Ministry of Education and Science

Republic of Kazakhstan

Kostanay Engineering and Economics

University

TEST

Discipline: History of economic doctrines

on the topic: Economic thought of the Middle Ages

completed by: student gr. E-41

by specialty

Accounting and audit

Kachetkova V.I.

checked:________________

________________

________________

Kostanay 2002

Introduction 3

Economic thought of the Middle Ages 4

List of used literature 10

INTRODUCTION

The history of economic thought begins from those immemorial times when people first thought about the goals of their economic activities, the ways and means of achieving them, the relationships that develop between people in the process and as a result of the extraction and distribution of goods, the exchange of produced products and services.

Economic thought is an extremely broad concept. These are ideas that exist in the mass consciousness, and religious assessments and prescriptions concerning economic relations, and theoretical constructions of scientists, and economic programs of political parties... The sphere of economic thought is diverse, the field of application of reflections, conclusions and practical decisions: here are the general laws of economics, and the peculiarities of the economy of individual industries, and the problems of location of production, and monetary circulation, and the efficiency of capital investments, and the tax system, and methods of accounting for income and expenses, and the history of the economy, and economic legislation - it’s impossible to list everything.

In this entire complex set with numerous interweavings of its individual elements, it is possible, with a certain convention, to identify economic doctrines - theoretical concepts that reflect the basic laws of economic life, describe the relationships between its subjects, identify the driving forces and significant factors in the creation, distribution and exchange of goods.

ECONOMIC THOUGHT OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Modern ideas about the peculiarities of economic thought of the Middle Ages (feudal society), as well as those of the Ancient World, are based on materials from literary sources that have reached us. But an essential feature of the ideology of the period under review, including in the field of economic life, is its purely theological nature. For one reason, medieval economic doctrines were characterized by a variety of intricacies of scholastic and sophistic judgments, bizarre norms of religious, ethnic and authoritarian nature, with the help of which it was supposed to prevent the future establishment of market economic relations and democratic principles of social order.

The medieval type of natural-economic relations, or feudalism, arose, as is known, in the 3rd-8th centuries. In a number of states of the East and 5-9 centuries. – in European countries. And from the very beginning, the fullness of political power and economic power was the property of secular and ecclesiastical feudal lords, who both explicitly and implicitly condemned the trends in expanding the scale of the commodity economy and usury.

In economic literature, among the most significant representatives of medieval economic thought in the East, as a rule, the prominent ideologist of the Arab states Ibn Khaldun is mentioned, and in Europe, the leader of the so-called late school of canonism, Thomas Aquinas.

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406).

His life and work are connected with the Arab countries in northern Africa, where, in the spirit of the Asian mode of production, the state retained the rights to own and dispose of significant land and collect burdensome taxes on household income for the needs of the treasury. Moreover, since the beginning of the 7th century. “Revelations of God” descended to earth and the Meccan merchant Muhammad, the first preacher of the Koran, who heard them, announced to the Muslim world a new (Islamic) religious ideology; it seemed that nothing more could weaken the “omnipotence” of anti-market postulates.

Belief in the inviolability of class differentiation of society, i.e. in the fact that “Allah gave an advantage to some people over others,” as well as in the godly nature of essentially barter trade, at all stages of the evolution of society from “primitiveness” to “civilization,” Ibn Khaldun tried to strengthen in the souls of all the faithful and Ibn-Khaldun, putting forward with this the goal is the concept of a certain “social physics”. At the same time, the latter is not devoid of individual instructive ideas and historical and economic generalizations, such as, for example, the need for an elevated attitude towards work, condemnation of stinginess, greed and wastefulness, understanding of the objective nature of progressive structural changes in the spheres of the economy, thanks to which people’s long-standing economic concerns In agriculture and cattle breeding, relatively new occupations in handicraft production and trade were added.

The transition to civilization and, accordingly, the excessive production of material goods, will allow, according to Ibn Khaldun, to multiply national wealth many times over, and over time, each person will be able to gain greater wealth, including luxury goods, but at the same time, universal social and property equality will never come and The division of society into “layers” (estates) based on property and the principle of “leadership” will disappear.

Developing the thesis about the problem of wealth and lack of material goods in society, the thinker points out that it is conditioned, first of all, by the size of cities, more precisely, by the degree of their population, and draws the following conclusions:

With the growth of the city, the abundance of “necessary” and “unnecessary” items increases, leading to a decrease in prices for the first and an increase in prices for the second and at the same time indicating the prosperity of the city;

The small population of the city is the reason for the shortage and high cost of all material goods necessary for its population;

The prosperity of the city (as well as society as a whole) is real in the context of declining taxes, including duties and levies from rulers in city markets.

Thomas Aquinas (Aquinas) (1226-1274).

This Italian monk of Dominican origin is considered the most authoritative figure of the above-mentioned school of canonists at a later stage of its development. Her views in the field of the socio-economic structure of society differ significantly from the positions of the founder of canonism, or, as they also say, the early school of canonists, Augustine the Blessed (353-430). At the same time, at first glance, Aquinas, like Augustine, relies on the same principles of religious and ethical nature, on the basis of which the school for a number of centuries interpreted the “rules” of economic life, the establishment of “fair prices” and the achievement of equivalent and proportional exchange.

In fact, F. Aquinas, taking into account the realities of his time, is seeking relatively new “explanations” of social inequality in conditions of a more differentiated class division of society than before. In particular, in his work “Summa Theologica” he operates not with isolated, but with mass manifestations of signs of large-scale commodity-money relations asserting themselves day after day in cities that have increased in number and power. In other words, in contrast to the early canonists, F. Aquinas no longer characterizes the progressive growth of urban craft production, the first trade and usury operations as exclusively sinful phenomena and does not demand their prohibition.

From the point of view of methodological positions, outwardly the author of the Summa Theologica has almost no discrepancies with the early canonists. However, if the latter adhered to the principle of undeniable authoritarianism of the texts of sacred scripture and the works of the church Aretics, as well as the method of moral and ethical substantiation of the essence of economic categories and phenomena, then F. Aquinas, along with the named “tools” of research, actively uses the so-called principle of duality of assessments, which allows by means sophistry diametrically change the essence of the original interpretation of an economic phenomenon or economic category.

