IMan and property relations.
Entering into economic relations, a person throughout his life has the opportunity to experience all their diversity. In property relations, a person realizes the rights of possession, disposal, use. The scope of these rights depends on the form of ownership: common, private or mixed.
It should be emphasized that the influence of forms of ownership on the economic behavior of a person is not unambiguous. For example, private property, on the one hand, separates people and alienates them from labor, but, on the other hand, is a necessary condition for their economic self-sufficiency and independence. Common (or public) property, to a certain extent, helps to overcome sharp property and social inequality, according to economists, it does not create sufficient incentives for work and sustainable economic growth cannot.
The right to property is recognized as one of the natural and inalienable human rights.
IIMan and labor.
The most important economic role man - his participation in the labor process. The objective characteristics of human labor activity are productivity, efficiency and place in the system of social division of labor.
Its assessment is determined by the degree of compliance with the most important requirements imposed on it: the requirements of professionalism, labor, technological, contractual discipline, as well as executive and initiative.
In modern times, the character there is influenced by N.T.R.
IIIMan and business.
Entrepreneurial activity in modern conditions, it becomes one of the important forms of human participation in economic relations. Entrepreneurship or business is considered to be carried out on their own initiative, at their own risk and responsibility, independent, profit-oriented activities of people.
It makes special demands on a person: ingenuity, deep knowledge, willingness to take risks, firmness, the ability to make responsible decisions independently, and loyalty to the word. Non-compliance with these requirements turns an activity that outwardly resembles an entrepreneurial one - deceit and fraud.
IVMan - income and expenses.
Finally, a person is a participant in the relations of distribution and consumption.
Various forms of distribution of the product produced in society are known: wages, bank interest, land rent, dividends. Income inequality depends on the position of a person in property relations, the level of his education, qualifications, profession and other factors. Inevitable in conditions market economy the reserve in terms of the income of individuals and groups of the population in modern conditions is intended to compensate the state (social programs, benefits).
Entering into a relationship of consumption, a person acquires the necessary goods and services for the income received, satisfies the existing material and spiritual needs.
VRussia on the way of market economy.
The transition to a market economy in Russia began in October 1991. At the same time, the first program of radical economic reforms. Its main directions were: the transition to free pricing, the denationalization and privatization of state enterprises in industry, trade, and the service sector. With the help of these measures, the authors of the program expected, on the one hand, to weaken the existing economic crisis, to eliminate the deficit, and on the other hand, to create a new class in Russia - the class of owners.
The results of economic reforms are contradictory The most serious problem that the government had to face at the beginning of the reforms was the problem of the development of new system values and formation in citizens of the qualities necessary for an entrepreneur.
In addition, with the transition to free pricing led to a sharp decline in living standards. Depriving the population of accumulated Money led to certain consequences during privatization - the process of transfer state property into private hands.
Privatization can be carried out:
giveaway
lease with subsequent purchase
transformation of state enterprises into joint-stock companies
buyout of enterprises on a competitive basis.
The goal of privatization - the creation of a wide layer of private owners in the country - has not yet been achieved.
The following can be considered as a positive result of the ongoing reforms:
1) formation of market infrastructure. ( commercial banks, stock and commodity exchanges, auctions.)
2) there is a regulation of the legal system of a market economy.
3) a number of strategic tasks have been solved. (inflation stopped, financial stabilization achieved, etc.)
The main vector of development of the modern economy and society, which in recent years are increasingly referred to as the economy and knowledge society, is the movement of a person to the center economic system, growing attention to the human factor, the dominance of humanitarian goals and values in all spheres of social production. Researchers and experts note that the leading idea of socio-economic transformations is changes in the person himself, rethinking his place and role in the system of public institutions, the priority of his personal, professional, social development.
Research allows us to identify three main characteristics of the economy and the knowledge society, which scientists consider as determinants of their transformation and development.
Firstly, expansion of the sphere of intellectual labor, the emergence and growth of the value of the so-called knowledge workers (knowledge workers - the term was proposed by Peter Drucker in 1959), who are distinguished from all other workers by two important features:
Secondly, dominance of the service sector over the manufacturing sector, where knowledge is increasingly beginning to act as a market commodity.
Third, ubiquitous introduction of information and communication technologies, which significantly change the content and nature of labor.
The new economy requires new workers. At the same time, the cost of highly skilled labor is increasing, resulting in a steady trend: most of the cost (price) of the created product falls on labor costs and is paid to the employee in the form of wages. AT developed countries ah, its share reaches 80-85% of the cost of a newly created product. In the economic system, this indicates the predominant role of the human factor in relation to the material base of production.
In developed economies, present stage there is an active formation of the image of a “new employee” with the following main features:
At the same time, the development of the worker's personality, the formation of new properties and qualities in him is accompanied by the growth and elevation of his needs. At the same time, the nature and structure of needs are undergoing a significant transformation. Simple needs are replaced by complex ones, biological - social. Among the latter, there is also an ascent to their highest forms - the need for self-realization, self-affirmation, self-actualization.
The modern economic system is characterized by the fact that the traditional production of material goods, while remaining the basis of the economy of developed countries, ceases to be its central element. These qualitative changes also leave an imprint on the position of a person in the economic system. The formation of the economy and the knowledge society has clearly led to an understanding of the need to form and develop human capital.
Human capital is understood as a set of intellectual abilities, knowledge, professionally significant competencies, motivations and value systems obtained in the process of education and practical activities of a person.
According to E. G. Skibitsky and L. Yu. Tatarinova, in the most complete form, human capital is represented in the theories and concepts of the school of behavioral sciences, which focuses on the individual as a priority resource, on the interaction of individuals in the process of work. Specificity this resource is determined by its complex nature and personality ability:
The theory of human capital has been developed in the United States since the late 1950s. The impetus for this emergence was the work of the American scientist T. Schultz, who, in search of a source of labor productivity growth, singled out an unknown parameter as an independent factor, calling it a “residual factor”, and which was subsequently identified as the ability to work acquired and developed by a person.
The concept of "human capital" is considered in a narrow sense and a broad one. In a narrow sense, human capital is education, professional and life experience accumulated by a person. According to G. Becker, human capital is understood as a complex of such acquired and inherited qualities as education, knowledge gained in the workplace, health and many others. T. Schultz adhered to a similar point, noting that “education is one of the forms of human capital. It is human because it becomes part of a person, and it is capital because it is a source of future satisfactions or future earnings, or both. At the same time, this interpretation does not seem to be comprehensive enough: firstly, human capital is a multifaceted phenomenon and cannot be reduced only to education, and secondly, it is necessary to separate the possibility of participation in labor activity and actual participation in it. For example, the unemployed also have a willingness to work; they can have an arbitrarily large labor potential, but not use it in any way without affecting the economy.
All this makes us consider the concept of human capital in a broader sense. Thus, D. Grayson defines human capital as the most important social resource: “... human capital is the most valuable resource, much more important than natural resources or accumulated wealth. It is human capital, and not factories, equipment and productive reserves, is the cornerstone of competitiveness, economic growth and efficiency". Some researchers include in the concept of human capital not only the ability of individuals to work productively and earn income, but also the social, psychological, ideological, cultural qualities of people. So, according to L. Turow, “human capital... includes such human properties as respect for political and social stability, which is acquired mainly as a result of appropriate upbringing and education... All societies want to create an individual with certain future preferences.. Society can expect to receive certain benefits from various investment projects in people precisely because they change future or current preferences in such a way that the latter become compatible with the aspirations of society (or the majority in society). Such changes in preferences are of value to society, but not necessarily to the individual.
In relation to a particular organization, these qualities can be manifested through the labor potential and employee loyalty, which, if there is an appropriate level of human capital components (professional knowledge and skills, physical and psychological capabilities of a person, etc.), will significantly increase the value of a particular employee for the organization.
