definition of political economy

Political economy is a branch of economics that focuses on the study the development of social relations inherent to production, the laws that govern it, the distribution of wealth, exchange and the consumption of goods in the community, in each of the stages corresponding to development.

Branch of economics, interdisciplinary, which studies the development of the social relations involved in the production process and the laws that govern it

It is an interdisciplinary branch, that is, it interacts and collaborates with other disciplines, and as a consequence that it addresses sociological and political elements it becomes broader than a simply economic analysis.

It is elevated to the character of historical science because it addresses the conditions and reasons for the origin, evolution, and change that take place in the social forms of production.

How political ups and downs impact positively or negatively

The economic-political power relationship and how its ups and downs directly impact the economy of a given place, for better or for worse, of course, it is your center of interest and analysis.

Thus, during the eighteenth century and until the end of the nineteenth, the concept of political economy was used to refer to what was understood as economics at that time, with special emphasis on the normative part.

Now, today when we talk about political economy it is understood that we are referring to that part of the social sciences that deals with studying the relationships between society, markets, the state and people, specifically, the administration from the state is studied considering the economic, sociological and political components.

As a consequence that political economy touches the economic interests of people and politics is that there is no single political economy.

Society is divided into various social classes, many of them antagonistic, and thus it is impossible for there to be a single political economy for all the classes there are: upper class, bourgeoisie, proletariat.

The relations of production that exist between men are generated in the process of production of material goods and political economy deals with studying and determining the laws that occupy the first place in the development of these relations, which are also directly related. association with the forces of production, which, together with the relations of production, make up the mode of production of a social economic unit.

The concept of political economy has been used in western culture since the XVII century, although, with some differences with respect to the use that we attribute to it today.

Evolution of the concept

In the aforementioned beginnings, it was used when addressing the issue of production relations that were established between the most important social classes of that time: bourgeois, proletarians and landowners.

On the sidewalk in front of what the Physiocracy, current that ensured the satisfactory functioning of the economy if there is no state intervention, political economy promoted the value-work theory, as the origin of any wealth, work being precisely the real cause of value.

By the nineteenth century, the concept exposed in the previous paragraph began to become obsolete, especially by those who did not want to offer a class position in society, and for example, the concept of simply economy began to be sustained, which brought with it a more mathematical vision.

Meanwhile, today, the concept that concerns us is rather used when referring to those multidisciplinary works that include sciences such as sociology, politics, law and communication, among others and that attempt to explain how political contexts, environments and institutions affect the behavior of economic markets.

The economic schools of political economy differ according to the paradigm they hold, on the one hand the distribution paradigm, such is the case of liberalism, socialism, anarchism, communism and conservatism, because they focus their interest on how the costs and social benefits and the costs and capital gains have to be distributed.

While those that follow the production paradigm, between them: communitarianism, individualism and collectivism, are interested in the principles on which society will lean when determining what to produce and how to do it.