That is why the Summa Theologica is replete with dual characteristics and scholastic judgments, which its author resorts to in search of ways of reconciliation and compromise on many seemingly mutually exclusive theoretical positions. This is obvious from the following interpretations, which in modern economic literature are attributed to the economic views of early or late canonism:

Early canonists (St. Augustine)	Later canonists (Aquinas)
Division of labor
Mental and physical types of labor are equivalent and should not affect a person’s position in society.	The division of people into professions and classes is determined by divine providence and the inclinations of people.
Wealth
People's labor creates wealth in the form of material goods, including gold and silver. Unearned accumulation of the latter (“artificial wealth”) is a sin	Gold and silver are seen as a source of increasing private property and “moderate wealth.”
Exchange
The exchange is carried out according to the principle of proportionality and is an act of free will of people.	Exchange as a subjective process does not always ensure equality of benefit received, since as a result of this act it happens that a thing “benefits one to the detriment of another.”

Table continuation

Western Europe

In the 5th century n. e. Under the onslaught of Germanic tribes, the slave-owning Western Roman Empire fell and barbarian kingdoms formed on its territory. These states had an economic and political organization that was incomparably simpler than the empire, and the remnants of the tribal system were clearly visible in it. The Romano-Germanic synthesis, which took place over a large part of Western Europe, ultimately led to the emergence of large feudal land ownership and the main classes of medieval society - feudal lords and peasants dependent on them.

It should be noted that not only the early, but even the developed Western European Middle Ages (XI - XVII centuries) did not leave us any serious theoretical works on economics. However, this does not mean that economic thought did not develop in the early Middle Ages. During this period, economic problems appeared that were unknown to the ancient world and which required their own understanding.

Historical documents of the early Middle Ages reflected problems associated with the disintegration of the community and the genesis of feudalism (attitude towards the community and the enslavement of the peasantry, the economic organization of the early feudal estate, the economic possibilities of natural production, etc.). The most complete interpretation of these issues is contained in sources relating to the Frankish kingdom.

Thus, the question of attitude towards the community was reflected in the famous “Salic Truth” - the code of customary law of the Salic Franks, compiled under Clovis (481-511) and subsequently supplemented by capitularies of other kings. The compilers of the Salic Truth recognize the supreme right of the community to arable land and protect the sovereignty of the community from attacks by alien elements.

At the same time, the compilers of the Salic Truth were forced to reckon with the fact of the disintegration of the community and the development of private farming on its lands. Therefore, this legal monument contains laws protecting the individual economy of the Franks (the titles “On fence theft”, “On various thefts”, “On arson”, “On damage caused to a field or any fenced place”, etc.). Recognizing the presence of remnants of tribal relations (as evidenced, in particular, by the title “On Reipus”), “Salic Truth” at the same time reflected the process of their gradual elimination. Thus, the compilers included in this collection of laws the title “On a Handful of Land,” according to which wealthy relatives could refuse to pay fines for their poor relatives. The title “About one who wishes to renounce kinship” allowed for the possibility of leaving a large family.

The most important source on the history of economic thought of the early Middle Ages is the “Capitulary on Estates,” published at the beginning of the 9th century. Charlemagne or his son Louis the Pious. From this monument one can judge the economic views and economic policies of the feudal patrimonial lords. The compiler of the “Capitulary” proceeds from the fact that the owner of the estate is the monopoly owner of the land, and the estate must serve his “own needs.” It is very characteristic that the “Capitulary” does not mention the community, since by this time it had ceased to be a form of land ownership.

The ideal of farming for the compiler of the Capitulary is subsistence farming. Formulating the principles of exemplary housekeeping, he ordered the collection of taxes in kind and the creation of reserves. Judging by the Capitulary, the feudal lords believed that surpluses should be sold and products that were not produced on the estate should be bought.

The economic policy of the Frankish kings was strongly influenced by the church and the economic views of the papal curia and episcopate. Thus, justifying the need to help the poor and at the same time pursuing its own material interests, the church demanded that parishioners pay tithes. This requirement was reflected in the legislation of Charlemagne (768-814). In the “Saxon Capitulary” (last quarter of the 8th century), for example, he ordered “everyone, according to the commandment of God, to give to the churches and clergy a tenth of their property and earnings.” The obligation of everyone to pay church tithes was justified by the fact that “all Christians, without exception, must return to the Lord part of what He gave to everyone.”

Throughout the Middle Ages, the church waged a hypocritical fight against charging interest on loans. Already in the early Middle Ages, she managed to spread a negative attitude towards interest in society and achieve the publication of laws prohibiting usury. The negative attitude of royal power towards charging interest was manifested, in particular, in the laws of Charlemagne. Thus, one of them spoke of the prohibition “to give anything for the purpose of growth. Not only spiritual, but also secular Christians should not demand interest on loans.” According to the legislator, usury is unacceptable because charging interest “is a demand for what was not given...”, therefore, “the most legal thing would be to take from the debtor only the amount of the loan...”. Charlemagne stated that “whoever, during the harvest or vintage, buys grain or wine not out of need, but out of greed, buys, for example, a measure for two deniers and waits for the time when he can sell it for four deniers or more ”, receives “criminal profits”.

The problems that are reflected in sources on the history of economic thought of the Frankish kingdom are, to a greater or lesser extent, addressed in documents characterizing socio-economic relations in other Romanesque countries of Western Europe (in the Ostrogothic and Visigothic kingdoms, in the state of the Lombards).

The development of feudal relations in England occurred more slowly than in France, Italy and Spain. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms did not inherit Roman forms of exploitation, as a result of which the community turned out to be more stable here. One can judge economic views in the Anglo-Saxon period, first of all, from legal sources. The most important of them are the Code of Law of the Kentish king Ethelbert (beginning of the 7th century), the “Truth” of King Ine (c. 690), the “Truth” of the Wessex king Alfred (second half of the 9th century), as well as the works of the monk and chronicler Bede the Venerable (672 or 673 - approx. 735).

