История экономических учений. Марксизм (конспект лекций)

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История экономических учений. Марксизм (конспект лекций)

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Table of contents (expand)

The emergence of economic thought in the ancient world (Backgrounds of economic thought in the Ancient East. Ancient Egypt and Babylonia. Ancient Egypt. Babylonia. Economic thought in Ancient India. Economic thought in Ancient China. Economic thought in Ancient Rome. The teachings of Cato. The teachings of Xenophon. The teachings of Plato. The teachings of Aristotle)
Economic thought in the Middle Ages (Medieval teachings of Western Europe. "Salic truth". Socio-economic views of Ibn Khaldun. Teachings of Thomas Aquinas. Social utopia of Thomas More. "Russian Truth")
Mercantilism (Mercantilism. Economic prerequisites of mercantilism. Features of mercantilism as an economic idea. French and English mercantilism. Features of Russian mercantilism. Late mercantilism)
Physiocracy (General characteristics of the physiocrats. The teachings of François Quesnay. The activities of Jacques Turgot)
Classical school of political economy (Classical school. Economic views of William Petty. Teachings of Adam Smith. Teachings of David Ricardo)
Classical school after Smith and Ricciardo (The teachings of Jean-Baptiste Say. The economic views of John Stuart Mill. The economic views of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The teachings of Thomas Malthus)
historical school (Contribution of the historical school to the development of economic theory. Historical school of Germany. New historical school of Germany)
Utopian socialists (Western European utopian socialism. Economic views of Simon de Sismondi. Utopian dreams of Robert Owen)
Marxism (The emergence of Marxism as an economic doctrine. “Capital” by Karl Marx. Karl Marx on the commodity and its properties. Money and its functions. Karl Marx on constant and variable capital and surplus value. Karl Marx’s views on land rent)
Austrian school (Austrian school: the theory of marginal utility as a theory of pricing. The economic views of Eugen Böhm-Bawerk. The teachings of Carl Menger. The economic views of Friedrich von Wieser)
Marginalism (The theory of marginalism. Methodological principles of marginalism. The marginalist theory of value and its advantages. The marginalist revolution. The causes and consequences of the marginalist revolution. The theory of utility of William Stanley Jevons. The theory of exchange of William Stanley Jevons. The theory of labor supply of William Stanley Jevons. The theory of exchange of Francis Isidro Edgeworth)
General economic equilibrium theory (General equilibrium model including production; the problem of the existence of a solution and the process of "tatonnement". General equilibrium theory in the 20th century: contributions of A. Wald, J. von Neumann, J. Hicks, C. Arrow and J. Debreu)
Alfred Marshall (A. Marshall - leader of the Cambridge school of marginalists. Alfred Marshall's partial equilibrium method. Alfred Marshall's analysis of utility and demand. Alfred Marshall's analysis of costs and supply. Alfred Marshall's equilibrium price and the influence of the time factor)
The beginning of the economic development of Rus' (Eastern Slavs in the pre-state period. Prerequisites for the formation of the Old Russian state. General characteristics of the socio-economic development of Kievan Rus. Features of early feudalization. Social division of labor among the Eastern Slavs. The emergence of cities, the development of trade in Ancient Rus'. Internal development of Rus'. The adoption of Christianity and the baptism of Rus' . Money and its role in Kievan Rus)
Economic development of Rus' in the Middle Ages (Causes and consequences of feudal fragmentation. The growth of feudal land ownership. Rus' under Mongol-Tatar rule. Socio-economic and political consequences of the Mongol-Tatar yoke. The main conditions and stages of the unification of Russian lands into a centralized state. Economic policy of Russia in the second half of the 15th-17th centuries . Formation of the all-Russian market. Socio-economic development of Russia after the Time of Troubles)
Economic development under Peter I and Catherine II (The essence of the reforms of Peter I. The results of the reforms of Peter I. The peasant question. Agriculture and land use under Catherine II. Industry, trade and finance under Catherine II. The socio-economic policy of Catherine II. The nobility and the system of local government in the second half of the 18th century. Social -economic development of Russia in the first half of the 19th century)
Economic development of Russia in the 19th century. (The Crimean War and its impact on the economic situation in the country. General characteristics of the economic development of Russia in the first half of the 1860th century. Economic prerequisites for the elimination of serfdom. Abolition of serfdom. Stratification of the Russian village. Main types of agricultural farms and their characteristics. Bourgeois reforms of Alexander II and their consequences. Zemstvo reform Urban reform Judicial reform Military reform Educational reforms Financial reform Basic provisions of the legislation on peasants The situation of agriculture in the 1870-XNUMXs Agrarian reform of P. A. Stolypin)
Economic thought in Russia (second half of the 1917th - beginning of the 1921th centuries) (The place of N. G. Chernyshevsky in the history of Russian and world economic thought. Economic views of V. I. Lenin. The first socialist transformations. War communism as a stage in the formation of the command-administrative system (XNUMX-XNUMX ). Increasing crisis phenomena in the economy and the beginning of the New Economic Policy. Changes in the monetary and financial spheres)
Economic development of the USSR (The economy of the USSR on the eve of the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet economy during the war. Post-war development of the national economy. The country on the eve of reforms. Reform of the Soviet economic system. Transformations in the social sphere. The economy of developed socialism. The search for new forms and methods of management. Reforms of the 1960-1970s years: essence, goals, methods and results)
Economic development of Russia during the period of perestroika (Background of perestroika. Preconditions for its emergence. Reform of the political system. Reform of the electoral system. Analysis of liberal and other movements. Economic reforms. Economic reform of 1987. The “500 days” program. The dialectic of “new thinking”. The beginning of disarmament. Unblocking regional conflicts. Collapse socialist system)
Economic development of Russia since the early 1990s. (Russia in the first half of the 1990s. Continuation of the course of reforms, shock therapy. Issues of maintaining the unity of Russia. New Constitution. Privatization)