To the main elements that form the structure of human capital, according to World Bank include:
Many researchers note that the human dimension in modern economy and society manifests itself in two main forms: human and social capital. The concept of "social capital" was proposed in the 1990s. R. Putnam to designate those personal qualities and characteristics (trust, empathy, law-abiding, etc.), which are inseparable from the individual, but appear only in collective activity. According to P. Bourdieu, the social position of an individual is the totality of his statuses in social space - an "ensemble of invisible connections" that form "a space of positions external to each other, defined one through the other, by their proximity, neighborhood or distance between them ... » . These "invisible bonds" form social capital.
The concept of social capital was first introduced by G. Luri and developed by J. Coleman. Social capital is understood as "the contribution of the social organization of society to social production" . Social capital increases the return on investment in physical and human capital, and these investments complement each other, rather than acting as competing alternatives.
The concept of social capital also finds application at the organizational level. For example, O. Nordhog notes that the use of the concept of social capital makes it possible to characterize the conglomerate of social relations and informal ties between different divisions of the company. Social capital is characterized, in particular, by such a concept as "organizational socialization", which means the degree of coincidence of values, attitudes and norms among employees with average values for the organization as a whole. Strong social ties between employees and departments of the organization create social control, which reduces the need for direct management and excessive regulation of the activities of employees.
Social capital is related to such elements of social organization as social structure, social norms, connections and interactions, social relations that create conditions for coordination and cooperation of people in order to achieve common goals. The contribution of human capital to the results of the organization's activities can be quite high, but the low social significance of these results will negatively affect the value of social capital. Insufficient social orientation and social responsibility of the organization, and sometimes openly inhumane orientation of its activities also lead to various estimates human and social capital.
Social capital, embodied in norms and various forms of civic participation, is recognized as an important condition for economic prosperity and effective self-government. J. Coleman concludes that "like other forms of capital, social capital is productive, making it possible to achieve goals that are otherwise unattainable" .
Just like physical and human capital, social capital has the ability to reproduce and accumulate. Consequently, successful cooperation and interaction of employees of the organization generate new social assets that stimulate the development of human capital not only in their own organization, but also in partner organizations. Unlike physical capital, social capital is a resource that increases in quantity rather than decreases with use, and which is depleted if it is not used.
Thus, the concept of social capital makes it possible to include in consideration the factor of "social organization", "social order", "social responsibility" along with other factors of production.
Another concept interrelated with human capital is the concept of "intellectual capital", which is also comprehended in terms of capital relations(relationship capital), organizational(organizational capital), structural(structural capital), innovation capital(innovation capital), process capital(process capital), economic(economic capital), information capital, capital, defined by organizational culture(cultural capital), etc. These components of intellectual capital serve as a major source of sustainable competitive advantage and affect organizational characteristics such as:
According to V. Goylo, “the material essence of intellectual capital is the intangible, but real creative property of an individual, collectives and the whole society. The social essence here is the nature of the possession, disposal and use of these assets. That is, in other words, intellectual capital is knowledge, information. The specificity of intellectual capital, according to the author, is that knowledge is not subject to physical alienation or expropriation, and information can be brought to the market countless times.
A number of authors argue that the concept of "intellectual capital" as a component of human capital includes the amount of knowledge and information accumulated by a person, however, its broader interpretation, which includes in its structure:
According to L. Edvinsson and M. Malone, the concept of intellectual capital begins to dominate in the methods valuation organizations, because it reflects the dynamics of organizational development and value creation. Only it takes into account the fact that today's enterprises are changing so quickly that all you have to rely on is the talent and dedication of company employees. This simple statement leads to a paradoxical conclusion: human capital cannot be attributed not only to the organization's own funds, but, contrary to popular belief, can only be considered as its assets rather conditionally. It should be treated as a temporary borrowing, which is a liability like debt or issued shares. This largely explains the reluctance of organizations to invest in the human capital of their employees (for example, in improving their qualifications, internships), since the return on these investments can be appropriated by another organization.
There is also the problem of the misallocation of human capital in the organization, associated with the excessive loading of the most valuable employees who are able to solve a wide range of tasks and, therefore, cope with the ever-increasing flow of job assignments faster and more efficiently. As a result of irrational workload, the health capital of this employee decreases, which, in turn, affects his performance.
Thus, in modern conditions, the problem of human capital reflects the reorientation economics with questions use workforce on problems creation a qualitatively new workforce that meets the growing requirements of the knowledge economy to the level of competence, mobility, creativity and work motivation of the employee.
To assess the effectiveness of the process of reproduction of human capital, a number of well-known models are used. What they have in common is a statement of the fact that physical capital, natural resources and previously accumulated human capital, which are considered in these models as the main factors of production, are involved in the formation of human capital. Models differ in the main reproduction factor. Some researchers (L. Thurow, S. Bowles) put forward human time and natural abilities as it, while others (for example, T. Schultz, G. Becker) put forward human activity.
L. Turow proceeds from the premise that individuals are the main source of resources in the formation of investments in human capital. They invest human time and financial resources and have some initial supply of this time. Due to the availability of this resource (human time), an individual can acquire other assets of human capital. The Turow model assumes that investments in the production of human capital are similar to investments in any other production process, and the processes of production of human capital themselves are similar to the processes of production of goods and services and show quantitative relationships between factorial investments and the amount of human capital produced. Therefore, within the framework of the Thurow model, it is possible to evaluate the effectiveness of investments made in human capital, taking into account the probabilistic behavior of personnel in the accumulation and use of this capital.
T. Schultz suggested that not all economic abilities are given to people from birth, many of them develop through certain types of activities, through specific investments. The category of time is considered by him as a unit of accounting for human activity, but not as an investment itself.
J. Hackman and O. Aldrin, when assessing human capital, suggested taking into account such an asset as the “motivational potential” of a person, which, in their opinion, is in close correlation with productivity gains.
Later, other models were developed, but what is common to all of them is that they all emphasize the active role of a person in the formation of human capital, and this activity largely depends on the motivation of labor activity.
The diversity of the human personality, the various motives of its activities and behavior necessitate the development of conceptual human models, i.e. unified ideas about an individual acting in a certain system of socio-economic relations. The model of a person, like any other, includes the main parameters that characterize an individual: needs, motives, goals, forms of activity, as well as the potential and capabilities of a person used by him to achieve his goals. Economic science proceeds from the rational behavior of the subjects of labor activity, i.e. from their desire to achieve maximum results at the lowest cost.
economic man (homoeconomicus, economic man)- this is a typical rationally acting subject of economic relations, focused on the maximum satisfaction of personal needs through a profitable investment of own capital, including intellectual, human capital.
smart economic man (rational economic man) - an individual who uses his labor and (or) his resources in the conditions of the market in his own interests. In a narrow sense, this is a reasonable egoist, in a broad sense - a reasonable person, but not necessarily an egoist, acting in accordance with the generally accepted principles of conformist economic theory.
An economic person, as a rule, operates in a situation where the amount of resources available to him is limited. He cannot simultaneously satisfy all his needs and therefore is forced to make a choice. Among the factors that determine this choice are preferences and limitations. Preferences characterize the subjective needs and desires of the individual, restrictions - his objective capabilities. The main limitations of an economic person are the amount of his income and the cost of individual goods and services, as well as the actions of other market participants. The economic man is endowed with the ability to evaluate the possible choices for him in terms of how their results correspond to his preferences (K. Brunner and W. Meckling - “evaluating man”). Economic man's preferences are more stable than his constraints, so economics treats them as relatively constant and focuses on the individual's reactions to changing constraints.
The choice of an economic person is rational in the sense that from the available (and known) options, the one that, according to his opinion or expectations, will best meet his preferences (maximize his objective function) is selected.
Consider evolution of the model of economic man.
Adam Smith. Understanding the economic benefits of investing in human capital is also characteristic of the model of economic man proposed by A. Smith. The main element of this model is a specific motivation: self-interest or the desire for wealth as the main motive for behavior. At the same time, in The Wealth of Nations, A. Smith emphasizes that human behavior is guided by "sympathy", i.e. the ability to put oneself in the place of another and the desire to earn the approval of an "impartial observer", i.e. Smith emphasizes the limitation of self-interest to certain social boundaries.