Anglo-Saxon sources reflected the process of social differentiation of the peasantry and the strengthening of royal power. Trying to disguise the fact that royal power protected the interests of the feudal lords, the Venerable Bede put forward the idea that kings cared about the well-being of the entire people. However, he was forced to recognize the division of society into poor and rich.

Sources from the Anglo-Saxon period also provide insight into the attitude of royalty to trade. On the one hand, the kings, considering trade one of the main sources of treasury income, patronized trade operations, and on the other, tried to regulate them.

The canonical doctrine, which was developed by church lawyers and interpreters of church law, had a great influence on the economic thought of the Middle Ages. The canonists also interpreted economic issues, often from the standpoint of the ancient tradition and the views of Aristotle. The founder of the school of canonism is Augustine the Blessed (354 - 430). His main works: “On the Blessed Life” (386) and “Monologues” (387). He considered commercial and usurious capital, like excessive wealth, a sin. Money, according to Augustine, is only a means of facilitating and accelerating exchange transactions.

The economic thought of the classical Middle Ages developed on the basis of church law, and its ideas were systematically interpreted and developed in the treatise “Summa Theologica” written by the Italian monk Thomas Aquinas (Aquinas) (1225-1274). In this treatise, he examined a number of problems relevant to his time. Based on the “dogmas of Aristotle,” Thomas Aquinas justified the social inequality of people, defended private property, and idealized natural farming. But at the same time, he broke with natural-economic views and justified exchange. His work reflected specific issues of commodity production. The most important of these is the issue of “fair price”. Thomas Aquinas considered the basis of exchange to be the equality of utility of the things exchanged. The expression of this principle for him is the “fair price,” which he explained in the form of the “amounts of labor and costs” necessary for the production of goods. There is a superficial resemblance here to the labor theory of value, but it is deceptive. Aquinas’s formulation of the problem of “fair price” was of an ethical and normative nature and was based on the class concept of justice. With this interpretation, the labor moment played a conditional role.

In his treatise, Thomas Aquinas also considered other attributes of a commodity economy. In his interpretation of money, he adhered to the nominalistic theory of its origin and recognized its necessity as a measure of value and a means of circulation. His attitude towards usury and trade suffered from inconsistency. On the one hand, he condemned usury, and on the other, he substantiated the decency of lending operations carried out by the church. He condemned trading for the purpose of making a profit, but in general he justified it. Cases when an item can be sold for more than the price for which it was purchased:

If there have been some improvements in the thing;

The owner suffered losses for transportation and storage;

Risk of loss of consumer qualities.

Thomas Aquinas was the first to coin the term “Entrepreneurial Risk”.

Table I. Comparison of the views of the early (Augustine the Blessed) and later (Thomas Aquinas) canonists

Augustine the Blessed	Thomas Aquinas
Division of labor
Mental and physical types of labor are equivalent and should not affect a person’s position in society.	The division of people into professions and classes is determined by divine providence and the inclinations of people.
Wealth
People's labor creates wealth in the form of material goods, including gold and silver. Unearned accumulation of the latter (“artificial wealth”) is a sin	Gold and silver are seen as a source of increasing private property and “moderate wealth.”
The exchange is carried out according to the principle of proportionality and is an act of free will of people.	Exchange as a subjective process does not always ensure equality of benefit received, since as a result of this act it happens that a thing “benefits one to the detriment of another.”
Fair price
The value of a product should be established in accordance with the labor and material costs in the process of its production according to the principle of “fair price”.	The cost principle of establishing a “fair price” is considered inaccurate, since it may not provide the seller with an amount of money corresponding to his position in society and cause damage.
Money is an artificial invention of people and is necessary to facilitate and speed up exchange transactions in the market due to the “intrinsic value” of the coin.	The value of money (coins) on the domestic market should be determined not by the weight of the metals it contains, but at the discretion of the state.
Trading profits and usurious interest
Trade profits and usurious interest derived from large-scale trade and lending operations turn into an end in themselves and therefore should be regarded as not pleasing to God and sinful phenomena.	Large incomes of merchants and moneylenders are only acceptable when they are obtained through labor and are associated with transport and other costs, as well as the risk that takes place in decent activities.

In the first half of the 16th century. In Western and Central Europe, a broad social movement developed, anti-feudal in its socio-economic and political essence, religious (anti-Catholic) in its ideological form. Since the immediate goals of this movement were the “correction” of the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, the transformation of church organization, and the restructuring of the relationship between church and state, it came to be called the Reformation. The main center of the European Reformation was Germany.

Supporters of the Reformation were divided into two camps. In one, the propertied elements of the opposition gathered - the mass of the lower nobility, the burghers, and part of the secular princes, who hoped to enrich themselves through the confiscation of church property and sought to use the opportunity to gain greater independence from the empire. All these elements, among which the burghers set the tone, wanted the implementation of fairly modest, moderate reforms. In another camp, the masses united: peasants and plebeians. They put forward far-reaching demands and fought for a revolutionary reorganization of the world on the basis of social justice.

The German theologian Martin Luther (1483-1546) stood at the origins of the Reformation and was the largest ideologist of its burgher wing. It was he who formulated those religious and political slogans that initially inspired and united almost all the champions of the Reformation in Germany.

One of the starting points of Lutheran teaching is the thesis that salvation is achieved solely by faith. Each believer is justified by it personally before God, becoming here, as it were, his own priest and, as a result, no longer needing the services of the Catholic Church (the idea of ​​\u200b\u200b“omnipriesthood”). The opportunity for believers to be internally religious and to lead a truly Christian lifestyle is ensured, according to M. Luther, by the worldly order.

In general, the evolution of M. Luther’s activities and teachings occurred in such a way that elements of burgher narrow-mindedness, narrow-class political utilitarianism, and religious fanaticism grew in them, which significantly hampered the further development of the Reformation.