LECTURE No. 9. Marxism

1. The emergence of Marxism as an economic doctrine

Karl Marx is recognized as one of the greatest philosophers in human history. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that Marx was able to talk about capital from the point of view of a philosopher.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German scientist who was involved in many sciences. Yet his main research was in the field of political economy. He is also one of the most famous socialist thinkers. Many today are trying to answer the question of how to organize the economy so that there are no beggars, based on the theory of Karl Marx. He is known to many as the author of “The Poverty of Philosophy” (1847), “Towards a Critique of Political Economy” (1859), “Capital” (1867) (1st volume). The second and third volumes were published by Friedrich Engels in 1885 and 1894. Although not all works have yet been translated into Russian, more of them have been translated into this language than into any other language in the world. Many of his works were published only after his death.

Marxism is a new doctrine of new views and values, which was preached by Karl Marx.

The economic theory of Karl Marx differed in that he did not consider the capitalist system "natural" and "eternal" and always said that there would be a revolution. This revolution will sweep away the capitalist system and replace it with another, where there will be no place for private property, inequality and poverty. Karl Marx believed that a capitalist society would necessarily turn into a socialist one through revolutionary intervention and not otherwise. He made such conclusions based on the study of the economic law on the development of modern society. One of the main foundations of the offensive of socialism is the accumulation of capital. The capitalists create more and more of their industries, syndicates, cartels, etc., while the wage workers only become poorer, which in itself cannot continue indefinitely.

According to his theory, capitalism must perish because of internal contradictions that cannot be resolved peacefully. Almost all the works of Karl Marx deal with this issue, especially Capital.

Marx's main conclusion from this theory was that it was impossible to reconcile the bourgeoisie and the proletariat within the existing system. Karl Marx also argued that this would not be permanent, because with the accumulation of capital, the need for machines and new technologies increases due to high competition, and the need for human labor decreases. Such a strategy leads to greater enrichment of some (the bourgeoisie) and impoverishment of others (the proletariat), as they are increasingly left without work.

