Publication Details

Abstract

The author analyzes the views on the subject of political economy, confronting the Marxist approach to the investigation of productive relations with the opinions aiming at the investigation of the relation of man — nature. In this connection he analyzesthe views on the conception of the science of economy and itscomponents, that — by his opinion — are represented, besides political economy, also by the branch, concrete and functional economies, accentuate more the investigation of productive forces. The author considers the economic sciences as a whole system of economic sciences, where each of them has its own object of investigation, to which also the appropriate method of investigation adequately corresponds. In this total system the integrating role is played by political economy, which, investigates the productiverelations as a social-economic frame of the development of productive forces. Starting from the thesis of the organic unity of the object and the method the author points out that for political economy, the object of which develops and changes its quality, only the materialistic-dialectical method of cognition is adequate, the only one which can record the motion and its development. He confronts it with the system analysis, which he describes. This is capable of recording only the motion. The system analysis is understood as a special method of investigation with limited possibilities of cognition. It can be used in economic sciences only as a supplement to the materialistic-dialectical method, namely to those that are aimed, with their object, more to the investigation of productive forces e. g. the branch economies or theeconomy of management.