A brief history of economic development

Economics is a science that studies various economic activities and corresponding economic relations of human society at various stages of development and the laws of operation and development.

Economic activities are activities that produce, exchange, distribute, consume, and are closely related to people under the premise of a certain economic relationship. In economic activities, there is a problem of achieving greater benefits at a low cost. Economic relations are the relations formed by people in economic activities. Among all kinds of economic relations, production relations are dominant.

The term economy originated from Greek in the west and was originally intended for household planning management. The ancient Greek philosopher sinofen's book Economic Theory discusses the management of the family-based slavery economy, which is adapted to the current economic development.

In ancient Chinese, the term "economy" is the combination and simplification of "Jing bang", "Ji Min", "Jing Guo", "Ji shi", and "Jing Shi Ji Min, contains the meaning of "governing the country and the whole world. The content includes not only how the country manages financial management, but also how it manages various other economic activities, as well as how the country handles political, legal, educational, military, and other issues.

This includes the word "economy" in "economy", which was transferred from China to Japan very early. Western Economics was introduced to China and Japan in the 19th century. Japan's Shen Tian Xiaoping first translated economics into "Economics", while China's Yan Fu translated it into "livelihood ". Since 1980s, economics has gradually become a general term for various economic disciplines and has the meaning of Economic Science.

Modern Economics uses modern mathematical methods and modern computer technology to analyze the relationship between economic quantities, in this process, the new situations and problems need to be described and explained accurately using these new methods. Based on its own characteristics, various disciplines of economics make appropriate use of new methods and new achievements of modern mathematics and computer technology, which is of great significance for enhancing the accuracy of Economic Science.

A brief history of economic development

As an independent science, economics is formed in the process of the emergence and development of capitalism. Before the emergence of the capitalist society, some economic thoughts were formed on some economic phenomena and economic problems at that time, but they did not form a system.

Among nations and countries that have a long history and civilization, the historical documents stored in China, Ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and the Medieval Western Europe are the most abundant. They are two independent cultural systems that have made significant contributions to economic thinking.

Economic Thoughts in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and Western Europe in the Middle Ages

Among the major contributions made by ancient Greece in terms of economic thoughts, there are the "Economic Theory" of Sino, Plato's theory of social division of labor, and Aristotle's theory on Commodity Exchange and currency.

Sinofen's economic theory discusses how the slaves manage family farms and how to increase the wealth with practical value. Sinofen attaches great importance to agriculture and regards agriculture as the best job for the Greek free people. This has an impact on the ancient city's economic thoughts and the subsequent French Agricultural School.

Plato examines the necessity of social division of labor from the perspectives of human nature, the principles of national organizations, and the production of value, the division of labor is a natural phenomenon necessary for human nature and economic life. This analysis is based on the ancient Chinese Theory of "separation of the four peoples" and the theory that Mencius's farming and industry, labor, and labor are "Easy-to-use, complement the problem with envy, it is basically consistent.

Aristotle pointed out in political science and ethics that each item has two purposes: one is for direct use, and the other is for exchange with other items, in addition, it illustrates the historical development of commodity exchange and the function of currency as the exchange media, and points out that currency plays an equivalent role in all commodities, thus becoming the earliest scholar to analyze the value form and currency nature of commodities.

Ancient Rome's economic thoughts are partly seen in the works of several famous thinkers, such as the big Galu and Varo. The contribution of ancient Rome to economic thought mainly refers to the thoughts on property, contract and natural law in the Roman law.

In ancient Rome, there were twelve bronze watches, followed by civil laws applicable to Roman citizens in the Empire period-civil law, and universal law applicable to people of all ethnic groups in the Empire. In these laws, there are clear interpretations of property rights, contractual relationships and the relationships between sales, lending, and debt. The universal principles and natural rationality on which the universal law is based will gradually form the idea of natural law and become an important source of the idea of natural law and natural order at the beginning of capitalism.

Although Western Europe had been in the Middle Ages for thousands of years, the feudal system was truly established in the eleventh century. In the Middle Ages, Academic Thoughts monopolized by the Church and formed the so-called School of Economics.

