First, the current domestic Marxist political economy theory system of three models
According to the different sources of constructing Marxist political economy theory system, the exploration of domestic political economy theory system can be divided into three modes.
The first is the "classic model" of the theoretical system of Marxist political economy. This theoretical system is based on the six volumes of Marxist economic research and Das Kapital.
Over the years, many domestic scholars have combed and studied Marx's early economic research works and letters, and formed preliminary theoretical results. They think that Marx's research plan on capitalist economy is a grand system with huge contents, including the "five plans" put forward by 1857 in the Introduction to Criticism of Political Economy and the "six-volume plan" put forward by 1858. The published four volumes of Das Kapital are only a small part of this theoretical system. The six-volume plan holds that the theoretical system of political economy consists of six volumes: introduction (goods and money), Capital, land ownership, wage labor, country, foreign trade and world market.
Professor Tang Zaixin believes that the theoretical system of Marxist political economy should be explored from the "six volumes". He first inspected Marx's definition of the object of study of political economy, and thought that Marx and Engels had the same definition of the object of study of political economy from the beginning of economic research to the completion of Critique of Political Economy, that is, political economy is the study of material production or wealth growth under specific production relations. Secondly, he thinks that the scientific narrative method used by Marx in Das Kapital is the key to the construction of the theoretical system of political economy.
Professor Yang takes the six-volume structure and Das Kapital as the logical starting point, from the introduction; Construct the theoretical basis of generalized political economy; The emergence, development process and general principle of commodity economy form; Capitalist economic system; Socialist economic system; The trend of contemporary economic globalization has constructed the theoretical system of generalized political economy.
The second is the traditional mode of Marxist political economy theory system. Since the reform and opening-up, the main body of Marxist political economy theory in China is still based on Das Kapital and the Soviet paradigm (Zhou Bing, 2004), which has formed the traditional mode of constructing the theoretical system of political economy. The traditional model is divided into two forms according to the way it constructs the theoretical system: one is to divide political economy into capitalist part and socialist part to form the theoretical system respectively, and the other is to try to organically unify the socialist part and capitalist part. The first form of development and innovation is mainly reflected in the socialist part of political economy. Capitalism in political economy is based on Das Kapital and the Soviet paradigm, and generally inherits the system framework of Das Kapital. In addition, monopoly capitalism and economic globalization constitute the theoretical system of capitalist economic analysis, and the research objects, research methods and narrative methods are basically the same.
In the early 1980s, in the process of rethinking and surpassing the "Soviet paradigm", there appeared a trend of thought of "returning to Marx's tradition". Following the system and method of Das Kapital, many theoretical systems have emerged in the socialist part of political economy, such as Xu Dixin's Notes on Socialist Production, Circulation and Distribution (Das Kapital for short) and Professor Gu Shuchang. These textbooks have had a great influence in domestic economic circles by virtue of their authority, and have been reprinted many times. At the end of 1990s, General Theory of Socialist Economics edited by Professor Gu Shutang-A Study of China's Economic Problems in the Transitional Period (1989,2000) and Advanced Political Economics edited by Professor Jiang Xuemo (200 1) were both combined with China's great practice of building Socialism with Chinese characteristics, especially China's reality of building a socialist market economy, and they kept innovating.
Advanced Political Economics edited by Professor Jiang Xuemo includes General Theory of Socialism (April 5438+0, 2006) and Socialist Ontology (April 5438+0 1, 2006), which is a model that strictly follows the traditional model. Starting from socialist labor, he studied the historical evolution (general part), socialist production process, circulation process and total production process of socialist economics. And with socialist public ownership, it forms the logical main line and main categories throughout the book, and makes a profound and detailed ontological analysis of workers' interests and government categories under socialist conditions, and finally forms a rare theoretical system of socialist political economy with the implicit assumption of socialist social production relations.
On the premise of the history of socialist practice, Professor Jiang Xuemo's theoretical system has made an in-depth study of the socialist economic system at the essential level and made an in-depth analysis of related fields. However, the theoretical system does not involve much in the study of economic operation and lacks realism.
The General Theory of Socialist Economics —— China's Economic Problems in the Transitional Period and Basic Research in the North, edited by Gu Shutang, pays attention to reflecting the practice and theoretical achievements of China's economic construction in the theoretical system of socialist political economy, and discusses the micro-economic operation, macro-economic operation and economic growth and development in China at the present stage on the basis of the realistic economic system in the primary stage of socialism. The characteristic of this theoretical system is to highlight the characteristics of China's economic transformation, which is a beneficial exploration and innovation of China's theoretical economics. Its reality is self-evident, but as a part of the unified theoretical system of Marxist political economy, how to solve the duality of the research object and its main line (namely, "three processes" and "four links") (Zhou Bing, 2004) will be the biggest test for this theoretical system.
