The political economy is a branch of the Economic scenes. The term appears for the first time in 1615 in the Traicté of the political œconomy , by Antoine de Montchrestien, and then indicates the science of the production and the distribution of the richnesses on a country scale.

Currently, this term more particularly indicates the theoretical study of the latitudes and means of action of Economic policy of the territorial collectivities, in particular the State S, with an aim of directing the Economic conjuncture and the Economic development, and of the result of these actions. There remains also used to indicate the economic discipline as a whole.

History of the political economy

detailed article : History of the economic thinking

The Mercantilisme, which dominates the economic thinking between XVIe century and the middle of the XVIIIe century, precedes the restricted modern direction of the " term; economy politique" while being interested only in the richness of the Prince.

Then, following Pierre de Boisguilbert and Richard Cantillon, François Quesnay founds the school of the Physiocrates, which profess that the richness of a nation consists of the richness of all its inhabitants. By studying the formation of this richness, the Physiocrats conclude that the capacity of State must intervene as little as possible in the economic life, thus creating the liberal tradition which will dominate the economic thinking until the end of the XIXe century. Their answer to the question of the economic policy of the States is in substance which they should not have. They thus join the liberal tradition of political Philosophie inaugurated by John Locke and continued in particular by Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850).

The topic of the intervention of the State is given to the honor mainly by Karl Marx, which made its theories of the crises generalized of overproduction the departure and the result on the general crisis of the capitalist system in political economy, and its solution suggested is the capital of State in the Nationalization of the means of production.

John Maynard Keynes made political economy with Franklin Delano Roosevelt while making pass the economy of the United States of “wild capitalism” to “controlled capitalism” by the intervention of the State controller, as well in the English significance “to order” as in the French significance “to supervise”. It is a harnessed private capitalism of the New Deal .

Theoretical approaches

Anthropological aspect

With simplest for the complexity of the field to connections and influences multiple and shortest for a long story since the hunters-gatherers until the English industrial revolution of fire and iron, the political economy is on the level and the general information of the Anthropologie (social science) where the economy is still the art of administration ( Nomos ) of its household ( Oikos ) without ceasing being an art of living with its close relations and his environment.

From this point of view, the economy is indissolubly related to the ecology which is the knowledge ( Logos ) of its field in the old companies of the safeguarding of the vital resources. Of an anthropological nature, the écopolitique one is spread in the cultural center of the Noosphère, of the man of Marx of the fights and the man of Confucius of the industrial harmony at the base of a Asian political economy.

The écopolitique one of the Théorie of the contexts of Anthony Wilden is a criticism, in epistemology or Philosophie of sciences, defects of the Western thought which led to the economic disasters and the ecological catastrophes.

In an comprehensive approach, the political economy is a characteristic in the general information of political philosophy. This way, the political economy is under the cover of the Droit and the Politologie. Then, anthropology clarifies and makes understandable the various types of political economy, each standard being immersed in a singular culture at one particular time. The political economy is often heard like a Macroéconomie of State of the national accounting, in contrast with the Microéconomie of company. The first relates to the national management of a State and the second refers to the administration of a company inside a State.

Having access to works of Keynes before they were translated into French, Pierre Mendès France launched the “mendesism” in its policy of economic recovery of France on the diagram keynésien. The continuity and the progression of this diagram keynésien are at John Kenneth Galbraith with the book of reference the new industrial State left exactly a century after the Capital Marx. the Welfare state of the social security extended to all and the “technostructures” are ideas of Galbraith, in contrast with the economic “infrastructures” and cultural “superstructures” of Marx.

With a “Welfare state” and the “technostructures” of John Kenneth Galbraith, the human being starts to take the primacy on the material. This primacy of the man in the Sociosphère is the starting point and the point of arrival of this “Asian political economy” whose anglophonia has already a complete and major knowledge with the “tigers” of Asia.