The school of economics mainly uses the philosophical form of Religious Theology for demonstration, but it also contains some economic thoughts to demonstrate whether certain economic relations or behaviors are legal or fair. Later, due to the development of the commodity economy and the rise of the city, the Church had to answer two important questions in the society at that time: first, the legitimacy of loan interest, and first, the fairness of the exchange price.

Loan Interest receiving conflicts with the doctrine, and the church has repeatedly banned it. However, due to the fact that a large number of popular loans were used to receive interest, the School of Economics had to reconcile the situation.

In the Middle Ages, the great Albert discussed the fair price earlier. He believed that the fair price was equal to the cost, and the market price should not be lower than the cost for a long time. These two questions did not form a persuasive point of view in the Middle Ages, but they proposed research topics for future economists.

Economic Thoughts in Ancient China

Because China's feudal society's economic and political systems have their own characteristics. Compared with the economic thoughts of ancient Western countries, in addition to attaching importance to agricultural production and social division of labor, it also has its own characteristics. In this regard, there are mainly the ideology of "tao nature", the idea of righteousness and profit, the idea of rich countries, the idea of taxation, the idea of parity, and the idea of luxury.

Taoism is naturally the Economic Thought of Taoism. Starting from the natural philosophy, Taoism advocates that economic activities should follow the laws of nature to operate, advocates quiet and inaction, and "little country and widowed people", and oppose the ritual system promoted by Confucianism and the criminal politics advocated by the legalists at that time. The economic ideology of Taoism was later introduced to Western Europe ~ The popular natural law and natural order ideas in Western Europe in the 18th century have some influences.

The idea of interest is a theory about the relationship between people's interest-seeking activities and moral norms. "Profit" mainly refers to material interests, and "righteousness" refers to the moral norms that people should follow in their actions. Being a rigid dogma that binds people's thoughts for a long time and hinders people's exploration and demonstration of the issues of seeking profit and wealth, it also affects the development of the commodity economy in China to a certain extent.

Ancient Chinese thinkers put forward various opinions or policies in order to establish a strong and prosperous country with centralized power. Confucius's students put forward the idea of "The people are full, the gentleman and the deficiency". This is the rich-country thought in the early days of Confucianism. In the future, Shang Yang proposed the policy of enriching the nation and strengthening the troops and "putting the root of the suppression of the end. Shang Yang and Han Fei later believed that agriculture is the foundation of clothing and food, the source of soldiers, and the only way for the country to develop agricultural production. At the same time, they think that industry and commerce are the end of the industry, and it is easy to make profits. without restrictions, it will make everyone avoid farming and endanger agricultural production. Therefore, they advocate "Ban the end ". Rich countries have a unique position in China's political and economic thought history, which is closely related to China's long-term centralized feudal authority.

Tax collection on land is the main distribution form of agricultural products in China's feudal society, and is one of the problems that Chinese thinkers often discuss. Since the demise of the "public field" System in the Western Zhou Dynasty, tax is levied on agricultural production based on all farmland. Therefore, ancient Chinese scriptures and historical documents, such as Shang Shu, Zhou Li, and Mandarin, often discuss the classification of field and tribute.

The concept of parity is the idea of price stability. In the Warring States Period, Li Yu and fan Yu proposed the national "flat" and "flat" policies to sell grain in the year of failure because the ups and downs of grain prices are not good for farmers and industrial and commercial enterprises, make the grain price fluctuate within a certain range. This idea is also applied to the National Grain Storage System and the public warehouse system for relief of the poor.

In ancient times, the luxury or thrift of Wang Gong's aristocratic life was related to the shortage or abundance of financial resources and the complicated and simple taxation. Therefore, we should advocate "luxury" or "luxury" for consumption ", this is also a problem that ancient Chinese thinkers often discuss. In general, deprecated extravagance and worship is the dominant economic ideology of China during the feudal period.