The second form of the traditional model is an innovative model developed in recent years, which organically unifies the capitalist part and the socialist part in political economy. The main representatives in this field are Modern Political Economy edited by Professor Cheng Enfu and Political Economy edited by Professor Pei Jinju.
In Modern Political Economy edited by Professor Cheng Enfu, he broke through the "three-process theory" of the traditional political economy system and initiated a "five-process system", including direct production process, circulation process, total production process, national economic process and international economic process. The historical origin of constructing this political economy system is the six-volume structure and logical framework of Das Kapital, which follows the principles from "general category" to "special category" and from "basic principle" to "application of basic principle in capitalist society and socialist society" and organizes a theoretical system reflecting the laws of capitalist and socialist market economy today.
The Political Economy, edited by Pei Jinju and others, tries to break through the defects of traditional political economy that it is divided into two parts in system and its internal logic is inconsistent, and forms a three-part structure in theoretical system. The first part: the general theory of political economy, focusing on the categories and movements with universal significance and applicability in political economy; Chapter II: Capitalist economy; Chapter III: Socialist economy mainly expounds the special or specific forms of general categories in political economy by combining the production relations of different social systems, and brings economic operation into the system.
This theoretical system embodies an attempt to organically unify the two. At the same time, the general category and special category are defined from the height of upholding and developing Marxist political economy. Combining with the latest development of contemporary capitalism and the great practice of building Socialism with Chinese characteristics in China, this paper discusses the meaning and movement of related categories of political economy, which can better reflect the unity of science and practice.
The third is to explore the modern model of China's theoretical system of socialist political economy. In the 1990s, with the gradual establishment and perfection of China's socialist market economy system, the construction of China's Marxist political economy theory system is facing new challenges, especially in the socialist part of political economy, there are a series of problems such as ineffective explanation of real economic problems and single research methods. However, Marxist political economy needs theoretical innovation combined with new practice and modernization. At present, there are three views on exploring the modern model of socialist political economy theory system: one is to keep the tradition of political economy, follow the original research methods and framework of political economy, and innovate and develop on this basis, which can be called "patching" model; The second is to reconstruct Socialism with Chinese characteristics's theoretical economics by drawing lessons from the research methods and achievements of western mainstream economics and combining with China's basic national conditions and basic institutional characteristics, which can be called "grafting" mode; The third is to completely abandon the Marxist paradigm of political economy and adopt modern economics. On the premise that China's paradigm is universal, it can be called "reconstruction" to construct the theoretical system of China's economics with modern economic paradigm. The first view holds that Marxist political economy is a scientific theory that keeps pace with the times, and it is still the mainstream of theoretical economics in China, and it is also the theoretical basis for building Socialism with Chinese characteristics's economics. Therefore, on the basis of inheriting the basic viewpoints, positions and methods of Marxism and combining with the practice of Socialism with Chinese characteristics's modernization, we must constantly innovate and develop Marxist political economy and form a modern paradigm of socialist political economy.
The second view emphasizes the characteristics of institutional analysis in Marxist political economy and draws more lessons from the principles and methods of modern western economics. This view holds that modern western economics is an economic theory that reflects the law of modern socialized mass production and has been tested by the practice of modern market economy. China is establishing and perfecting the socialist market economy system, and its goal is also a modern market economy. Therefore, the principles and marginal analysis methods of modern western economics should and can become an important part of Marxist political economy under construction in China. On the basis of constructing the theoretical system of modern political economy, this paper analyzes it from microeconomics, macroeconomics and economic growth theory on the premise of institutional analysis in Marxist political economy, thus forming a theoretical system based on the operation of market economy.
The third view holds that economics has the property of transcending all social systems, and modern economics formed in the 1960s represents the mainstream of economic theory and practice. It has strong universality and is highly consistent in standardization and logic. Those who hold this view believe that the theoretical system construction of theoretical economics in China should vigorously introduce the research methods and analytical framework of modern economics, and use them to explain and guide various economic problems faced by China's economic development, so as to establish theoretical economics in China. Professor Qian Yingyi believes that perspective, frame of reference or benchmark and analytical tools constitute the theoretical analysis framework of modern economics, which is the key to understanding modern economics and the only economic paradigm widely accepted by economists in the world. Professor Tian Guoqiang believes that this analytical framework has strong universality, high degree of standardization and logical consistency, covering not only western economics, but also "Oriental" economics and even China-specific economics, because different economic, political and social environments can develop different economic theories and models, but they are by no means different "economics". The basic analytical framework and research methods used to create different economic theories and models are all modern economics. He further pointed out that the basic analytical framework of modern economics basically consists of five parts or steps: (1) defining economic environment; (2) setting behavior patterns; (3) giving institutional arrangements; (4) select the balanced result; (5) Evaluation and comparison. Both of them believe that the modern economic analysis framework and methods derived from the modern market economy system are also applicable to the analysis of China's transitional economy and the solution of real economic problems, thus representing the mainstream development direction of China's theoretical economics in the future.
