Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

Economics 343
to take an example - have for some time now known what economic machinery
must be used, and have developed the necessary institutions, for counteracting
cyclical fluctuations under capitalism; but their use is often hampered by political
considerations as, for instance, when class interests are used to influence
government intervention in economic affairs. Hence the phenomenon of the
so-called ‘political business cycle’, which is due to the domination of certain
class interests rather than to any technical difficulties in maintaining full employment.
And, indeed, there can be no other explanation for a difficulty which,
theoretically, should not exist: the difficulty, for certain capitalist powers, of
replacing expenditure on armaments by other outlays under a policy of preventing
cyclical fluctuations. Again, economic development in the socialist
countries cannot be fully understood - in both its positive and its negative
aspects - without due consideration of such issues as the ownership of the means
of production, the machinery by which control is exercised over the economy,
and the associated pattern of interests, motives and limitations that affect the
process of decision-making. It is only through research on such lines that the
thesis of the convergence of systems can be confirmed, refuted, or appropriately
modified; that the inter-relations between the processes of economic growth and
the current socio-economic system can be determined; and that, thus, the general
trends of development can be established.
CONCLUSION
The present study of the major problems in economics today is not meant to be
exhaustive. It has not touched many of the questions that were the subject of
research by the classical economists: questions arising out of theories of pro-
duction, market and prices, money, foreign trade, and so on. This is not to say
that these are issues of minor importance, or to prejudge their importance in the
future. The aim here has simply been to single out what seemed to be the vital
problems; not so much to look at all the problems that demand solution as to
indicate what the basic approach to them should be; and to show that economic
problems must be treated in dynamic terms, with a growing emphasis on long-
term dynamics. There is no doubt that, if economists are to be fully able to face
future realities, they must treat socio-economic elements, in the broadest sense,
as an integral part of their theoretical research. As the science of macro-eco-
nomic dynamics, economics must again become more of a social science: po-
litical economy in the strict sense of the term.
Those who consider that these new perspectives in economics are incompati-
ble with the mathematization of its analytical tools completely misunderstand
the question. The far greater complexity of the inter-relations between the vari-
ous aspects of the economic process when they are looked at in the context of
socio-economic and political changes increases, rather than diminishes, the
need for instruments that afford the precision necessary to explore their full
intricacy. There is a danger, but it lies, not in the instruments themselves, but
in the temptation to regard them as an end in themselves, i.e. to allow form to