Thus, on the one hand, A. Smith argues that it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, brewer or baker that we expect to receive our dinner, but from their observance of their own interests, precisely because the developed system of division of labor puts a person in relations with other people, to which he may not feel sympathy, on the other hand, the rationality of economic behavior does not extend to relations that are not consistent with universal ethical values. Honesty, decency, diligence, responsibility to society, moderation in consumption are the moral basis economic model Smith.
Smith does not reduce people's own interest solely to obtaining cash income like profit maximization: in addition to earnings, the choice of occupations is also influenced by the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the occupation, the ease or difficulty of learning, the constancy or inconsistency of occupations, greater or less prestige in society, and, finally, a greater or lesser likelihood of success.
Jeremiah (Jeremy) Bentham. Bentham proceeds from the fact that the interests of society are the sum of the interests of citizens, therefore, if a conflict of interests of different social groups arises, priority is given to those who have the potential amount of wealth if their interests are satisfied, and if these amounts are equal, the more numerous should be preferred. group. In contrast to Smith, Bentham believes that the harmonization of individual "aspirations for welfare" is not the prerogative of the market and competition, but of legislation that should reward those who contribute to the public good and punish those who interfere with it.
In the field of motivation - ego hedonism, i.e. the reduction of all human motives to the achievement of pleasure and the avoidance of grief. A necessary consequence of such labor behavior is a passive-consumer orientation.I. Bentham emphasizes that any reality interests a person only when it can be used with benefit for oneself. “The desire for work,” writes Bentham, “cannot exist by itself, it is a pseudonym for the desire for wealth, while work itself can only cause disgust.”
Marginalists. The goal of labor activity for each of its participants among marginalists is to obtain maximum pleasure or the greatest satisfaction of needs. However, the very nature of needs is specified in accordance with the law of diminishing marginal utility (Gossen's first law).
In the area of work motivation, one can note the limitation of egoism here: an economic person, according to Alfred Marshall, not only exposes himself to hardships in a disinterested desire to ensure the future of his family, he also has other altruistic motives for activity. Describing the variety of human motives and needs, A. Marshall names among them the desire for diversity, the desire to attract attention, the needs satisfied by one activity or another (sports, travel, scientific and artistic creativity, the desire for recognition and excellence). However, at the same time, he concludes that economic theory should mainly deal with the motives that most strongly and stably affect human behavior in the economic sphere of his life.
Thus, a single, classical model of a person in modern economics does not exist. AT general view it can be argued that each model of economic man contains three groups of factors representing goals human, funds to achieve them (both real and ideal) and information(knowledge) about the processes by which means lead to the achievement of ends (the most important of these processes are production and consumption).
conclusions
Workshop
Control questions and tasks for independent work
Situational tasks and tasks
Lesson topic: Man in the system of economic relations.
What should a smart consumer know?
In unequal conditions with the seller (they are professionals. Their goal is to sell more and more expensive), the consumer (amateur) needs to know the basic norms of the law. In the Russian Federation there is a law "On the protection of consumer rights
The consumer has the right
for information; quality, safety, damages
in pairs, require each to provide the necessary and reliable information about the product
But back to the choice of our purchase. We have made a choice.
Can we always buy what we want?
Unfortunately no. Our actions limit our income.
2. Income and expenses.
Under the income of the populationis understood as the amount of money and material goods received or produced by households for a certain period of time. At the same time, income is the share of the subject in the GNP, which he inherited in the process of distribution and expression, mainly in monetary form.
Income structure
Income in kind- products produced by households for their own consumption
Cash income Includes: - wages, income from property ( rent, interest and money capital,dividends on shares) - social payments(pensions, scholarships, social benefits) - winnings, fees, inheritance
Types of income: nominal (accrued without taxes), real (on which we live); legal (received wages), illegal (earned by dishonest labor, criminal)
Their dynamics is different: nominal incomes can grow, while real ones can fall and vice versa. Why? (increase in the price of goods)
Each household has to constantly make decisions about how much of the income to spend (i.e. consume) today, and how much to put aside for the future for an unforeseen event (in case of disability, payment for education, professional development, etc.). A certain part of the income is set aside in the form of savings.
Saving - income unspent on the purchase of goods and services within the framework of current consumption.
Savings are carried out by both the household (people), and firms, and countries.For example: the savings of our state is the country's gold and foreign exchange reserves (= $ 107 billion), a stabilization fund.
In the conditions of economic and financial instability in the country with high level inflation, there is one reliable way to allocate savings to the consumer - this is the purchase of real estate (an apartment, a house, a summer residence), the prices of which grow faster than money depreciates.
Economists divide consumer spending into:
compulsory free
(fixed - food, rent) ( variables - clothing, footwear, transport services, furniture, recreation, etc.)
For the most complete satisfaction of needs requires a clear planning of costs. If your personal income does not exceed compulsory expenses, then you can hardly afford arbitrary expenses.
Analyzing data on consumer spending in different countries, scientists concluded: the richer the country, the smaller part of the personal income of its citizens goes to obligatory expenses. The German researcher - statistician Ernest Engel (1821-1896) was the first to establish a natural relationship between the income of the population and the structure of consumption.
Engel's law says:
“As incomes grow, their share goes to the purchase of food decreases, and the part of income that is spent on the purchase of other goods and services that are non-essential products increases.”
With a further increase in income, the costs of high-paying goods and services increase. According to the share of family expenses on food, one can judge the level of well-being of different groups of the population of one country and compare the well-being of citizens of different countries.
USA 10-15% France 12-15% RF 40-48%
Many people (especially young people) strive to find a well-paid job. There is competition among seekers. Who will be more competitive? There is an important feature in the labor market - this is the limit of the fall in the price of goods (labor), i.e.minimum wage ( minimum size wages)- Guaranteed minimum wage. It should be determined by the subsistence minimum - the minimum means necessary to live.
The cost of living is determined based on the average resident of the country and is calculated according to the so-called. consumer basket– the minimum set of industrial and food goods and services necessary to ensure physical survival (= 300 items) The living wage is so low that it is the object of satire. For many years, the satirical magazine "Wick" has been published on color television.
Many countries incl. and Russia legally determine the minimum wage and its obligation for all employers. Why? The market is cruel and does not know charity. To ensure the social stability of society, it is necessary for the state to support the poorest sections of the population. But in the conditions of the current economic situation in Russia, the minimum wage turned out to be below the subsistence level.
In the economic literature, the expression "beyond the poverty line" is often found. In Russia, it is generally accepted that the poverty line is at the level of 2 to 1 subsistence minimum, and poverty begins below.
To raise wages to equilibrium Russian government took a course to fight poverty, to improve the standard of living in the country.
What affects salary?Quality of work, qualification, labor productivity of the employee
There are several payment systems:
1) time wage (depends on the amount of time worked);
2) piecework salary (depends on the amount of work performed);
3) mixed (a combination of elements of time and piecework wages).
Pick an answer.
1) family budget;
2) an accumulation fund;
3) family savings;
4) pointless spending.
1) to mandatory;
2) to variables;
3) to utilities;
4) to the unreal.
1) physical minimum;
2) social minimum;
3) consumer basket;
Complete the sentences:
Test on the topic Man in the system of economic relations
Pick an answer.
1. The total income and expenses of the family are ...
1) family budget;
2) an accumulation fund;
3) family savings;
4) pointless spending.
2. Housing expenses include:
1) to mandatory;
2) to variables;
3) to utilities;
4) to the unreal.
3. The quantity of goods and services necessary for a normal life is determined by:
1) physical minimum;
2) social minimum;
3) for each person individually;
4) depending on the capabilities of social services.
4. Physical survival provides:
1) an arbitrary set of products;
2) help from charitable organizations;
3) consumer basket;
4) mutual assistance of members of the society.