Second, some understandings of constructing the theoretical system of Marxist political economy at present.
The real formation of the theoretical system of a discipline depends on its scientificity and practicality. Scientifically speaking, it includes three aspects: first, the unity of the research object. That is to say, a clear research object is put forward, and a unified logical main line runs through the whole subject process. The second is the rigor of its logical system. The theoretical system of a discipline is a logical system structure composed of concepts (categories), reasoning and conclusions. There should be a logical system based on the initial category and the core category, which is composed of multiple categories at different levels. The third is scientific research methods. Scientific research methods can put realistic economic problems in a normative and scientific analysis framework, and can form effective conclusions to guide social and economic practice. From a practical point of view, a scientific theoretical system should have explanatory power to reality.
In the current process of constructing the theoretical system of Marxist political economy, we still need to form a * * * understanding in the following points.
First of all, defining the research object is the premise of establishing the theoretical system of Marxist political economy.
The theoretical system of Marxist political economy presents different models, which are first formed by different definitions of the research objects. Especially to understand and explain Marx's definition of the research object of political economy from different angles. Secondly, some domestic economists believe that the research object of Marx's political economy is to study both the relations of production and the optimal allocation of scarce resources, and its scientific nature is debatable.
In essence, the scientific nature of the research object of Marxist political economy is beyond doubt. The formation of this research object is the inevitable conclusion of the historical evolution of political economy, and it has been fully proved by the practice of socialist construction in China, especially since the reform and opening up, that is, only correctly handling the social relations of production is the decisive force to promote socialist economic construction. Taking production relations as the research object of political economy, a multi-level and multi-angle production relations system is formed by the movement of production relations, and a Marxist political economy theoretical system with strict logic and complete structure is formed. Second, defining the main line that runs through the whole discipline system is an important content of constructing the theoretical system of Marxist political economy.
As a scientific discipline system, the logical thread running through political economy is also an important content of constructing the theoretical system of political economy. Today, all disciplines of political economy pay more attention to the construction of logical main line. In the traditional model, the logical main lines formed by imitating Das Kapital include socially necessary product movement (Yong, 1985), three production processes (Gu Shutang, 1999), five production processes (Cheng Enfu, 2002) and economic interest movement. Jiang Xuemo, 200 1), etc. On the whole, under the premise of taking production relations as the research object, different logical main lines can be adopted, and various categories and concepts can be fully developed at multiple levels under the traction of a red line. This is an important part of forming a scientific theoretical system.
Third, drawing lessons from scientific research methods is the key to build a theoretical system of Marxist political economy.
At present, many domestic scholars believe that the scientific abstract method of Marxist political economy is effective in revealing the essence of the law of economic movement. However, at the application level, it is necessary to innovate the analysis method of political economy and establish an economic model with natural science methods for empirical analysis, so as to make political economy more timely, applicable and targeted. Therefore, Marxist political economy not only uses materialist dialectics to analyze the economic laws of human society from the historical latitude, thus constructing a theoretical system of vertical content, but also analyzes the practical problems in the economic society in a specific historical period, that is, drawing lessons from the method of establishing economic models in modern western economics, constructing a theoretical system from a horizontal perspective, and finally forming a theoretical system of Marxist political economy intertwined vertically and horizontally.
Fourth, expanding the scope of research is the internal driving force for the innovation of the theoretical system of Marxist political economy.
Expanding the research scope is also the source of maintaining the innovation vitality of Marxist political economy, which should be broken through in two aspects: First, based on the current basic national conditions of China, the great practice and theoretical achievements of China's socialist modernization construction are taken as the source of the theoretical system construction of Marxist political economy. China's basic national conditions are the basic premise for the construction of Marxist political economy theory system; Establishing a socialist market economic system in China is the main proposition of Marxist political economy analysis and research; The experience and lessons of China's socialist modernization, especially the theoretical innovation of our party, including Deng Xiaoping Theory, Theory of Three Represents and Scientific Outlook on Development, are the theoretical sources for constructing the theoretical system of Marxist political economy. Second, constantly explore and innovate to enhance the explanatory advantages of Marxist political economy in economic globalization and the development trend of contemporary capitalist society.