Therefore, what Karl Marx began as a doctrine of the development of capitalism later became a doctrine of its death and revolutionary transition to socialism.

2. Capital by Karl Marx

"Capital" is the most important work of Karl Marx, which aims to understand the economic law that drives people in modern society. It was in it that Karl Marx argued that the key to understanding the culture of mankind and human history as a whole is labor, that is, the productive activity of mankind. Capital, like many of Karl Marx's works, asserts that capitalism will perish after all. However, many pages of this work are devoted precisely to the emergence of capitalism from feudalism. The full title of this work is Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. The first volume was published in 1867, during the author's lifetime. The beginning of this book is more about the properties and functions of money. In this volume, the question of the historical trend of capital accumulation is dealt with in great detail and clearly. The second and third volumes were published in 1885 and 1894. respectively. This was done by Karl Marx's best friend Friedrich Engels. The second volume of Capital, as it were, continues what Marx's predecessor Francois Quesnay did not finish in his economic table. Karl Marx continues to develop his theory of the circulation of the social product. Also in the second volume, he analyzes the reproduction of social capital. To do this, Marx analyzes the entire economy in general, and not its individual parts, as economists did before him. In the same place, Karl Marx shows what a mistake the representatives of the classical school made on this issue. According to him, social reproduction should be divided into at least two parts:

1) the production of the means of production themselves, in order to produce something new in the future;

2) the production of what is consumed every day.

The third volume of this work is devoted to such important issues as usury, commercial and money capital, land rent. The third volume also covers the issue of obtaining an average rate of profit. To obtain the average rate of profit, one has to use the law of value. The novelty of this analysis is achieved again by examining the economy as a whole, and not in individual parts. The very first thing that Karl Marx analyzes is the very origin of surplus value. He then proceeds to analyze how this surplus profit is subdivided into ground rent, interest, and profit. Profit is how surplus value relates to all capital that is invested in the enterprise. According to Marx, if the productivity of labor is increased, then there will be the fastest increase in constant capital, if at this point it is compared with variable capital.

3. Karl Marx about the product and its properties. Money and its functions

According to Marx, the production of various goods dominates in capitalist society. Based on this, he begins his research in the field of product analysis. According to him, the product has two functions:

1) the ability to satisfy the needs of the person himself (use value);

2) the ability to be exchanged for another commodity, which at the moment is more necessary (exchange value).

Marx believed that production as a whole is an already established system of human relations in which all commodities must be equal when exchanged. Therefore, labor in itself is common to all commodities in general, and not labor in any particular area of production. The amount of value is that amount of labor or labor time which is socially necessary in order to produce any use value. According to Karl Marx, when people compare their various products, they unconsciously compare their very different types of work. A commodity is, in fact, the essence of the time that has been worked out and which, as it were, "froze" in these goods.

Marx suggested that labor has a dual character. After he finished with the analysis of labor, he turned to the analysis of the properties of money. Karl Marx studied the origin of money for some time, and then took up the historical process of the development of money as such. In his opinion, money is only the highest product of the development of commodity exchange and the production of goods. Marx also engaged in a detailed analysis of the functions of money, especially at the beginning of his work Capital.

When society reaches a certain stage in the development of commodity relations, money becomes capital. The formula of commodity-money relations begins to look like this: C - D - T (goods - money - goods). According to Marx, surplus value is an increase in the initial value of money that has been invested in circulation. In his opinion, it is this increase in the original value that makes money capital.

There are at least two prerequisites for the emergence of capital:

1) the accumulation of money in the hands of individual citizens with a sufficiently high level of development of production itself;

2) the presence of free workers who are now not "attached" to any land or any production. On the other hand, these people have nothing but their labor force.

4. Karl Marx on constant and variable capital and surplus value

The basis of the works of Karl Marx is the theory of labor value. The foundations of this theory are mentioned in the writings of Adam Smith. Its essence is as follows: the exchange of goods takes place in accordance with the amount of labor that is spent on obtaining them.