However, in China's long feudal society, there have also been some opposite ideas. For example, in the book "", the article "" discusses the extravagance and extravagance expenses of Fu Yi's clothing and food, palace rooms, and tombs, which can enable women workers, Taigong, bricklayer, and farmers to have jobs to do. That is to say, it is conducive to the employment and life of the poor, and can also make the business active. At that time, this was indeed an extraordinary point of view. It examined the consumption issue from the perspectives of economic activities and put forward outstanding insights on consumption's reaction to production.

In addition to the preceding economic thoughts, ancient Chinese thinkers also have other economic views, such as desire, utilitarian, financial management, farming, enriching the people, and population, as well as the thought of making the best of others. In general, ancient Chinese economic thoughts mostly serve the purpose of maintaining a centralized feudal authoritarian regime, however, some ideas are proposed to expand commodity production and exchange and develop social productive forces.

Development and Evolution of bourgeois economics

With the emergence and development of the capitalist production mode, bourgeois economics is gradually formed in Western European countries.

16 ~ The 17th century is the initial accumulation period of capital in Western Europe. The rise and development of commercial capital during this period prompted the collapse of the feudal natural economy, the unification of the domestic market, and accumulated a large amount of money through the looting of colonies and the expansion of foreign trade, promoted the development of the workshop handicraft industry, and produced the idea of heavy commerce that represents the interests and requirements of commercial capital.

Heavy business originally refers to the policy adopted by the country to obtain monetary wealth. After the end of the 16th century, many books were published in Britain and France to promote the idea of heavy commerce. Heavy businessmen pay attention to the accumulation of Gold and Silver currencies, and regard gold and silver as the only form of wealth. They hold that foreign trade is the true source of wealth. Only through the development of wealth can they acquire more gold and silver wealth. Therefore, we advocate developing foreign trade with the support of the country.

After the middle of the 17th century of classical economics, first in the UK, then in France, the handicraft industry gradually developed into the main form of industrial production, and the heavy commerce has not adapted to the growing interests and requirements of industrial capital. The task facing the asset class is to fight against the feudal forces. This struggle requires theoretical explanation of how the capitalist production mode enables rapid growth of wealth and explores the laws of wealth production and distribution, demonstrate the superiority of capitalist production. As a result, there is a classical economics from the circulation process to the production process.

The pioneers of classical economics are Britain's pattern and France's bouargiber. The main contribution of the configuration item is to put forward some basic points of labor theory of value, and on this basis, we preliminarily examine the categories of wages, rent, and interest. Buargibel believes that the circulation process does not create wealth. Only agriculture and animal husbandry are the source of wealth.

Appeared in the 18th Century ~ In the early 1970s S, the French re-Agricultural School theory, represented mainly by kuinai and duelgo, was the first systematic understanding of capitalist production. They proposed the concept of natural order, summarized capitalism with agriculture operated by capitalism, and analyzed the circulation and reproduction of capital with production and operation activities.

Smith is an outstanding representative of British classical economics and the creator of the theoretical system. His book on wealth of China develops bourgeois economics into a complete system. He criticized the bad idea that heavy businessmen only regard foreign trade as the source of wealth and transferred Economic Research from the circulation field to the production field.

He overcame the one-sided view that only agriculture creates wealth and pointed out that all material production sectors create wealth. He analyzed the growth conditions of national wealth and the reasons for promoting or hindering the growth of national wealth, and analyzed the market mechanism of free competition, seeing it as an "invisible hand" dominated social and economic activities, he opposed the intervention of the state in economic life and proposed the principle of laissez-faire.

Mr. Li is the creator of British classical economics. In 1817, he proposed a rigorous theoretical system centered on the Theory of Labor Value and distribution. He stressed that the main task of economics is to clarify the law of distribution of wealth among different classes in society. He believes that all values are produced by labor, and wages are determined by the value of necessary living materials of workers, the profit is the balance above the salary, and the rent is the balance above the salary and profit. As a result, he clarified the opposition between wages and profits, and the opposition between wages, profits and land rent. In addition, Mr. Li also discussed the rule of currency circulation and the comparison cost of foreign trade. Classical Economics reached its peak in the Age of Li Ka-tu, which had a profound impact on the development of economics.