Complete the sentences:
1. Family incomes are nominal and ...
2. Food expenses refer to…
3. The minimum set of food, non-food products and services that ensures the physical survival of a person is ...
Literature
1. Is there natural selection? (Ma-
materials of the round table) // Higher education in Russia. - 2006. - No. 7.
2. Is there natural selection?
N. RODIONOVA, Professor Vladimir State University
In the last 200 years, the world has been dominated by the value orientations of a consumer society striving for wealth, power and glory. The deep, Divine meaning of human life is lost, ethical ideals are devalued, morality is damaged. The civilized community has come to realize the danger of the preferred "profitable" strategies of socio-economic development. Recently, the root of evil is increasingly seen in the imperfection of the “economic man” model, which serves as a methodological basis modern system market relations. Attempts are being made to modify it, new areas of economics are actively developing: metaeconomics, ethical economy, entrepreneurial ethics, business ethics. In Russian science contemporary issues the models of "economic man" were first studied most deeply by V.S. Avtonomov and B.M. Genkin. The essence, structure, dynamics of the development of the model are determined, its shortcomings are substantiated. The structure of a complex model of a person is proposed, which allows to overcome them.
However, in the system economic knowledge, formed by the State Educational Standard of Higher Professional Education of the Russian Federation, the traditional methodological approach dominates, and new trends are not yet reflected in didactic units. By-
(Materials of the round table) // Higher education in Russia. - 2006. - No. 8.
3. McBurney G. Globalization as a political paradigm of higher education // Higher education today. - 2001.
It is clear why in the system of value orientations of specialists educated and brought up in the spirit of "economic man", mercantile material aspirations prevail. Gradually, an inhumane society is being formed in Russia, consisting of infantile egoistic consumers, divided into temporarily prosperous successful ones and doomed victims of failures.
It is bitter to realize that the engines and executors of this phenomenon were economists. And the smartest and most talented of them. But most disturbing is the ethical perception by young people, future economists, of the process of income polarization. I teach the disciplines "Economics and Sociology of Labor" and "Income and Wage Policy". When discussing the problem of the fairness of income differentiation, students express indifference to the problems of poverty, the homeless, and homelessness. Most tend to think that poverty is a punishment for laziness, negligence, meager natural talents. Young people pass off their cruel attitude towards socially unprotected sections of the population as justice, forgetting that “it is based on attention to human individuality and life differences ... a living conscience and living love for a person.”
Model of "economic man" in the system of economic knowledge
Thus, the “economic man” model, through the system of economic knowledge, forms distorted value orientations among young professionals, which, however, are in harmony with the value systems of corporate cultures that serve to maximize individual benefits and do not take into account the ethics of the means taken to achieve them.
The Russian economy needs not only smart, but also honest specialists. Therefore, the system of economic knowledge taught in higher education needs to be updated, presented in a social context with an ethical dominant. “The most important thing in life is a living heart, sincerely desiring creative justice; and yet - the general confidence that people ... are honestly looking for her.
On the model of "economic man"
The model of "economic man" is the methodological basis of market relations, on which the system of modern economic knowledge is based. The creation of this model is due to the need to justify economic choice and motivation of business behavior. Recently, it has been used not only as a research tool, but also as a fundamental basis for the formation of a system of economic management, since over the two-century period of its existence it has so influenced the worldview of people that their behavior has now become largely identical to the behavior of an “economic person” abstracted from reality. . It is believed that this model allows you to see, understand, explain, predict the economic behavior of people, evaluate the results of their activities.
Let's give general characteristics model of economic man. First, it is abstract: focused on obtaining precise and unambiguous economic assessments under strictly defined conditions
I. Secondly, it is universal: it is a typical rationally acting subject of the system of market relations, which can be an entrepreneur, an owner of capital, an employee, a consumer of products, an enterprise, a region, a country. He has unlimited individual needs and strives for their maximum satisfaction through a profitable investment of his own capital (investment, tangible, financial, informational, legal, intellectual, human). Thirdly, it is primitive: the exhaustive qualities of the “economic man” are selfishness, the desire to consume, freedom of choice, prudence, the presence of own capital, interest in its profitable investment and multiplication, as well as the possession of competitive advantages in the market (Fig. 1).
Having unlimited needs and freedom of choice, rational economic entities, however, are constrained in their behavior, because: 1) the stocks of goods and resources are limited, 2) interaction in the system of market relations does not take place arbitrarily, but taking into account established legal requirements, which supposedly equally limit the economic freedom of each subject. With the help of these requirements, on the one hand, equality of opportunities for effective management (benefit) for each market entity is realized, and on the other hand, guarantees for society to receive benefits from this (social efficiency).
This is the general theoretical concept of the "economic man" model. However, in practice it does not work perfectly. Often the system of market relations not only does not take into account the interests of society, but even in some way causes irreparable harm to it, outweighing the general benefit. This is evidenced by a significant increase in the negative external effects of management: an increase in crime, depletion of non-renewable resources.
economic man"
Rice. 1. Structure of the model
owls, a sharp social stratification of society, environmental problems.
Experience in the functioning of the market system in different countries world in the last thirty years, especially brightly highlights the growing injustice of economic relations. Achieving equality of opportunity is increasingly failing due to unfair competition in the markets. The "economic man" model has become the "goldfish on the premises" of rich and successful people in business. As a result of its functioning by the middle of the twentieth century. a society of rational consumers was formed, contrastingly divided into the rapidly getting richer rich and the catastrophically impoverished poor. Both of them violate moral ideals and spiritual values, squander natural resources, and ignore environmental problems. Most people are busy extracting funds to satisfy their own material needs, without thinking about the consequences of their selfishness for future generations: "after us, even a flood."
Thus, the observed negative consequences of the functioning of the model of the modern "economic man" prove its imperfection and how
research tool, and as the basis for the formation of a system of economic management. To understand the reasons for the failure in its work, first of all, one should turn to the origins of its formation.
Adam Smith's concept of "economic man" and its ethical justification
Adam Smith was the first to attempt to form the fundamental basis of economic theory on the concepts of "human nature". He presented his concept of the economic model separately from ethics in the book “A Study on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Peoples and Nations” at the end of the 18th century, and a little earlier he wrote the book “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, in which he considered the provisions of ethical theory without economics. This marked the beginning of the demarcation of the previously closely related ethics and economics. Over a two-century period, the watershed between them has become an abyss, a communication bridge over which has not yet been built.
Conceptually developed by Smith, the model of "economic man" is based on the liberal idea of the influence of the "invisible hand", or forces of the market, on
a subject selfishly striving for its own benefit and managing under conditions of minimal state interference in the market environment.
The essence of the concept of "economic man" was to recognize an effective form of management, in which "each individual is constantly trying to find the most profitable application of capital that he can dispose of. He has in mind his own benefit, and by no means the benefit of society. In the degree of virtue, Smith elevated such qualities of an “economic person” that are far from the gospel precepts, such as selfishness, selfish interest, constant striving to improve personal position, and a tendency to deceive. It would seem that the vector of the proposed concept has clearly deviated from the direction set by religious and moral values. However, Smith did not leave the behavior of "economic man" without ethical justification. The entrepreneur “does not intend to contribute to the public good. He pursues only his own benefit. and with an invisible hand is directed towards a goal that was not at all part of his intentions. In pursuing his own interests, he often serves the interests of society more effectively than when he consciously seeks to do so. That is, the ethical justification is the action of the "invisible hand", personifying the market with perfect competition. It seems to unite disparate egoists under the banner of public good.
