Définition de l `économie politique -1

1. l’économie politique
• Une origine anglo-saxonne
• Une gigantesque nébuleuse
• De l’économie classique aux courants critiques
Définition de
l’économie politique -1-
«The study of social relations, particularly the
power relations, that mutually constitute the
production, distribution, and consumption of
resources»
(Mosco:25).
Définition de
l’économie politique -1-
«L’étude des relations sociales,
particulièrement des relations de pouvoir, qui
constituent conjointement la production, la
distribution et la consommation des
ressources» (Mosco : 25).

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Définition de
l’économie politique -2-
«The study of control and survival in social
life» .
«L’étude du contrôle et de la survie dans la
vie sociale» .
(Mosco : 26).
The Journal of Political Economy
«JPE has been presenting significant research and scholarship in
economic theory and practice since its inception in 1892. Publishing
analytical, interpretive, and empirical studies, the Journal presents
work in traditional areas--monetary theory, fiscal policy, labor
economics, planning and development, micro-and macroeconomic
theory, international trade and finance, industrial organization--as well
as in such interdisciplinary fields as the history of economic thought
and social economics» .
www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE/home.html
Consensus minimal
• Rapports Etat-économie
• Prééminence du facteur économique
• Économie politique VS Économétrie
• Économie politique VS Économie libérale

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Caractéristiques centrales
de l’approche
d’après Golding et Murdock (1991)
• Changement social et transformation
historique
• Totalité sociale
• Philosophie morale
• Praxis
Changement social
«For classical theorists like Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and
John Stuart Mill, this meant comprehendingthe great
capitalist revolution, the upheaval that transformed
societies based primarily on agricultural labor into
commercial, manufacturing, and ultimately, industrial
societies ».
(Mosco: 27)
Changement social
«For critical political economists like Marx, it meant
examining the dynamic forces in capitalism responsible for
its growth and change. The object was to identify both
cyclical patterns of short-term expansion and contraction
and more long-term transformative cycles that signal
fundamental change in the system ».
(Mosco: 27)

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Totalité sociale
«Dialectical thinking leads us to recognize that
reality is comprised of both parts and a whole,
organized in the concrete totality of integration and
contradiction that constitutes social life». (Mosco:
33)
Philosophie morale
«Golding and Murdock (1991:18-19) maintain that what
distinguishes critical political economy is that ‘perhaps
most importantly of all, it goes beyond technical issues of
efficiency to engage with basic moral questions of justice,
equity and the public good’». (Mosco: 34)
Praxis
«Most generally, praxis refers to human activity and
specifically to free and creative activity by which
people produce and change the world and
themselves» (Mosco: 37).
Marxist Political Economy
« Thus a political economic approach distinguishes itself
from a neo-classical or marginalist approach first by placing
its emphasis on production or supply rather than
consumption or demand as the determining moment. It never
takes the social construction and maintenance of the given
system of material production for granted. It recognizes that
system for the unstable human achievement that it is, and
thus stresses the problems of disequilibrium, the constant

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threats to the smooth working and continuity of the system,
rather than assuming equilibrium» (Garnham, p. 6-7)