Development of the concepts

In economy, the political expression economy has two distinct directions:

1. the political economy (in English Political economy ) can indicate a branch of the economic scene which describes and analyzes the economic activity compared to the political data, while trying to explain operation and to find the laws which govern the economic activity compared to the action of the public authorities. See Economic policy.

2. the political economy (in Public English choice ) also indicates the branch of the economic scene which applies to a political system given the tools of the economic analysis in order to explain the choice of the public policies according to the preferences of the agents and the clean objectives of the leaders. See Theory of the public choice.

“It is into 1615 that the political Economy received for the first time the name under which she is known today, in a French book, the Traicté of Œconomie Politique , by Antoine de Montchrétien. ” (Charles Gide, Principles of political economy , 1931)

In the direction analyzes economic public choices , the political economy is born as of Adam Smith with his work the Richness from the Nations , in which it develops implicitly the concept of public property, goods for which the intervention of the State proves to be necessary. However, the economic analysis of the public choices appears truly in the years 1930 with in particular work of Paul Samuelson on the collective goods and the function of social wellbeing. Samuelson is the first to distinguish the pure collective goods from the mixed collective goods (in the latter, the exclusion of the " free-riders" is easy). From the different point of view, Ronald Coase off contributes a major share with its article The Problem Social Cost (1960) where it puts forward the idea that the intervention of the State is justifiable in the event of existence of costs of transaction (see Théorème of Coase).

From the point of view raising as much of the economy that political philosophy , mention must be made work of John Harsanyi and of John Rawls. First a utilitarian approach of the public action developed. In the line of J. Bentham and Paul Samuelson, Harsanyi established a function of good social being from which it tries to define the criterion of distribution of income which would be adopted by rational and impartial individuals. On the other hand, the step of Rawls is known as contractualist and deontologic: starting from the fictitious situation of the veil of ignorance, Rawls shows which would be the criteria of justice adopted by rational individuals.

In the more restricted field of the analysis of the choice of the public agents and operation of the democratic regimes, it is necessary to note off the fundamental contribution of the economist Anthony Downs with his work An Economic Theory Democracy (1957) since it is about the first attempt at application systematic of the economic method of analysis to the political phenomena. Downs transposes to the political arena the unit of the tools of analysis of the economy: the politicians are regarded as contractors in competition to satisfy a request coming from the voters, the agents being supposed rational and maximisateurs and the unquestionable universe. In the same work, Downs will carry out an analysis of the strategies installation by the governments and the political parties. It shows in particular that, in a democratic regime, the government is not incited to adopt the optimal policies for several reasons (the configuration of the individual preferences and the existence of externality; uncertainty weighing on the preferences of the citizens and the effect of policies measurement; strategies of the government in order to maximize the number of votes in its favor).

Downs thus opened the way with very many work relating to the effectiveness of the democratic system. Accordingly, Kenneth Arrow shows through its theorem of impossiblity the incapacity of a democratic regime to make emerge stable and coherent choices. In the same line, and by adopting however assumptions much less restrictive, Amartya SEN will show the incompatiblity, in a democratic regime, between the effectiveness parétienne and individual freedom. In addition, the current of the Public Choice , also in the line of Downs, will study with the tools of the economic analysis the behaviors of the political agents.

Lastly, work of Mancur Olson ( the logic of the class action suit , 1971) must also be mentioned. This last will be interested in the part played by the lobbys in the decision-making processes public.

Conclusion

In the political economies, there are atrocious confusions between the great organizing diagrams of Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith, all Scot, and of Karl Marx and the small reforms inside these great organizing diagrams. In a " State providence" of Galbraith, citizens of California propesté against the omnipresence of the State to ensure the " wellbeing social" (Social Welfare) at the cost of the high taxes. It is the movement of the Public Choice or Théorie of the public choice inside the great organizing diagram of Galbraith of a " new state industriel" in Extreme-Occident of the United States and Canada. This last offers, at the cost raised taxes, a complete social coverage and " universelle" for all its citizens, whatever the social status, the civil statue and the socio-economic situation.

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