Karl Marx developed this theory further and pointed out that the nature of labor is dual, that is, "concrete" and "abstract". Abstract labor is the value of a good or service that makes them commensurable. Concrete labor is the material and material form of the commodity, to which Marx appropriated the name of consumer value.

According to Karl Marx, surplus value by itself cannot arise from the circulation of a commodity, since this is an equivalent exchange, or the one who owns money must find an absolutely amazing commodity that would itself become a source of value. In addition, the simplest thing that a person with money can find is the wage labor of another person, that is, his labor power. He who owns money is able to buy labor power, the value of which can be determined in the same way as the price of any commodity.

Labor power, according to Marx, has both value and use value. (Value is the minimum amount a worker and his family can live on. Use value is the ability of a worker to work hard.)

The capitalist, buying "labor power", pays the cost, but at the same time forces the worker to work more than is necessary to compensate for this very cost. Suppose an employee justifies his salary in 6 hours, while his working day is at least 8 hours, and possibly 12 hours (overtime is from 2 to 6 hours per day). Thus the wage-worker works every day more than he is paid, and the capitalist appropriates this surplus. Such surplus Karl Marx called "surplus value".

According to Marx, capital has two parts: constant capital and variable capital. He attributed to constant capital the costs that the capitalist pays for the means of production (equipment, raw materials, etc.). Their value can be transferred to the products both immediately and partially. Variable capital includes labor costs (wages of workers). It is the value of variable capital that creates surplus value.

There is always the possibility of adding value. For example, this could be achieved by increasing the working day at the same salary. Marx called this increase in capital absolute surplus value. Although there is another option for increasing surplus capital - this is a decrease in the required time for which the employee will pay back his salary. Marx gave the name of relative surplus value to this type of capital increase.

Karl Marx was engaged for a long time in the analysis of relative surplus value. He proposed as many as three options for the appearance of such an increase in capital:

1) cooperation;

2) a simple division of labor, as well as small-scale manufactory production;

3) technical development and the emergence of a larger industry.

Karl Marx made a new fundamental analysis in the field of capital accumulation. According to him, the accumulation of capital is a process that turns part of the surplus value into capital, which is used not to expand production, but for the personal needs of its owner.

5. Views of Karl Marx on land rent

According to Marx, the price of agricultural products can and should be determined by the harvest from the worst soil. The costs that are generated by bringing the product to the market should be determined by the largest costs. The difference between the quantity of a commodity produced on the best soil and the quantity of a commodity produced on the worst soil is differential rent.

Because of private property, there is a monopoly on land. Such a monopoly allows you to make the price above the average. This monopoly price helps create absolute rent.

According to Karl Marx, absolute rent can be lost in any coup, while differential rent cannot be lost under any circumstances.

Marx also pointed out that there were several stages in the history of land rent:

1) land rent is converted into rent by the products produced on this land, i.e., the peasants give back to the landowner what they have produced on his land;

2) then this rent becomes cash rent, that is, the peasants must sell what they have produced on the landowner's land, and only then give him the land rent in money;

3) capitalist rent appears last of all. Here the rent is paid by an entrepreneur who hires simple workers, former peasants, to cultivate this land.

According to Marx, it was the transition from rent in kind to cash rent that created a class of poor people who only have to hire themselves for money. During this period, those peasants who were richer allowed themselves to hire the poorer and thus became even richer. But even so, not all the poor found work, so they had to go to the city to become employees for some manufacturer.

Under capitalism, small landed property perishes completely. According to Marx, in capitalist industry (and in capitalist agriculture as well) the productivity of labor power and high mobility are achieved only by the exhaustion of workers and labor power as such. Karl Marx also assured that capitalist progress in agriculture is the ability to rob both the land and the worker.

Authors: Eliseeva E.L., Ronshina N.I.

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