Classical Economics originated from the rising development of Western European capitalism. Under such conditions, classical economics can also objectively explore the internal links and contradictions of the capitalist production methods, therefore, it has certain scientific components. The main contribution of classical economics students is to lay the foundation of labor value theory, which has become an important source of Marx's economic theory. However, due to class and historical limitations, their theory inevitably includes some vulgar factors.

In the first half of the 19th century, the development of German capitalism lags far behind the British and French. Under this special historical condition, the German Historical School emerged as the pioneer of nationalism.

The Historical School is divided into two stages: the old historical School and the new historical school. The old history School, founded by rosselle, was held in the 19th century ~ May 1970s. They opposed traditional English-French economics before the middle of the 19th century, abstract traditional economics by historical induction, historical opposition to theories, the objective existence of economic laws, and nationalism against nationalism; cultivate productive forces against the pursuit of value exchange; interfere with the economy with the state to oppose laissez-faire.

With the rapid development of German capitalism in 1870s and the vigorous rise of the workers' movement, there emerged a new historical school, represented mainly by schmuller, Wagner, and Brentano. On the basis of these basic points of view, the "Socio-Economic Policy" proposed by the author is called the "Forum socialist ".

The marginal utility school was a vulgar school that appeared in Western Europe in the early 1870s S. It formed two tribes in the course of its development by advocating Marginal Utility Value and marginal analysis: 1. Psychology School based on psychological analysis, which is mainly represented by monger, visell, and palm barvik in Austria; 1. Mathematical School Based on mathematics or Lausanne School, the main representatives include Jenkins in the UK, Vallas in France, and parreto.

Clarke, the main representative of the Marginal Utility School in the United States, proposed the marginal productivity distribution theory based on the marginal utility theory. Contemporary Economists refer to the emergence of marginal utility value theory as the "Marginal Revolution", that is, the revolution of classical economics. The marginal analysis method used by this school became an important foundation for the development of bourgeois economics.

The main representative of neo-classical economics is Marshall from the University of Cambridge. In his book "Principles of Economics" published in 1890, he inherited the tradition of British vulgar economics since the 19th century, integrating Supply and Demand Theory, production Expense Theory, marginal utility theory, and marginal productivity theory by means of compromise, A fairly complete economic system centered on "balanced price theory" on the premise of full competition is established. This is the second overall reconciliation and synthesis of the vulgar economic viewpoint after mill.

Marshall replaced the value theory with the balanced price theory, and established the distribution theory of the share of production factors in the national income based on the core theory. He praised free competition and advocated laissez-faire. He believed that the capitalist system could achieve a balance of full employment through automatic adjustment of the market mechanism. From the end of the 19th century to 1930s, neo-classical economics has been regarded as a model by the western economic circles.

Institutional School is a variant of the historical school that emerged in the United States at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Its main representatives include fan Bolun, commonz, and Mitchell. They embodied the methods of the historical school as the study of institutional evolution, denied the significance of economic theory, emerged in a critical fashion of capitalism, and advocated the policy of reform.

In addition, in Northern Europe, the Swedish school represented by sel proposed a different theoretical system than Marshall, emphasized the balance between investment and savings, and proposed its own interest theory, in this period, bourgeois economics holds a special position.

Contemporary Capitalism Economics

This mainly refers to the bourgeois economics from the so-called "Cairns revolution" to today.

After the emergence of an unprecedented global economic crisis in 1929, the capitalist economy was in a state of long-term depression and serious unemployment. Economics: The capitalist society can use the automatic market adjustment mechanism to achieve the full employment of the traditional preaching of complete bankruptcy, monopoly of the asset class urgently needs a set of "treatment" unemployment and crisis, to strengthen monopoly capital governance. Just to meet this need, Cairns published the book employment, interest and Currency Theory in 1936.

The appearance of the general theory has aroused the vibration of the western economic circles. It is said that economics has undergone a "Cairns revolution ". Cairns criticized some of the ideas of the Say Law and The New Classical Economics that "supply creates their own needs", analyzed the total amount of the capitalist economy, and put forward the theory that the effective demand determines the amount of employment.