Among the most prominent ideologists and influential figures of the Reformation was John Calvin (1509-1564). Having settled in Switzerland, he published there the theological treatise “Instruction in the Christian Faith” (1536). The core of Calvin's work is the dogma of divine predestination. According to J. Calvin, God predetermined some people to salvation and bliss, others to destruction. People are powerless to change the will of God, but they can guess about it by how their life on earth develops. If their professional activity (predetermined by God) is successful, they are pious and virtuous, hardworking and obedient to the authorities (established by God), then God favors them. From the dogma of absolute divine predestination, for a true Calvinist, stemmed, first of all, the duty to devote himself entirely to his profession, to be the most thrifty and zealous owner, to despise pleasures and wastefulness.

The radical reform of the structure of the church carried out by J. Calvin was also pro-bourgeois in nature. Church communities began to be headed by elders (presbyters), usually elected from the richest laymen, and preachers who did not have a special priestly rank, who performed religious functions as official duties.

A distinctive feature of the Calvinist doctrine is the cruel religious intolerance it contains towards any other views and attitudes, especially towards peasant-plebeian heresies.

Calvinist ideology played a significant role in history. She significantly contributed to the accomplishment of the first bourgeois revolution in Western Europe - the revolution in the Netherlands and the establishment of a republic in this country. On its basis, republican parties arose in England, and primarily in Scotland. Together with other ideological trends of the Reformation, Calvinism prepared the “mental material” on the basis of which in the 17th-18th centuries. a classic political and legal worldview of the bourgeoisie emerged.

East

The economic ideas of the Arabs were inextricably linked with the changes that took place in Arabian society. In Arabia, feudal relations arose as a result of the decomposition of primitive communal relations in most of the peninsula and the crisis of the slave system. In ancient times, in Arabia (in the south) there were states where slavery played a certain role. However, the bulk of direct producers were represented by free community members engaged in agriculture based on artificial irrigation.

The peculiarities of the physical and geographical conditions of the Arabian Peninsula, the predominance of deserts and semi-deserts determined the existence and development of nomadic and transhumance cattle breeding. A process of property stratification took place within the tribes. During the migrations, many families settled in oases, establishing ownership of the land.

In Arabia, the transition to feudal production relations and the creation of a single state coincided with the emergence of a new monotheistic religion - Islam. The head of the first pan-Arab state, Muhammad, bore the rank of prophet, exercising both secular and spiritual power. This combination of secular and spiritual principles left its mark on all subsequent development of Muslim countries, on ideology, historiography, jurisprudence, economic thought, etc.

The economic thought of the Arabs during the emergence of the early feudal state was reflected in the Koran and the biography of Muhammad. The Koran (translated into Russian as “reading”) contains the sermons of Muhammad, his statements on certain issues in the period 610-632. These sayings were recorded by his companions and were compiled together after his death. The earliest surviving copies of the Koran date back to the turn of the 7th - 8th centuries.

Most often, Muhammad mentions the rich and the poor, addresses the problems of wealth and inequality, and tries to explain inequality. However, the main idea is the divine origin of property and social inequality. It was Allah who allegedly gave “an advantage to some over others in their lot in life.

In the Koran, land is declared to belong to God and not everyone can count on receiving it or retaining land ownership. But the Koran affirms the principle of the inviolability of private property, emphasizing the inadmissibility of appropriating other people's property, entering other people's houses from the back, or entering without permission. The thieves faced severe punishment; they were to have their hands cut off “as retribution for what they had acquired.” Although Muhammad condemns the stingy, who love wealth, gold, silver, nevertheless, he shows great concern for the preservation of wealth, opposes wastefulness, excessive spending of funds, and calls for frugality. The faithful are advised not to eat “the property between themselves in vain” and not to give it to judges, for “it is criminal to eat part of the property of people,” but to give to a relative “what is due to him,” and to the poor and to the traveler.

All believers were obliged to spend part of their property “in the path of God”, paying cleansing alms. Almsgiving in the understanding of the Koran is not ordinary, voluntary charity. This is a kind of uniform taxation of all those who have converted to Islam, charity elevated to the level of a general religious and national obligation.

The Koran repeatedly addresses the issue of usury. Muhammad in every possible way frightened the moneylenders with reward from Allah, and attributed the prohibition of taking a high interest rate to Allah.

As a result of their conquests (632 - ca. 751), the Arabs created a vast empire, which included various lands and peoples. The initial regulations adopted under Muhammad and recorded in the Koran became the basis for the further development of legal and economic concepts. In addition, jurists turned to hadiths - legends about the actions and statements of Muhammad in order to sanctify their actions or interpretations in his name. The collection and interpretation of hadith became an important element in the development of both law and economic concepts. Muslim law “Sharia” (from the word “shar” - law) was formed on the basis of three sources: the Koran, hadith and customary law.

One of the fundamental problems developed by Islamic law was the problem of property. Muslim law developed detailed rules for land taxation.

In the caliphate from about the 9th century. Land ownership of Muslim charitable institutions, mosques, religious schools, etc. - waqfs - arose. Every Muslim could transfer part of his lands or other property to mosques and establish a waqf. In the final version, waqfs became inalienable and free from state tax.

Muslim jurists recognized the difference between the value of a product and the declared price. The right of first refusal for the purchase of real estate, the conclusion of pledge agreements, the registration of trading partnerships based on trust, and companies were developed in detail. Associations of merchants to conduct large trade operations were widespread throughout the Muslim world. When concluding large transactions, they resorted to checks and bills of exchange. Cashless trading was beneficial to all participants in the transaction. It was possible to receive cash from checks throughout the territory of the caliphate.

The largest thinker of the caliphate period, whose works treated various economic problems, was the outstanding lawyer Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ibrahim al-Ansari (731-798). He was an adherent of the Hanafi school of law. In 782, Abu Yusuf was appointed to the position of qadi (judge) in Baghdad and was the first to receive the title of chief qadi. Abu Yusuf wrote several works, but the only book that has survived to this day is “Kitab al-Kharaj” (“Book of Taxes”), which he compiled at the request of Caliph Harun al-Rashid. The main goal pursued by Abu Yusuf was to provide the caliph with practical guidance in resolving various issues related to economic policy. Abu Yusuf justified the transition of the state to a new system of taxation, different from the times of conquest.

