Communism Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===== Critique of political economy ===== {{main|Critique of political economy}} Critique of [[political economy]] is a form of [[social critique]] that rejects the various social categories and structures that constitute the mainstream discourse concerning the forms and modalities of resource allocation and income distribution in the economy. Communists, such as Marx and Engels, are described as prominent critics of political economy.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Murray |first=Patrick |date=March 2020 |title=The Illusion of the Economic: Social Theory without Social Forms |journal=[[Critical Historical Studies]] |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=19–27 |doi=10.1086/708005 |issn=2326-4462 |quote='There are no counterparts to Marx's economic concepts in either classical or utility theory.' I take this to mean that Marx breaks with economics, where economics is understood to be a generally applicable social science. |s2cid=219746578}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Liedman |first=Sven-Eric |date=December 2020 |title=Engelsismen |url=https://fronesis.nu/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FR02808.pdf |journal=[[Fronesis (magazine)|Fronesis]] |language=sv |page=134 |quote=Engels var också först med att kritiskt bearbeta den nya nationalekonomin; hans 'Utkast till en kritik av nationalekonomin' kom ut 1844 och blev en utgångspunkt för Marx egen kritik av den politiska ekonomin |number=28 |trans-quote=Engels was the first to critically engage the new political economy his 'Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy' came out in 1844 and became a starting point for Marx's own critique of political economy.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=István |last=Mészáros |date=2010 |others=transcribed by Conttren, V. (2022) |chapter=The Critique of Political Economy |title=Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness |volume=1 |location=New York |publisher=[[Monthly Review Press]] |pages=317–331 |chapter-url=https://osf.io/65mxd/ |doi=10.17605/OSF.IO/65MXD}}</ref> The critique rejects economists' use of what its advocates believe are unrealistic [[axiom]]s, faulty historical assumptions, and the normative use of various descriptive narratives.<ref>{{cite book |last=Henderson |first=Willie |title=John Ruskin's political economy |date=2000 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=0-203-15946-2 |location=London |oclc=48139638 |quote=... Ruskin attempted a methodological/scientific critique of political economy. He fixed on ideas of 'natural laws', 'economic man' and the prevailing notion of 'value' to point out gaps and inconsistencies in the system of classical economics.}}</ref> They reject what they describe as mainstream economists' tendency to posit the economy as an ''[[a priori]]'' societal category.<ref name="Reading Capital">{{cite book |last1=Louis |first1=Althusser |url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1968/reading-capital/ch02.htm |title=Reading Capital |last2=Balibar |first2=Etienne |publisher=[[Verso Editions]] |year=1979 |pages=158 |oclc=216233458 |quote='To criticize Political Economy' means to confront it with a new problematic and a new object: i.e., to question the very object of Political Economy}}</ref> Those who engage in critique of economy tend to reject the view that the economy and its categories is to be understood as something [[transhistorical]].<ref>{{Citation |last1=Fareld |first1=Victoria |title=From Marx to Hegel and Back |date=2020 |page=142,182 |publisher=[[Bloomsbury Academic]] |doi=10.5040/9781350082700.ch-001 |isbn=978-1-3500-8267-0 |last2=Kuch |first2=Hannes |s2cid=213805975}}</ref>{{sfn|Postone|1995|pages=44,192–216}} It is seen as merely one of many types of historically specific ways to distribute resources. They argue that it is a relatively new mode of resource distribution, which emerged along with modernity.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Mortensen |title=Ekonomi |journal=Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap |language=sv |volume=3 |number=4 |pages=9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Moishe |last=Postone |title=Time, labor, and social domination: a reinterpretation of Marx's critical theory |year=1995 |isbn=0-521-56540-5 |pages=130, 5 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |oclc=910250140}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Jönsson |first=Dan |title=John Ruskin: En brittisk 1800-talsaristokrat för vår tid? - OBS |date=7 February 2019 |url=https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1244376 |url-status=live |access-date=24 September 2021 |publisher=[[Sveriges Radio]] |language=sv |quote=Den klassiska nationalekonomin, som den utarbetats av John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith och David Ricardo, betraktade han som en sorts kollektivt hjärnsläpp ... |trans-quote=The classical political economy as it was developed by John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith, and David Ricardo, as a kind of 'collective mental lapse' ... |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200305082621/https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1244376 |archive-date=5 March 2020}}</ref> Critics of economy critique the given status of the economy itself, and do not aim to create theories regarding how to administer economies.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ramsay |first=Anders |date=21 December 2009 |title=Marx? Which Marx? Marx's work and its history of reception |url=https://www.eurozine.com/marx-which-marx/ |url-status=live |access-date=16 September 2021 |website=[[Eurozine]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180212144158/http://www.eurozine.com/marx-which-marx/ |archive-date=12 February 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Ruccio |first=David |date=10 December 2020 |title=Toward a critique of political economy |website=MR Online |url=https://mronline.org/2020/12/10/toward-a-critique-of-political-economy/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201215173028/https://mronline.org/2020/12/10/toward-a-critique-of-political-economy/ |archive-date=15 December 2020 |access-date=20 September 2021 |quote=Marx arrives at conclusions and formulates new terms that run directly counter to those of Smith, Ricardo, and the other classical political economists.}}</ref> Critics of economy commonly view what is most commonly referred to as the economy as being bundles of [[metaphysical]] concepts, as well as societal and normative practices, rather than being the result of any self-evident or proclaimed economic laws.<ref name="Reading Capital"/> They also tend to consider the views which are commonplace within the field of economics as faulty, or simply as [[pseudoscience]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Murray |first=Patrick |date=March 2020 |title=The Illusion of the Economic: Social Theory without Social Forms |journal=[[Critical Historical Studies]] |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=19–27 |doi=10.1086/708005 |issn=2326-4462 |s2cid=219746578}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Patterson |first1=Orlando |last2=Fosse |first2=Ethan |title=Overreliance on the Pseudo-Science of Economics |url=https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/09/are-economists-overrated/overreliance-on-the-pseudo-science-of-economics |url-status=live |work=[[The New York Times]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150209225723/http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/02/09/are-economists-overrated/overreliance-on-the-pseudo-science-of-economics |archive-date=9 February 2015 |access-date=13 January 2023}}</ref> Into the 21st century, there are multiple critiques of political economy; what they have in common is the critique of what critics of political economy tend to view as [[dogma]], i.e. claims of the economy as a necessary and transhistorical societal category.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ruda |first1=Frank |last2=Hamza |first2=Agon |date=2016 |title=Introduction: Critique of Political Economy |url=http://crisiscritique.org/political11/Introduction-2.pdf |journal=[[Crisis and Critique]] |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=5–7 |access-date=13 January 2023 |archive-date=16 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211116135722/http://crisiscritique.org/political11/Introduction-2.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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