Effective demand includes consumption demand and investment demand. It is mainly determined by three basic psychological factors: consumption tendency, income expectation, flow preference and money supply. He believes that unemployment and depression exist in modern capitalism because of these factors. Accordingly, he proposed to strengthen national intervention in the economy, adopt fiscal and financial policies, increase public expenditure, and reduce interest rates to stimulate investment and consumption, so as to increase effective demand and achieve full employment.

After the Second World War, the Cairns doctrine, based on the theory of Cairns, not only became a dominant genre of contemporary bourgeois economics, it also has a significant impact on the economic policies of major capitalist countries.

The development of state monopoly capitalism and the 20th century after the Second World War of new economic liberalism ~ The relatively stable economic growth in 1960s has contributed to the prevalence of kenenism. However, with the intensification of the inherent contradictions of monopoly capitalism, the intervention of the state economy has continuously caused a series of new problems, especially the "Stagflation" situation where economic stagnation and inflation coexist since 1970s, the Theory and Policy of kensnism are in trouble and are challenged by various new economic liberal schools.

New economic liberalism of various colors have their own arguments and arguments. However, they share the same stance against national intervention in the economy and advocate the automatic adjustment function of restoring and strengthening the free-market mechanism.

With the development of modern economy, the problems faced by bourgeois economists are becoming more and more complex, and the scope of research is becoming more and more extensive. Different schools, for the purpose of maintaining the existence of the capitalist system and its effective operation, both have consistency and difference. They both research the same subject in different ways, they focus on different economic fields. Therefore, there are not only theoretical debates, but also a wide range of "Economic Disciplines ".

Marxist Theory of Economics

The main content of Marx's and Engels's economic theories is to study the laws of the generation, development, and destruction of the capitalist economic system. Starting from the analysis of commodities, Marx analyzed the capitalist production methods and criticized and inherited and developed the labor value theory established by the classical economics school of the asset class, it is pointed out that the dual nature of the use value and value of goods is determined by the dual nature of labor in the production of goods.

Surplus value is the cornerstone of Marxist political economics. Marx divided total social production into two major categories: Production of production materials and production of consumption materials, and decomposed the value of each category of products into immutable capital, variable capital and residual value. Marx also examined various forms of capital and the specific forms of surplus value.

Categories of Economics

With the development of the commodity economy and the deepening of the social division of labor, the content of human economic activities is becoming more and more complex and rich, and the degree of specialization is becoming more and more detailed. At the same time, the relationship between various economic activities, economic activities, and other social activities is becoming closer and closer.

To adapt to this situation, the research scope of economics is also expanding. On the one hand, from theoretical economics with a high degree of generalization, the branch disciplines of applied and independent department economics and professional economics are continuously divided; on the other hand, there have also been interdisciplinary disciplines within the economic discipline, as well as marginal disciplines connecting the economic discipline with other social sciences and even natural sciences.

At the same time, with the deepening of economic research, the requirements for analysis accuracy are getting higher and higher, and there is a discipline for studying the number of economic analysis and measurement methods. In order to sum up historical experience, it provides a systematic historical basis for theoretical research and policy formulation, and various economic history disciplines have emerged. In this way, a huge economic discipline system with a wide range of branches is gradually formed in social science.

The subject categories of modern economics can be divided into the following categories:

Theoretical economics discusses the basic concepts and principles of economics, as well as the general laws of economic operation and development, and provides basic theories for various economic disciplines. Theoretical economics is generally referred to as general economic theory. It is divided into two branches: macro-economics and micro-economics.

Macro-economics takes the whole national economy as its vision and takes the total process of economic activities as its object to investigate the decision and fluctuation of the total amount of income and price. Among them, the theory of economic growth and the theory of economic fluctuations (Economic Cycle) are two independent branches of macroeconomic.

Micro-economics studies the economic behavior of a single economic unit (producer) and consumer (resident) in the market economy, including the theory of balance between supply and demand, and the theory of consumer behavior, in different market types, vendor cost analysis and output, Price Decision Theory, and production factor income decision are distribution theory.