At the time of A. Smith, this statement was perceived as true, since market entities operated in conditions close to perfect competition, in which no one can intentionally influence market prices. Perfect competition was identified with the honest observance of the rules of conduct in the market. Consequently, the mystical "invisible hand" belongs to the "moral man" - society with its ethical values. AT
In such a society, the behavior of the "economic man" is influenced by his sense of "sympathy", thanks to which he is able to put himself in the shoes of others and have an idea of the interests of others. This quality makes him sensitive to the public good. It follows that Smith's model of "economic man" is not a self-sufficient regulator of social relations, as is now perceived, but only one of the mechanisms of an integral system of people's life support. The operation of this mechanism does not apply to relationships that are not consistent with universal ethical values. "Economic man" "lives" in a society where honesty, justice, decency, diligence, responsibility, moderation in the consumption of goods are held in high esteem. His participation in a moral society, despite his selfishness, serves as the moral basis and ethical justification for Smith's economic model. Virtuous characteristics were inherent in the entrepreneurs, businessmen, workers and consumers of those times, or "economic man" - a native of the Enlightenment. Through them, the moral values that served as the basis of Protestant and Orthodox ethics had a direct impact on economic relations and showed their effect in the quality of manufactured products, its economical consumption, law-obedience, and the ethics of competitive behavior.
So, the main idea of A. Smith about the behavior of "economic man" is that it is the selfish striving of honest entrepreneurs for profit that most effectively leads to an increase in the wealth of the nation. However, this idea indicates ways to improve the well-being of all members of not just any, but only a moral society. Because in such a society, the “economic man” is initially decent, because in his behavior he is oriented towards universal
ethical values; virtuous, since he works honestly and productively, creating benefits useful to society and economically spending the resources necessary for this; fair, because he is able to reconcile his selfish interests with the interests of other people; he is honest, because in the distribution of income he claims only for the share of remuneration earned by him, which is equivalent to his own contribution.
But at the same time, such a person is ambitious, prudent, mercantile and material. Practice shows that these qualities of an "economic man" pose a danger to a society with a depleted spiritual and moral potential, which is the modern world.
Modern model of "economic man"
For the economy of the XVIII-XIX centuries. A. Smith's model was effective. It contributed not only to the growth of capital, but also to the multiplication of social benefits, served the development of a society focused on spiritual values. However, over a period of more than two centuries, both society and economic conditions have changed. A. Smith's "economic man" model, as one of the mechanisms for regulating the life of society, was gradually modified into a self-sufficient socio-economic model that regulates all aspects of public life. "Smith's apology for the promotion of the public good was gradually lost, and the selfish interest of the entrepreneur began to play an all-encompassing role." This was reflected in the "simplification, formalization and depsychologisation" of the structure of the model. Its functioning contributed to the depersonalization of economic relations, the separation of private interests, their increased dependence on market conditions and, ultimately, to the distortion of the image of a real person. The qualities of his personality moved away from ethical values, approached and adapted
tended to the one-sided reality of life, embodied in the system of market relations.
In mainstream economics, the object of study has narrowed down to a consideration of the exclusively rational qualities of the human personality. The premise of self-interest has given way to the premise of economic rationality. The existing model of the “maximizing person” is characterized by the defining role of self-interest economic entity in the motivation of his behavior, his awareness of the business environment and the specificity of the analysis. It can no longer serve as the basis of the management system for the following reasons.
1. The model does not take into account externalities that determine transaction costs, which, according to D. North and J. Wallis, have doubled over the past hundred years. Therefore, in economic indicators the interrelation of the considered effects and expenses is more and more lost.
2. The model is focused on a perfect competitive order, on a system of market relations with limited state intervention. The importance of the institutional structure of society is rejected.
3. The studied phenomena are perceived in a simplified way - as purely economic ones. The influence of non-economic factors is not taken into account. But the market implies not only economic freedom, but also compliance with social, environmental, legal, ethical and other requirements for the behavior of subjects. These requirements cannot be developed within the framework of an economy based on the model under consideration. This means that it does not solve the issues of harmonizing the clashing interests of people, differentiation of their incomes, the situation of the least well-to-do, the ecology of territories near enterprises, etc. Regulating
attitudes about meeting the material needs of a person, the model is insensitive to other aspects of the quality of his life.
4. The sphere of human life in perspective economic research narrowed down to the process of obtaining the funds needed to meet his needs. Meanwhile, in all areas of economic relations, the importance of the individual is growing. A person has gained wide information and energy opportunities to influence economic activity and other aspects of social life. Solution economic problems today requires an appeal to the spheres of ethics, politics, law, religion, ecology, etc. This means that a person in the economy should be considered from all sides of his life.
5. The model has a hedonistic nature, due to the orientation towards maximizing the satisfaction of the needs of individuals and ignoring the value and semantic aspects of their lives.
6. The goals of business entities are perceived as given. The model does not take into account that a person is free to choose his preferences and that it is through their choice that the values of society affect the goals of economic activity.
7. The model is impersonal and universal, since it operates with generally recognized values and needs that are the same for all individuals. Its structure does not provide for a mechanism that reveals the characteristics of individual preferences and reflects them in the target utility function. “If the psychology of people and the resources of all individuals were the same, then the consumption of different individuals would be the same, and society as a whole would become like one conditional individual whose preference index can be maximized.”
8. Does not take into account the dependence of personal
a person's interest in the behavior of other people. This leads to the fact that "in the implementation of selfish choice within a community of people with different goals, the goals of each can be achieved to a lesser extent than if they were guided by a different rule of conduct" .
9. In solving the problem of the well-being of a rational individual, such an important regulator of his behavior as conscience is not taken into account. This shortcoming of the model cut off all the ways to solve the problem of morality in the economy.
From what has been said, it follows that the economy needs a complex model of a person that satisfies the requirement of universality and harmoniously combines the methodological approaches of various branches of the social sciences. It can be based only on the agreement that arose as a result of a partial coincidence of interests and achieved in the process of cooperation of all interested parties. A person in such a model, like the "economic" one, is rational in his intentions. The difference between them is that the latter is guided by purely selfish interests of maximizing its own utility, while the former, having such interests, analyzes the possibility of their implementation in terms of their ethical permissibility or consequences for other people and society as a whole. Consequently, "metaphysical" qualities are added to the property of rationality, limiting the selfish aspirations of the subject.
This begs the question: what kind of society does modern model"economic man"? Immoral, worshiping the "golden calf". The model contributes to the development of a society of morally inferior people. She serves evil.
Why has the modern market become insensitive to the perception of ethical values? In our opinion, the following main reasons can be identified.
1. Loss of spirituality by the image of the "economic man". According to Smith, the producer of goods is an individual who has not only a natural freedom of choice, but also a conscience that calls him to strict observance of ethical and legal norms. To to an individual it is not difficult to make ethical demands, especially in the era of early capitalism. At that time the influence of religion was strong in the society. In the modern view, the concept of "economic man" has acquired a broader meaning, which has also spread to an enterprise, region, country, i.e. on the entity, which cannot be the subject of morality and therefore does not have a conscience. That is why the importance of morality in the economy has gradually been lost, and at the same time, the relationship between the economic concept and ethical values has weakened.
As you know, conscience acts as a barometer for achieving a compromise between one's own and others' interests. The "unscrupulous" modern "economic man" is insensitive to the interests of other people, business partners and society. His image came into conflict with the commandment of the Gospel "do no harm": "Each of you should think not only about your own interests, but also about the interests of others." Violation of the principle of equal benefit of economic cooperation is the main sign of the unethical nature of modern business.
2. The orientation of the "economic man" solely on material needs. In the economies of developed countries, the problem of coordinating interests is not as acute as in Russia. At first glance, it seems that the selfishness of entrepreneurs in the pursuit of personal gain really serves the benefit of all. So, for an enterprise, the benefits of its activities are expressed in increasing its efficiency and development, for consumers of products - in meeting the corresponding needs, for employees - in providing
their work and the improvement of professional skills, for society (due to tax deductions) - in improving the well-being of all its members. But all these benefits are material. This is what the “economic man” model is oriented towards. Indeed, in the concept of A. Smith, utility is understood as the wealth of the nation, which is presented as a set of products only material production. Modern theories of needs, along with material ones, consider social, aesthetic, intellectual and spiritual needs as equivalent. The underestimation of non-material needs in the economy gave rise to the problem of externalities, negative external effects of management, which have a non-economic nature in the usual sense.