The Arab thinker Ibn Khaldun (Abu Za-id Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad al-Hadrami) (1332-1406) was born in Tunisia and came from a noble family. In 1382, he left the Maghreb, going to Egypt, where for 20 years he took an active part in scientific and political life, tried to fight the corruption of the judicial apparatus, but to no avail. He opposed those feudal strata whose policies led to a general decline in the economy and stagnation of social life.

Ibn Khaldun strictly distinguished between consumer goods and property. He considered human labor to be the main source of income and wealth, for “all income is equivalent to the value of expended human labor. Ibn Khaldun paid special attention to the complex labor associated with operations of various types, emphasizing that “if there were no labor, there would be no subject.” He directly linked the development of crafts, arts and science with the growth of labor productivity.

Fluctuations in prices for any product, according to Ibn Khaldun, depended on supply and demand. Those who sell cheap goods suffer losses from low prices. However, “of all goods, bread is the one for which a low price is desirable, because the need for it is universal.”

Ibn Khaldun's thoughts on the value of goods are important. Trade, the act of buying and selling, should be based on the principle of equal exchange, when equal amounts of labor expended are equated.

The great historical merit of Ibn Khaldun lies in the fact that he put forward the concept of value, ahead of all the ancient thinkers of his time. For him, “most of what a person accumulates and from which he derives direct benefit is equivalent to the value of human labor.” Everything that a person “acquires in the form of wealth - if these are handicraft products - is equivalent to the value of the labor invested in it,” and “the cost of income is determined by the labor pumped in, the place that this product occupies among other types of products, and its necessity for people.” . In this case, for Ibn Khaldun, the equalization of goods acted as a form of equalization of labor. However, he did not establish the difference between value and price. The cost of goods also included the cost of raw materials, means of labor, and the cost of labor of producers of intermediate goods. As Ibn Khaldun wrote, some crafts “include the labor of other crafts; Thus, carpentry uses wood products, weaving uses yarn, and thus the labor in both of these crafts is greater and its cost is higher. If objects (are not created) by handicraft labor, then their value must include the value of the labor through whose expenditure they were made, for if there were no labor, there would be no object.” However, Ibn Khaldun was unable to reveal the mechanism of simultaneous creation of new value and the inclusion of already existing value created by the labor of other people.

In the works of Ibn Khaldun, the problem of money occupies an important place. He emphasizes that money is the basis of income, savings and treasures, and also acts as a measure of value. Ibn Khaldun advocates for the circulation of full-fledged money in the state and denounces alchemists who tried to obtain gold artificially. He denounced not only counterfeiters, but also spoke out against rulers who repeatedly officially reduced the content of gold and silver in coins.

Rus

During the period of decomposition of the primitive community among the Eastern Slavs, which occurred in the 4th-6th centuries, the dominance of arable farming and settled cattle breeding gradually became more and more noticeable. Crafts and commodity exchange are becoming more developed. From the 6th century Large landowners own fortified dwellings. They widely use the labor of servants - people captured during wars, acquired as a result of purchase or enslaved. In the IX-XII centuries. the process of enslavement and enslavement of smerds (peasants) by landowners intensified. While the bulk of rural workers consisted of servants and purchasers (obliged to process the debt taken - “kupa”), labor rent (corvée) prevailed. As community smerds were included in the system of feudal exploitation, product rent (in-kind rent) began to play an increasingly important role; by the 11th century. has become dominant. And the patrimonial boyar himself, the hereditary owner of the land, acquires the right to judge dependent people and manage them.

In the IX-XI centuries. Eastern Slavs unite into the ancient Russian state - Kievan Rus. It is clear that the top of society, its ruling class of feudal lords, needed a strong state. It was this that ensured the resolution of internal and external problems, the maintenance of obedience to the exploited masses, the protection of borders, the expansion of territory, and the development of international trade.

Rus' of this period is one of the powerful and authoritative states of Europe. The steady growth of productive forces was accompanied by a further division of labor and the growth of cities (Kyiv, Chernigov, Novgorod, Pereslavl, etc.), and the development of crafts. Cities became centers of trade and cultural relations.

Economic thought has not yet become an independent branch of ideology. But it was already an integral part of social thought. Treaties of princes, charters and chronicles, church literature and oral folk art to one degree or another illuminate the economic life, life and economic policy of the Kyiv princes. Ancient chronicles provide a fairly complete picture of tax and trade policies, the nature of agriculture and the social status of the population.

To understand the specifics of the development of economic thought at the very early stage of Russian history, a very valuable source, the first ancient Russian code of laws, is “Russkaya Pravda”: a unique code of feudal law of the 30s. XI century, operating until the XV century.

“Russian Truth” reflected the practical level achieved by economic thought by this time. It recorded the process of feudalization of the state and consolidated feudal exploitation. She gave a legal definition of natural economy, property relations, protection of the property rights of the feudal nobility to serfs, land, the right to levy taxes, and duties in kind. It contained norms of trade and protection of the interests of Russian merchants, mentioned “trade” (domestic market), “guest” (foreign trade), etc.

Although "Russian Truth" is attributed to Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054), many of its articles and even sections were adopted after the death of the prince. He actually owns only the first 17 articles of the legal monument.

Fierce struggle between smerds and feudal lords, popular uprisings of the late 60-70s. XI century demanded that Russkaya Pravda be supplemented with a number of articles called “The Yaroslavich Pravda.” The main meaning of this part of the code is the protection of the property of the feudal lord and his estate. “The Truth of the Yaroslavichs” tells about the structure of the estate itself, with its center in the princely or boyar courtyard with their mansions, houses of those close to them, stables, and barnyard. The estate was managed by the fireman (“firehouse” - house), the princely entrance was in charge of collecting taxes.

The main wealth of the estate is the land on which the scum, serfs, and servants worked. The princely boundary was guarded with an extremely high fine. The management of rural work was entrusted to the ratay (arable land) and village elders, who controlled the work of slaves and smerds, respectively. Craftsmen supplemented the number of patrimonial workers.

