to the subjectivist conception: analysis of man’s relation to goods on the basis of the economic principle
The concept of utility according to the subjectivist conception
The separation of subjectivist economic theory from the problem of social relations
The subjectivist trend and economic laws
The transformation of economic laws into praxiological principles of behavior
The role of exchange in subjectivist economic theory
Subjectivist trend implies the liquidation of political economy
Limited and historically conditioned scope of the economic principle
Is there a striving for the maximization of utility in household activity?
Factors working against the rationalization of household activity under capitalism
Final assessment of the subjectivist trend
Historical trend
The theoretical character of political economy discarded
Max Weber’s work in the light of the materialist interpretation of history
Unhistorical nature of the methodological basis of the theories of Sombart and Max Weber
Final assessment of the historical trend
Chapter Seven. The Social Conditioning and The Social Role of Economic Science
Two factors causing differences of opinion in science: internal dialectic of cognition and social
Interest, material means and freedom from prejudice — social basis of scientific development
The struggle of the bourgeoisie and lay intellectuals for the development of the natural sciences<
Factors impeding natural sciences in the last phase of capitalism
The origin and development of political economy connected with the capitalist mode of production
Change in bourgeois attitude after the appearance of class conflict between proletariat and bourgeoisie
The attitude of the bourgeoisie to political economy in the early period of capitalist development
Political economy becomes a science of the proletariat
Division of political economy into Marxist and bourgeois
Achievements and development of the Marxist trend
Bourgeoisie tends to liquidate political economy
Historical trend — an expression of compromise of the German bourgeoisie with feudal elements
Need for economic knowledge in the management of capitalist economy
Practical needs of the bourgeoisie under monopoly capitalism
Development and function of applied economic sciences and auxiliary sciences. Econometrics, social accounting, operations research, programming, cybernetics
Influence of the Great Depression on bourgeois economic thought
Keynes’ theory and theories of the business cycle
Theory of economic growth—historical circumstances of its origin
Petty bourgeois critique of capitalism
Critique of monopoly capitalism by ideologists of the petty and middle bourgeoisie
Professionalization of economic science
Petty bourgeois and national bourgeois critique of imperialism
The theory of imperfect competition
Impossibility of complete liquidation of political economy by the bourgeoisie
Full development of political economy only possible in connection with the labor movement
Social conditions and the truth of scientific cognition
Science and ideology
Conservative, progressive and reactionary ideologies Compromise ideologies
Social apperception and the mental horizon of social classes and strata
Ideologies obscuring and ideologies revealing reality—their importance for scientific cognition
Progressive ideologies as a stimulus in the development of political economy
Class conditioning of the development of political economy
Only the working class is interested in full scientific knowledge of economic laws
The working-class movements struggle to purge its ideology of all elements obscuring reality
Union with scientific socialism as the indispensable basis of the further development of economic
Index of Names
Subject Index