The history of economic development is a discipline that studies the specific process and special laws of economic activities and the evolution of economic relations in various historical periods of human society and different countries or regions. It provides a basis for summing up historical experience and social and economic development trends in the future, and also provides a historical background for studying economic thoughts, theories, and policies formed in various historical periods.

Economic history is divided by region, including country-specific economic history (such as Chinese Economic History and British Economic History), Regional Economic History (such as European Economic History and Latin American Economic History), and World Economic History (taking the world as the whole, studies the formation and development of the world economy); by department or major, there are agricultural development history, industrial development history, banking development history, etc.; by historical stages, there are ancient economic history, modern economic history, and modern economic history. The research on the current situation and development trend of the world economy is actually within the scope of modern economic history. Economic history, like theoretical economics, is influenced by the class stance, viewpoint, and method of researchers.

The history of economic thoughts is also called the history of economic theories. It studies the Economic Views, economic thoughts, economic theories, the economic and political backgrounds, the influences, and historical roles that emerged in various historical periods, as well as the inheritance, replacement, and confrontation between various figures and schools.

The analysis and measurement methods of economic quantity include mathematical economics, economic mathematics, economic statistics, and economic metrology.

Economists pay more attention to the analysis of the quantitative relationship between various economic phenomena. Since 1870s, some economists have applied mathematical derivation of economic theory to establish mathematical economics. After the Second World War, mathematical economics was further developed. modern mathematical methods were widely used to establish various static, dynamic, and microscopic macroeconomic models. One branch associated with it is economic mathematics, which focuses on the various mathematical methods used in modern economic analysis. This is actually within the scope of applied mathematics.

Applied Economics mainly refers to the application of the basic principles of theoretical economics to study the regularity of economic activities and economic relations in various sectors and fields of the national economy, or an economic discipline established by analyzing the economic and social benefits of non-economic activities. Application economics can be divided:

Subjects that take the economic activities of individual sectors of the national economy as research objects, such as agricultural economics, architectural economics, transportation economics, and commercial economics;

Subjects involving various sectors of the national economy with a certain degree of comprehensive professional economic activities, such as planning economics, labor economics, finance, currency, banking, and so on;

Subjects subject to regional economic activities, such as urban economics, rural economics, Regional Economics (Economic Regional Planning, productivity distribution), etc;

Subjects that take international economic activities as research objects, such as international economics and its branches: international trade, international finance, and international investment;

Subjects that take enterprise management activities as research objects, such as enterprise management, enterprise finance, accounting, and marketing;

Marginal economic disciplines that are cross-linked with non-economic disciplines, such as demographic economics that is cross-border with demographic; educational economics that is cross-border with pedagogy; Economic Law that is cross-border with law; ecological Economics or environmental economics that is different from ecology; social economics that is different from sociology; Economic Geography, land economics, and Resource Economics that are different from natural geography.

These marginal economics disciplines mainly study the economic meanings, economic benefits, and social benefits of the development and changes in these non-economic fields, and find out their regularity.

The branches of Applied Economics are constantly expanding and enriching to meet the needs of social and economic development. The development of Applied Economics is inseparable from socio-economic practices and from the guidance of theoretical economics. However, their development in turn enriches the content of theoretical economics and plays a guiding role in practice.

The position of Economics in Social Science

 

 

Social science is a general term for studying the theories and history of various social activities and social relations of mankind. Economic activities are the material basis of all other activities, and economic relations are also the material basis of all other social relations. Therefore, in addition to philosophy, economics, especially the political economy that serves as the theory of economics, has become the basic science in Social Science and the ideological weapon that people must master before understanding society and transforming society.

Economics should be linked with upper-level buildings such as national systems and laws to study various economic activities and economic relations; political science and law should be linked with economic activities and economic relations to be maintained, to study various national systems and various laws. This relationship also applies to economics and other social science disciplines.

Economics is closely related to sociology and psychology. The relationship between economic activities and economic activities is the foundation of a social structure. Both production activities and consumption behaviors have certain psychological motives and are influenced by behavioral habits. However, people's psychological and behavioral states are often based on economic interests.

 

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