"Pravda Yaroslavich" abolished blood feud. However, the range in payment for the murder of different categories of the population increased noticeably. This certainly reflected the role of the feudal state in protecting the lives and property of the feudal lords.

The legal consolidation of the right to inherit lands that were received “from the father” (patrimony) at the congress of princes in 1097 in the city of Lyubech actually became the beginning of the process of feudal fragmentation of Kievan Rus and a new stage in the development of socio-economic thought. At the congress, the “Yaroslavich Truth” was approved.

At the beginning of the 12th century. A popular uprising broke out in Kyiv. For four days, the courts of princely rulers, large feudal lords and moneylenders were burned and destroyed.

Vladimir Monomakh (1113-1125) was called to the grand-ducal throne. A definite concession to the masses was the “Charter of Vladimir Monomakh” - another part of the “Russian Truth”. The Charter streamlined the collection of interest by moneylenders, improved the legal status of merchants, and regulated the registration of servitude.

The “Charter on Res” (interest) of this time fixed a somewhat underestimated, in comparison with the previously used, ruinous, interest rate for moneylenders on loans provided. This determined the legal basis for credit operations and improved the position of the merchants. Thus, a person who borrows at 50% per annum is obliged to pay this interest only for two years, and in the third year he becomes free from all debt.

The fight against feudal oppression also found expression in “urban heresies.” So, in the XIV-XV centuries. In Novgorod and Pskov, among the urban artisans “strigolniks” (cloth makers), a movement arose that opposed not only the exactions of the clergy, but also against social inequality in general.

Feudal strife, which extremely weakened the Russian state, largely contributed to the Mongol-Tatar domination of the 12th-late 15th centuries. The country was subjected to significant material and moral testing. Before the Tatar-Mongol yoke, Russian economic thought was the most progressive. After the overthrow of the Golden Horde, Rus' in its development lagged behind Europe by the 2nd century. The desire for political centralization of the country was necessary and obvious to all layers of Russian society. The center of unification became Moscow during the period of Ivan Kalita (1325-1340).

The economic thought of this difficult stage reflected the desire of the Moscow princes to unite, subjugate an increasing number of feudal, boyar, monastic and church estates, as well as the process of further enslavement of the peasants.

Under Ivan III (1462-1505), the formation of the state under the rule of the Moscow princes was basically completed. Over the century, the territory of the Moscow State increased more than 30 times.

Closely related to the struggle for the unification of the country was the formation of local land ownership. In the second half of the 15th century. Ivan III widely granted land to the feudal lord on the condition of service to the sovereign and inheritance exclusively along with service. Thus, the expansion of the local system created the preconditions for the enslavement of the peasants.

And in 1497, the Code of Laws was published - the first all-Russian collection of laws. Its release legislated for a system of centralized state power, a command form of government. The Code of Law strengthened the enslavement of the village, giving peasants a period of refusal from landowners - one week before and one week after St. George's Day (November 26), when it was possible to change from one owner to another. At the same time, the peasant was obliged to pay the feudal lord a certain amount of “elderly”, i.e., an amount of money for the use of the yard (outbuildings and housing).

The emergence of a centralized state headed by Moscow princes and the elimination of feudal fragmentation revived the economic and political life of the country. Widespread trade and craft urban development developed. The mining industry and cannon casting developed. International trade relations were established.

Economic thought of the first half of the 16th century. - the threshold of the reforms of the 50s - especially manifested itself in the works of a talented publicist of that time, nobleman Ivan Semenovich Peresvetov. The works he wrote actually set out the program of reforms proposed to Ivan IV the Terrible.

Speaking in favor of a centralized state, I. Peresvetov, in his own way, breaks with the isolation of the natural economy. His proposals to transfer governors, judges, and serving nobility to salaries and to hand over all income and taxes to the treasury certainly gave scope for the development of commodity-money relations and eliminated the obstacles facing the formation of an all-Russian market. Subsequently, Ivan IV heeded the advice of I. Peresvetov. In fact, the principles of his economic policy were aimed at strengthening the unity of the Russian state, strengthening the autocratic power of the tsar, and completing the feudalization of the countryside.

Among the church literature that defended the interests of the local nobility, the works of the former priest of the Moscow palace church Hermolai-Erasmus (mid-16th century) are of particular interest. Most of his works are devoted to theology and morality, but they also raised social issues. He was an opponent of the boyar centrifugal tendencies aimed at weakening the unity of the Russian state. At the same time, Erasmus advocated the independence of the church from the state and argued for the superiority of spiritual power over royal power. His views on wealth reveal moral condemnation; the source of enrichment is seen in the feudal lords’ appropriation of other people’s labor. Erasmus sharply condemned the enrichment of merchants and moneylenders. The religious terminology of Erasmus’s reasoning did not exclude his sympathy for the peasants and his intention to weaken the serfdom yoke that lay on them.

In his work “The Ruler and Land Surveying of the Tsar,” which was the first special economic and political treatise in Russia, he gave advice to the Tsar: how to guide the government, how to take into account and measure land. His recommendations were aimed at reducing and legislatively establishing the size of peasant duties (in order to put an end to the arbitrariness of the feudal lords), establishing a certain procedure for the receipt of funds in the royal treasury, streamlining yam duties, and changing the land measurement system. Ermolai-Erasmus believed that a peasant, dependent on a feudal landowner, should give him only 1/5 of the natural product he extracts and at the same time should be exempt from all monetary payments, both to the landowner and to the royal treasury. To obtain the funds needed by the sovereign, he proposed to allocate a certain amount of land in different parts of the country, while cultivating it the peasants, dependent on the sovereign, should also give 1/5 of the harvest to the royal treasury. This was significantly less than what peasants paid in the mid-16th century. to landowners in the form of rent. While remaining in the position of a defender of natural economy, Erasmus at the same time assumed that landowners and the king would have the money they needed by selling products received from peasants on the market to city residents. Proposing to free the peasants from the yam duty, he wanted to assign it to the city merchants who get rich from the purchase and sale of goods. But the trading people of the cities should be exempt, in his opinion, from duties and other payments. Of course, the importance of these measures should not be overestimated. They did not abolish feudal oppression, but they could still reduce the severity of exploitation and eliminate its extremes.