3. Integrity of the image of the "economic man". As noted above, the model of the modern "economic man" is abstract. It is not interconnected with the models of a person offered by other scientific areas, conventionally referred to as models of a “psychological”, “sociological”, “political”, “anthropological”, “spiritual”, “social” person. These competing models offer different factors that explain human behavior. In this conflict, a simplified image of the “economic man” was formed, devoid of spiritual, psychological, social and physiological characteristics.
4. Recognition of uncertainty as irremovable. "Economic man" has clear ideas about his own needs, which are unchanging, and the desire to satisfy which is characterized by an individual function of maximizing utility. His decisions are not influenced by the interests of other subjects. In his own ideas, there is no relationship between the goal and the means to achieve it. They are pre-programmed by someone
then without taking into account the opinion of the subject. At the same time, the possibility is not allowed that, when considering a chain of successive actions, the goal can become a means, and vice versa.
5. Differentiation and concretization of the system of ethical values. This phenomenon is characteristic of the current postmodern era. The perception of truth as absolute gave way to the idea of its relativity. Modern people are free to
human" is dictated by the need to adapt it to the political system of the social order. As you know, in different countries the relationship between the state and business is not the same. Accordingly, the process of modifying the orthodox model of the "economic man" was focused on the principles of justice, which differed in the degree of state intervention in the system of market relations (Table 1).
Table 1
The main types of modified models of "economic man"
Type of model Characteristics of relations between the state and business
Libertorian Market relations are completely free from government intervention
Liberal Limited state intervention in the market system. Pursuing a policy of state protectionism aimed at protecting the interests of business from foreign competition by introducing quotas, import duties, etc.
Neo-liberal Assignment to the state of certain business management functions that are focused on protecting the common interests of citizens
Communitarian The state and business cooperate mutually beneficially within the framework of economic communities and partnerships
Tilitarian The strengthened role of the state in the management of those sectors that determine the social development of society, where competition is inefficient, or the share of mass production is large, or coordination of activities is inevitable
Conservative The state protects the interests of business to the detriment of public interests
Socialist Full control of the spheres of production, exchange and distribution by the state on the basis of public ownership of the means of production and central planning. Public ownership of the means of production is combined with private ownership of personal consumption items.
set of goals and values. A single system of ethical values that was set and obligatory for all has given way to a system built by those who share its constituent values. In modern society, they can simultaneously act different systems ethical values. However, scientific ways to ethically justify the choice of values have not yet been proposed.
6. The politicization of the "economic man". The need to modify Smith's model of "economic
For these reasons, the relationship between individual benefit and social benefit is increasingly weakening, which leads to the loss of the only ethical justification for the selfish behavior of the "economic man". It follows that with the help of the modern version of the "economic man" model, based on the concept of A. Smith, it is impossible to determine the ethical status of the economic system.
The model's indifference to moral
regulators of the behavior of the "economic man" does not even allow to raise the problem of the role of the moral factor in the economy and market deformations, which are intensified due to the unethical behavior of rationally aspiring subjects. There is a need to improve the model of "economic man" in the direction of making him sensitive to ethical values.
In the economy, there is a need for a model in which a person has a conscience, is capable of forming his own preferences, and his behavior is influenced not only by economic, but also by social, political, psychological, religious, legal, ethical, environmental and other factors. That is, we are talking about the revival of a holistic view of economic phenomena and processes inherent in the science of ancient and medieval periods.
The Structure of the Ethical "Economic Man" Model
In our opinion, the main direction of improving the structure of the "economic man" model is to restore the lost relationship between individual benefit and social benefit. The form of public benefit is diverse and diverse. This is meeting the needs for manufactured products and services, paying taxes and obligatory payments, creating jobs, improving working conditions, increasing wages, solving social and domestic problems of workers, their professional education, participation in social programs of the region and the country, charity, improvement or at least compensation for environmental damage. With the strengthening of the emphasis of economic activity on the public good, each enterprise will be forced to constantly solve the ethical problem in combination with the economic one (maximizing individual benefits). This will require the formation of a methodology
the theoretical foundations of the theory of reconciliation of competing interests of different social groups of the enterprise. The complexity of this problem lies in the uncertainty of the initial information base and the creation of technologies for obtaining unique solutions, the implementation of which will be achieved through complex maneuvering. The development of this technology is carried out in the following directions:
Improvement of the management system by including elements of economic and social partnership in its structure;
Development of forms of institutional regulation of the economy;
Search for the relationship between economic and social indicators of management in order to build a comprehensive model of "economic man" on its basis.
All areas of research are united by this idea. In order for the activity of an economic entity to bring not only benefits, but also social benefits, it is not enough to perceive it only as a process of adoption and implementation of volitional managerial decisions in the system of existing economic relations, which most often happens, forcibly directed by the owners. At the same time, management should be considered as a mutually beneficial cooperation of all interested parties, i.e. as a voluntary socially useful process within the mobile framework of the ethical and legal space, formed by agreement of the cooperating parties. In the first case, the activity is described using the traditional model of "economic man", and in the second case, it is proposed to build models of balancing the interests of business entities and society that are interconnected with it. The need for such models is suggested by practice. Without them, the imbalance of interests intensifies, which leads to an aggravation of social tension, a violation of stability and destruction.
shaping the socio-economic system. This has happened to many Russian enterprises during the development of market relations. The balance of interests is maintained if all parties to cooperation benefit from the activity or are not exposed to the dangers of its harm.
A special scientific study was devoted to finding ways to improve the structure of the "economic man" model. During its construction, some structural elements used in the models of "psychological", "social" and "sociological man" were used, which were supplemented or changed (Fig. 2). The collective approach to building the structure of the model was aimed at eliminating or mitigating the impact of the above-mentioned shortcomings of the "economic man" model.
In the proposed model, a person is a multifaceted and unique personality; functions simultaneously in the inner and outer worlds; aspired to spirituality and endowed with a conscience; busy justifying their own preferences and clarifying needs; operates in a multidimensional space, which can be regulated with the help of ethical and legal restrictions; cares about the growth of their own potential, opening the way to meeting the needs. These properties of a person's personality are significantly different from those inherent in the "economic person".
In contrast to the traditional model, in the ethical “economic man” model, the utility maximization criterion is limited by the requirement to improve the quality of life of all people whose interests are directly or indirectly affected by economic activity; the needs of each individual are changeable and have a complex composition; such qualities as spirituality and conscience, moral ideals and values are taken into account. This model contains three interrelated mechanisms responsible
for shaping preferences, motivating behavior, and meeting people's needs. By separating these functions, flexibility and portability of the model are provided. The main characteristics of the functioning of the ethical "economic man" model are presented in Table. 2.
For practical implementation The modern interpretation of the “economic man” model uses the structure of the task of optimizing a managerial decision: either with an objective function of maximizing individual utility for a given amount of available resources, or minimizing costs for a given level of achieving goals.
The proposed model is intended not only to form methodological foundations theory of reconciliation of competing interests, but also for practical application in the structures of management systems and macroeconomic regulation of socio-economic processes. With the introduction of the ethical “economic man” model into the structures of the management systems of enterprises and macroeconomic entities, the latter will acquire the status of institutions of ethical and legal cooperation of all persons interested in economic activity. The main difference of the management system taking into account ethical requirements from the traditional one is the shift in the direction of the enterprise development vector from profit maximization to the comparison of the possibility of its growth with ethical and legal admissibility.
Enterprises operating in accordance with ethical and legal requirements can receive legitimate profit only if the interests of owners and entrepreneurs are coordinated with the interests of other social groups of the enterprise, and not only with the interests of consumers who are ready to buy their products, as is commonly believed. Therefore, along with economic purpose the enterprise must fulfill a social mission.
