MEANING OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

INTRODUCTION

Political economy is the study of the role of economic processes in shaping society and history.  Nevertheless, most of the writings in political economy, including the work of Marx, have been concerned specifically with understanding the role of capitalism(as the prevalence of a specific class arrangement or set of class processes) in shaping society and history. Thus, political economy makes extensive and intensive use of class analysis in making sense of society and history, but does so in the context of political, cultural, and environmental processes, as well as other economic processes. 

In the architecture of this new form of political economy, all social processes are significant determinants of economic outcomes, the behavior of economic agents and institutions, and the direction of historical change.  In other words, the post-structuralist approach studied in this course rejects economic determinism in favor of a more open-minded approach to social causality and the creation of history (overdetermination).  For instance, unlike orthodox economic theory or economic determinist versions of Marxian theory, the post-structuralist approach would view cultural processes as no less significant than economic processes in shaping investment decisions.  The same could be said for political or environmental processes.  This point, among others, will be made by essays and papers read during the semester.

POLITICAL ECONOMY 

is the study of production and trade and their relations with law, custom and government; and with the distribution of national income and wealth. As a discipline, political economy originated in moral philosophy, in the 18th century, to explore the administration of states' wealth, with "political" signifying the Greek word polityand "economy" signifying the Greek word "okonomie" (household management). The earliest works of political economy are usually attributed to the British scholars Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo, although they were preceded by the work of the French physiocrats, such as François Quesnay (1694–1774) and Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727–1781).

In the late 19th century, the term "economics" gradually began to replace the term "political economy" with the rise of mathematical modelling coinciding with the publication of an influential textbook by Alfred Marshall in 1890.^[2] Earlier, William Stanley Jevons, a proponent of mathematical methods applied to the subject, advocated economics for brevity and with the hope of the term becoming "the recognised name of a science". Citation measurement metrics from Google Ngram Viewerindicate that use of the term "economics" began to overshadow "political economy" around roughly 1910, becoming the preferred term for the discipline by 1920. Today, the term "economics" usually refers to the narrow study of the economy absent other political and social considerations while the term "political economy" represents a distinct and competing approach.

CONCLUSION

The same could be said for political or environmental processes.  This point, among others, will be made by essays and papers read during the semester. However, it is important to note the distinction between the discipline of Political Economy as described above and a political economy approach which is applied by a variety of disciplines from different vantage points.

REFERENCE

                  Winch, Donald (1973). "The Emergence of Economics as a Science, 1750–1870." In: The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol. 3. London: Collins/Fontana.

                  Quadagno, Jill. “Aging and The Life Course: An Introduction to Social Gerontology / Edition 6.” Barnes & Noble, www.barnesandnoble.com/w/aging-and-the-life-course-jill-quadagno/1100262260.

                   Maggi, Giovanni, and Andrés Rodríguez-Clare (2007). "A Political-Economy Theory of Trade Agreements," American Economic Review, 97(4), pp. 1374-1406.

            Rausser, Gordon, Swinnen, Johan, and Zusman, Pinhas (2011). Political Power and Economic Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P.

·         O'Hara, Phillip Anthony, ed. (1999). Encyclopedia of Political Economy, 2 v. Routledge. 2003 review links.

                  Leroux, Robert (2011), Political Economy and Liberalism in France : The Contributions of Frédéric Bastiat, London, Routledge.

Pressman, Steven, Interactions in Political Economy: Malvern After Ten YearsRoutledge, 1996