The reform of the land measurement unit proposed by Erasmus also had the goal of relieving the peasants of the burdensome costs associated with the work of the royal land surveyors. Erasmus also expressed interesting considerations regarding the allocation of land and peasants to the nobles. He recommended interpreting this allotment only as material support for the service of the nobles to the state, tying the local nobility to the sovereign, and the highest allotment of land should not be eight times larger than the lowest. Ermolai-Erasmus understood the demands of the time, since fiefs and estates were becoming smaller. His proposals were contrary to the interests of the boyars. Erasmus avoided the issue of monastic land ownership. This was his tacit support for the monasteries.

Although Ermolai-Erasmus condemned the presence of large feudal lords in huge land holdings and wealth, his economic views did not go beyond the framework of serfdom. He considered, for example, the feudal exploitation of serfs and their carrying out duties in favor of the state as a normal phenomenon. In his interpretation of a number of economic problems, Erasmus was a realist, and sometimes a utopian, especially in projects for protecting the interests of the peasantry. It was impossible to reconcile the economic and political interests of the nobles and peasants, because they were of a class antagonistic nature. Erasmus did not understand this. It cannot be definitely stated that Ivan the Terrible in his policy was guided by the ideas of Erasmus, but nevertheless, some of the tsar’s economic reforms (expansion of the local system) are consonant with his projects. Erasmus acted as an ideologist of the local nobility and created works that are an original monument of Russian economic thought. The principles of the economic policy of Ivan the Terrible (1547-1584), aimed at completing the feudalization of the countryside, strengthening the unity of the Russian state, and strengthening the autocratic power of the tsar, deserve attention.

The compilers of a new set of laws - the Code of Laws of 1550 - took the Code of Laws of Ivan III as a basis and made changes to it: the right of peasants to move on St. George’s Day was confirmed, the payment for the “elderly” increased, the right to collect trade duties was transferred to the state. With the formation of a centralized state, a system of national taxes and duties arose, the main burden of which fell on the shoulders of the peasants.

In the system of economic measures of Ivan IV, the reform of large land ownership stands out. The main point was to change the ratio of its forms. The boyar aristocracy was weakened, and the position of the serving nobility, dependent on the tsar, was strengthened. In 1565-1584. The oprichnina (part of the boyar lands) was introduced, the owners of which became a formed army, distinguished by its cruelty not only to the boyars, but also to the broad masses of the urban and rural population.

The state created by Ivan the Terrible retained its established traditions even under his closest successors - Fyodor Ivanovich (1584-1594) and Boris Godunov (1598-1605).

At the end of the 16th century. taking into account the interests of the feudal lords, “reserved summers” were introduced (prohibition of St. George’s Day in certain years), scribes, patrol and boundary books were compiled (the entire population was included in special books and the exact affiliation of the peasant to his owner was established). In 1597, a decree was issued on a five-year period for searching for fugitive peasants. Slaves were assigned to their master for life.

Not only feudal lords, but also officials and merchants became owners.

The path to the subsequent development of economic thought and new transformations of the 17th - early 18th centuries was prepared.



With the advent of the first state formations and the emergence of various forms of state participation in economic life, i.e. Since the times of ancient civilizations, society has faced many pressing problems, the relevance and importance of which remains to this day and is unlikely to ever be lost. Among them, the most significant was and, obviously, will always be the problem of interpreting the ideal model of the socio-economic structure of society on the basis of a logically verified systematization of economic ideas and concepts in economic theory, accepted as a result of general approval as a guide to action in the implementation of economic policy.

How was this problem solved in the ancient world? From the 4th millennium AD to the first centuries of the 1st millennium of our era, what arguments supported the system of slavery and the priority of natural economic relations over commodity-money relations in the countries of the Ancient East and ancient slavery?

Briefly, the answers to these questions can be summarized as follows:

• exponents of the economic thought of the ancient world - major thinkers (philosophers) and individual rulers of slave states - sought to idealize and preserve forever slavery and subsistence farming as the main conditions of an enduring “natural order” discovered by reason and protected by civil laws;
• The evidence of the ideologists of the ancient world was based primarily on the categories of morality, ethics, morality and was directed against large trade and usury operations, i.e. against the free functioning of monetary and commercial capital, which was seen as an artificial entity that violated the principle of equivalence and proportionality of the process of exchange of goods on the market according to their value.

However, for a more detailed and complete description of the evolution of economic thought of the ancient world, it is necessary to separately consider the features of the economic life of Eastern and classical (ancient) slavery and the main ideas and views in the monuments of economic thinking of the civilizations of the Ancient East and ancient states that have come down to us.

Economic thought of the civilizations of the Ancient East

The main feature of eastern slavery lies, as is known, in the large-scale economic functions of the state, determined in part by objective preconditions. Thus, the creation of an irrigation system and control over it required the unconditional participation of government bodies in this activity, including in terms of legal measures. However, excessive state tutelage (regulation) of an essentially natural economy through regulation of the sphere of loan operations, trade and debt bondage and the leading role of state property in the national economy have become the criteria according to which the economy of eastern civilizations is often called Asian production method.

Let us dwell on the most popular sources - monuments of economic thought of the civilizations of the Ancient East.

Ancient Egypt. Using the example of this country, humanity has two of the earliest monuments of economic thought in the entire history of self-organization within the framework of state entities. One of them dates back to the 22nd century. BC, and it is a certain message called “The Instruction of the King of Herculespolis to his Son.” This “Instruction” contains the “rules” of public administration and economic management, the mastery of which is as important for a ruler as any other area of ​​art. Another monument dates from the beginning of the 18th century. BC. and is called “The Speech of Ipuser”, and its main idea is to prevent the uncontrolled growth of loan operations and debt slavery in order to avoid the enrichment of the “common people” and the outbreak of civil war in the country.