Rice. 2. The structure of the ethical "economic man" model
table 2
Key Features of the Ethical "Economic Man" Model
Main tasks Control objects Main properties The most important functions Formalized structure
1. Increasing the efficiency of management Needs, including spiritual ones. Resources Sensitivity to changes in individual preferences Ensuring equal opportunities for efficient management for each market participant Target function of maximizing individual utility or minimizing costs. The system of traditional restrictions, supplemented by ethical and legal restrictions. The objective function and constraints include indicators of fairness that formalize ethical requirements consistent with those whose interests are affected by the activity.
2.Sustainable development of the socio-economic system Goals and values, including ethical Objectivity and completeness of reflection of reality Reasonable satisfaction of the needs of representatives of all social strata societies
H. Increasing the public benefit Motives for activity Balance of interests of all subjects of activity Ensuring the relationship between economic and social indicators
4. Adaptation to the conditions of the ethical and legal space Agreed ethical requirements Susceptibility of ethical requirements Creation of a beneficial atmosphere of mutually beneficial cooperation in the system of market relations of all its participants
Literature
1. Avtonomov V.S. The model of man in the economy
mimic science. - St. Petersburg, 1998.
2. Genkin B.M. Introduction to Metaeconomics and
foundations of economic sciences. - M., 2002.
3. Ilyin I.A. About Justice // Singing
heart. The book of quiet contemplation. - M.,
4. Rodionova N. The model of ethical “economic
human being” // Man and labor. -
5. Sen A. On ethics and economics: Per. from English.
6. Alle M. Conditions for efficiency in economic
mike: Per. from French - M., 1998.
7. Genkin B.M. Economics and sociology of labor
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tic and economic ethics: Per. with him. - M., 2001; Rodionova N.V. Relationships between economic and social indicators in enterprise management systems. - St. Petersburg, 2004.
9. For more details, see: Rodionova N.V. Human -
this sounds new. Complex model of a person in the personnel management system // Russian Journal of Entrepreneurship. -2004. - No. 3, 4; Rodionova N.V. A comprehensive model of a person in socio-economic management systems // Economics and Management. - 2004. - No. 2; Rodionova N.V. Innovation in the economy - a complex model of a person // Innovations.
Topic: Man in the system of economic relations
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University: VZFEI
Year and city: Barnaul 2008
Introduction.
The theme of this test is Man in the system of economic relations.
This topic is relevant today, since economic philosophy is part of the system of social philosophy and explores the economic life of society.
Therefore, I chose this topic in order to delve deeper into the nature of social life and analyze the essence of economic sphere life and development of society from a philosophical point of view.
The tasks of writing this control work are:
The object of research is economic relations.
The theoretical significance lies in the study of sources on this issue and the generalization of available information.
1. Philosophical and economic way of thinking.
To understand the essence of the economy and all the complexity of economic relations, it is necessary to first understand what underlies these relations. They are based on human needs: this is the core of all human activity and, above all, labor, and hence the economy. Need is the subject's dependence on the external and internal conditions of his being, it is the vital nerve of a person, society and its economy: a factory needs raw materials, tools, an entrepreneur needs a customer, a customer needs to build a house. The life of society is permeated with the most complex fabric of needs and ways of satisfying them.
Already in ancient times, they came to understand the need to comprehend economic life. In Aristotle, this branch of knowledge was subjected for that time to a very deep essential analysis. He highlighted many aspects of economic life. Subsequently, in modern times, there was a very important branch of scientific knowledge - political economy.
Political economy is a science that, from certain positions, shows economic relations and the movement of commodity and money supply in their qualitative and quantitative definiteness and interweaving. Its development reveals a system of factors, and in connection with this, the economic relations of people, seeks out in an infinite number of singularities that appear before it, certain principles and laws that operate and govern the economic life of society. G. Hegel highly valued political economy, saying that it "does honor to thought."
Political economy was born under the sign of pragmatism, i.e. from quite practical motives, from the need to understand the complexity economic mechanism the life of society. It is focused on the development of principles for the effective economic activity of labor collectives and individuals. Economic activity has the character of a struggle for life and precisely for a certain standard of living. Economic need is approaching us like an inexorable necessity, from which it is impossible to get away without leaving life itself. The economy initially gravitates over man and humanity.
The bright prospects of civilization are largely determined by how successfully social systems function in their interconnection, as a single whole, where each link works for the whole, and the whole stimulates the life-affirming power of the parts. What can be revealed in the thinnest web of socio-economic ties from a philosophical and economic point of view? What is the methodological role of philosophical culture in understanding socio-economic reality? Without an economic education, it is now hardly possible to manage the affairs of the state. This is not about professional knowledge of modern economics in all its highly specialized problems, but at least a general acquaintance with macroeconomics in its fundamental principles.
Economic philosophy is included in the system of social philosophy, constituting its essential part: it has its own special section of problems or threats to the economic life of society. To answer the question of what economic philosophy is as a philosophical doctrine, one must first understand what political economy is. Let us define it as a science that studies the laws, principles that govern the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of vital goods at various stages of human development.
Political economy proceeds from the point of view that in the economic sphere of society there are certain general needs, such as the need for food, clothing, etc., and the ways in which they are satisfied. There are both coincidences and patterns. Thus, the soil here or there is more fertile, the years differ in their yield, one person is industrious, another is lazy. But this overabundance of arbitrariness gives rise to a universal determination, and everything that seems scattered and devoid of thought is held back by necessity, which seeks out laws that operate in a mass of accidents.
Need, poverty, everyday need and the corresponding concepts of economic benefits, wealth, well-being are natural phenomena in which people's lives revolve, its questions and answers: need and need ask, and human labor and the usefulness of goods answer.
The economy is one of the most complex systems in the life of society: it includes a set of economic processes that take place in society on the basis of established property relations and organizational and legal forms.
The founder of political economy is the outstanding thinker A. Smith - the author of the fundamental work "Research on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations". Here he summarized the centuries-old development of the classical school of political economy, substantiated the idea of commodity production and exchange as a sphere of human activity that develops according to objective laws, and therefore does not need state regulation. In developing the doctrine of the market price, Smith deeply revealed its dependence mainly on production, on the conditions for the supply of goods on the market. However, he did not investigate the effect of buyer demand on price.
A continuation of the teachings of A. Smith is the theory of David Ricardo. His main work is "Principles of Political Economy and taxation". Unlike Smith, he did not believe that value is determined by labor only in the "primitive state of society." Value, according to Richard, underlies the income of the various classes of bourgeois society: wages, profits, interest and rent. Capitalism, from his point of view, is the only possible and natural social order, and its economic laws are eternal.
Economic doctrine found its further development in the writings of Karl Marx. For 40 years he was engaged in writing his main work - "Capital". Here he developed the classical labor theory of value and the theory of surplus value. Grandiose in its plans and large-scale teachings of Marx received a mixed assessment. Thus, Professor P. Samuelson included Marx in a small galaxy of "intellectual giants" along with A. Smith, J. Keynson and other prominent scientists. Another eminent economist, V. Leontiev, advised: if anyone wants to know what actually is profit, wages, capitalist enterprise, he can get more realistic and high-quality information in the volumes of Capital than in several textbooks on economics. Professor M. Blauch in his book “Economic Thought in Retrospect” stated: “Marx was reassessed, revised, refuted, he was buried a thousand times, but he resists every time they try to send him to the intellectual past. For better or worse, his ideas became integral part that world of ideas in which we all think. Such an assessment of the theoretical works of Marx, apparently, is not accidental.
Marx himself, believing that in capitalist countries political economy expresses the interests of the owners, he sought to place his version of political economy at the service of the interests of the working class. However, the class approach had a negative impact on the scientific objectivity of a number of statements and conclusions he expressed. Marx's teaching made it possible to discover irresolvable contradictions and a certain limitation of the entire classical direction of political economy.
Thus, on the one hand, the labor theory of value discovered the basic law of commodity production - the law of value, according to which the exchange of goods on the market takes place in accordance with the socially necessary labor time embodied in the products of labor of commodity producers. On the other hand, relying on this law, it is impossible to explain how prices are formed under the conditions of a capitalist market economy. F. Engels, Marx's colleague, admitted that the law of value operated within historically limited limits - from the moment of the emergence of commodity production until the 15th century, when the gradual transition to capitalism was accompanied by a revolution in pricing.
The production of surplus value, as Marx argued in Volume I of Capital, is based on the exploitation of the working class, on the private appropriation by the capitalists of the unpaid labor of hired workers. But in the third volume of Capital, something completely different is noted: in all epochs of the development of civilization, the surplus product goes not only to the owners of the means of production, but also goes to the needs of the whole society, it forms the economic basis of all human civilization. Therefore, Marx strongly opposed the fact that even in the future society, the surplus product should go only to the workers.
Economic life is a social process in which people act both as direct actors in a particular economy and indirectly as "parts" of the general economic organism.
The connections of people that develop between them in the process of production form a complex structural-functional and hierarchically subordinated system; this system forms what is called industrial relations. It also covers relations with the means of production, i.e. the form of ownership, and the relationship between people in the process of exchange, distribution and consumption of the goods created, and the relations of people due to their industrial socialization, i.e. expressing the division of labor, and relations of cooperation and subordination - managerial relations, and all other relations in which people enter. In modern production, in which the management system plays an increasingly important role, relations that develop as a result of the selection and placement of personnel, taking into account their abilities, experience, interests and needs of the production itself, and personnel policy as a whole, acquire considerable importance. Thus, the system of economic relations is extremely extensive - from the individual relations of individual producers to the fundamental relationship to the means of production.
Political economy is one of the most complex areas of human knowledge. It is based on mathematics, especially probability theory, statistics, which gives this science additional accuracy and rigor in understanding the facts and their theoretical interpretation, focused on truth and its most effective practical implementation.
The exceptional importance of political economy is due to the fact that it has a world-unifying force in the life of all mankind. All of the above reveals the mystery of why philosophers have studied, analyzed and written about political economy, participating in its in-depth and generalizing understanding.
2. Economic relations and economic interests.
big role in economic life Societies play economic relations between people. From the perfection of economic relations depends not only the development of the mode of production, but also the social balance in society, its stability. Their content is directly related to the solution of the problem of social justice, when each person and social group gets the opportunity to use various kinds of social, depending on the social usefulness of their activity, its necessity for other people, society, the state, in particular, for the realization of their economic interests.
The economic interests of people act as direct manifestations of their economic relations. Thus, the economic interests of an entrepreneur and an employee are directly determined by their place in the system of economic relations between them. The interest of one is to obtain the maximum profit, the interest of the other is to sell their labor force more expensively and receive, possibly, a higher wage. The economic interests of the peasant, whether he is a farmer or a member of a collective farm, are also determined by his place in the system of existing economic relations. The same applies to employees - teachers, doctors, scientists, people employed in cultural institutions, etc. The content and direction of their economic interests are determined by the content of existing economic relations and their place in the system of these relations.
The economic interests of people act as the driving forces of their production activities. In the process of this activity, they seek to realize their interests, which are closely related to their needs, although they differ from them. As already mentioned, the needs of people are manifestations of an objective need to maintain the conditions of their life. These are their needs for food, warmth, clothing, shelter, and so on. The same can be said about their spiritual and other needs. Interests express ways and means of satisfying needs. This concerns the interests of individuals and social groups.
Thus, making a profit, which is the economic interest of the entrepreneur, is nothing more than a way to satisfy his personal needs and the needs of his production activities. Getting a higher wage - such is the interest of the hired worker - is also a way to satisfy the needs of himself and his family. As can be seen, the realization of the economic interests of certain subjects simultaneously acts as the satisfaction of their needs in the best way. And this method is determined by the place of each of them in the system of existing economic relations.
We can say that the interaction of the economic interests of people is the main content of the economic life of society. It is carried out in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of created items and services, i.e. in all links of production and economic relations. We are talking about the economic interests of various kinds of entrepreneurs, workers, employees, peasants, production teams, nations, society as a whole. Each of these social subjects has its own specific interests that it seeks to realize. So the interaction of people in the process of production acts, in the final analysis, as the interaction of their economic interests. Hence the task is to develop principles for the optimal combination of their interests, their harmonization. This is perhaps the main task of economic science and practice.
The realization of the economic interests of people and the satisfaction of their needs act as the most important links in the mechanism of action economic laws. After all, the latter is nothing but the laws of the production activity of people and their economic relations. But, as we have already seen, people are motivated to production activities, first of all, by their needs, which, therefore, are the initial link in the operation of economic laws. Economic interests express the best ways and means economic activity people to meet their needs, which in turn is determined by the content of existing economic relations.
Thus, economic interests to a large extent determine the content and direction of people's economic activity and thus the content and direction of the operation of economic laws.
3. Are the moral and psychological foundations of the economy and the rehabilitation of the value of labor necessary in modern Russian life?
At present, due to the rapid development of the economy, interest in the behavior and psychology of people in the sphere of economic life has increased dramatically. Within the framework of psycho-logical science, a special branch began to form - economic psychology.
The economy is a grandiose sphere of human activity in terms of its scale and vital significance. And where people act and interact, it is impossible to do without moral and psychological principles. The main ethical categories of good and evil, conscience and honor, freedom and responsibility, and others permeate the entire fabric of human life, including the sphere of economic relations. And just as there is, for example, medical ethics, in the same way, economic ethics really exist: the production of material and spiritual wealth, the elements of the market, the collection of taxes, wages - all this is permeated in one way or another by moral and psychological principles.
Economic psychology is called upon: to analyze the economic reality in the country, to study the attitude of a person to various forms of ownership - private, state, cooperative and personal, as well as the psychological problems of human needs, their quantitative and quality characteristics, patterns of their origin, development, satisfaction and reproduction, psychological conditions for the effective functioning of the economic mechanism; predict the development of not only large-scale economic situations, but also narrow areas of economic activity of individuals, their groups and society as a whole.
Specialists in the field of economic psychology note the growing role of psychological components in relations between producers and consumers. Here, it is extremely important to identify and analyze such an economic and psychological phenomenon as intuitive comprehension and understanding of the problem of choosing a line of conduct in transactions.
The main thing in economic psychology is that in the Russian economy, when adopting economic solution it is impossible not to take into account the peculiarities of the moral and psychological character of the partner, say, the measure of his reliability and the measure of his responsibility. It is not for nothing that people say that an agreement is more valuable than money. Partners must be mutually confident in reliability. Unfortunately, this is not such an indispensable feature of the character and moral character of every person, and one cannot take reliability for granted. Of course, an experienced businessman can rely on his own experience, on his natural gift of intuitive presentiment and the power of intellectual insight, but it is advisable to use the professional experience of a psychologist, and to some extent knowledge of psychology itself. The practice of economic life in one way or another justifies the importance of psychological service in economics.
The moral and psychological foundations of the economy are the prevailing set of internal mental processes that determine social relations in the sphere of production, exchange and distribution.
AT modern world the rehabilitation of labor values is understood as the restoration of the positive significance of the expedient human activity, aimed at preserving, modifying, adapting the environment to meet their needs, for the production of goods and services. Labor as a process of human adaptation to the external environment was characterized by the development and improvement of the division of labor, its tools and means.
After analyzing the above, we can conclude that in the modern world, the moral and psychological foundations of the economy and the rehabilitation of the value of labor are necessary, since the market economy is growing, and in order to properly use resources to obtain the greatest profit. At the same time, to receive a quality product and to have the economic interest of people in work and receive a decent remuneration for their work.
Conclusion
Thus, in this control work, such a phenomenon in philosophy as economic relations was considered and what place a person occupies in them.
The work revealed the dialectical interaction of the economic interests of people and their economic relations. The role of economic interests as motivating forces of people's economic activity and their economic relations was shown.
The economic life of society was studied as a social space in which it is carried out. Various aspects of the economic life of society have been studied. It is revealed what is necessary for modern Russian life.
The tasks set for this work were solved to a greater or lesser extent. The material related to this topic was collected and processed into a control work.
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