Babylonia. This ancient eastern state of Mesopotamia, located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, left to its descendants the creation of its king Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC), often referred to as the code of laws that was in force in this country in the 1611th century. BC. In accordance with it, in order to avoid the destruction of natural-economic relations and a threat to the country's sovereignty due to the weakening of state structures and the army from reduced tax revenues to the treasury, extremely strict legal norms were introduced. Their violation entailed the most severe economic, administrative and criminal liability, including the death penalty. Here are some examples of legislative provisions in the Code of Hammurabi:

• anyone who encroaches on someone else's (private) property, including a slave, is punishable by slavery or the death penalty;
• for late payment of debts, neither the royal soldiers nor other Babylonian citizens are no longer deprived of their land plots;
• the period of debt slavery of anyone (wife, son, daughter or father of the family) should not exceed three years, and the debt itself is canceled upon completion of the sentence;
• the limit of a cash loan cannot exceed 20%, in kind - 33% of its original amount.

Ancient China. The originality of ancient Chinese economic thought is associated, as a rule, with the name of Confucius (Kung Fuzi (551-479 BC) and his collection “Lun Yu” (“Conversations and Judgments”), as well as with the ideas of popular in the 4th-3rd centuries BC in the collective treatise “Guanzi”.

A supporter of regulated patriarchal relations and state protection of the economic well-being of the clan nobility and all “superiors,” Confucius insisted on the idea that only an educated ruler, being the “father of the people” and the guarantor of “correct action,” is able to really influence the equal distribution of wealth created by society. This philosopher, although he recognized the divine and natural beginning of the division of people into classes, nevertheless considered it the duty of every person to strive for moral perfection, comprehension of the natural rules of respect for elders, filial piety and friendship with brothers. In his opinion, then “the people will have prosperity” when management is skillful, and labor, increasing the wealth of the people and the sovereign, will become equally profitable both in the conditions of the “great community” (collective property of the peasant community) and the private ownership of the hereditary aristocracy and non-hereditary slave owners.

The authors of Guanzi, like Confucius, put forward the main task of “making the state rich and the people happy” (through the equal distribution of wealth without “enriching” merchants and money lenders) and, like him, they advocated for the inviolability of the class division of society (believing , that without God’s chosen “noble” and upper classes the country would have no income and that it cannot be that “everyone would be noble,” since “there would be no one to work”). Among the measures to stabilize natural-economic relations, they considered the most important state regulation of bread prices (so that “calm reigned in the villages”), the creation of state grain reserves, the introduction of preferential loans to farmers, the replacement of direct taxes on iron and salt with indirect ones (shifting these taxes on goods produced with their use), etc. It is also interesting to note the fact that the main components of the concept of wealth in the treatise are named, along with gold and pearls, and other material goods, the commodity nature of which on the market is beyond doubt. At the same time, the role of gold as a commodity and a measure of calculating the resources of the state was “explained” primarily by its natural purpose of acting as money and facilitating such an exchange, as a result of which “the benefits for some” are “greater than for others.”

Ancient India. The most striking evidence of ancient Indian economic thought during the 4th-3rd centuries. BC. is a treatise called “Arthashasgra”, which means in translation the doctrine (“artha”) about income (“shastra”). Its author was a certain Kautilya (adviser to King Chandragunta I at the end of the 4th century BC), who proclaimed to his people the provisions on the labor origin of wealth and the need to regulate the processes of distribution of trade profits between merchants and the state. It is the state, in his opinion, that ensures the protection of irrigation structures, preferential land use, development of ore sources, construction of roads, development of industries, fight against speculating traders, etc. According to the treatise, the “accumulation of wealth” naturally presupposes the division of society into slaves and free Aryan citizens, for whom “there should be no slavery,” and anyone who does not repay debts due for the use of land is obliged to share the fate of the lower class for a time or forever. Advocating for a state-regulated economic mechanism, Kautilya put forward a purely empirical version of differentiation in the price of goods between the costs of producers and merchants; they were offered pre-established standards of 5 and 10%, respectively, of the price of goods of local and foreign origin.

Economic thought of Ancient Greece. Slavery, which took place in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome in the 1st millennium BC, is called classical or ancient. Moreover, the best achievements of the economic thought of ancient slavery during the period of the late V-IV centuries. BC. the works of the ancient Greek philosophers Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle appeared. Therefore, further we will talk about the vision of the “advantages” of a natural economy and the “natural” nature of slavery only using the example of the named authors.

Xenophon (430-354 BC).e.). The economic views of this philosopher were expressed in his treatise “Domostroy”, which contains the following provisions:

• the division of labor into mental and physical types, and people into free and slaves has a natural (natural) origin;
• the preferential development of agriculture in comparison with crafts and trade corresponds to natural destiny;
• “the simplest work” can be performed productively;
• the degree of division of labor is determined, as a rule, by the size of the sales market;
• Every product has useful properties (use value) and the ability to be exchanged for another product (exchange value);
• money was invented by people so that with their help they could carry out commodity circulation and accumulate wealth, but not usurious enrichment.

Plato (428-347 BC).e.). This philosopher, who anticipated a number of elements of the so-called communist model of socio-economic structure that subsequently emerged, defended primarily the natural-economic relations of a slave society, which was reflected in the characterization of two projects of an ideal state, respectively, in his works “The State” and “Laws”.

The first essay deals with the particularly important, from Plato’s point of view, role that the aristocratic class (philosophers) and the warrior class (army) are jointly called upon to perform in ensuring public interests. These classes, personifying the management apparatus of an ideal state, should not, according to the scientist, have property and burden themselves with the economy, since their material support (according to the equalizing principle) should become public. The rest of society is classified in the project as the third estate that owns and manages property, called by Plato the mob (farmers, artisans, merchants), and slaves, equated to the property of free citizens.

In the second work, the philosopher puts forward an updated model of an ideal state, developing and concretizing his argument in terms of condemning usury and justifying the leading role of agriculture in the economy in comparison with crafts and trade. The main attention is again paid to the apparatus of society management, i.e. “citizens” of the upper classes, who, in particular, will be endowed with the right to own and use (incomplete right of ownership) the house and land allocated to them by lot by the state. In addition, the draft stipulates the possibility of subsequent transfer of land by inheritance on the same terms to one of the children and the requirement that the value of the common property of citizens does not differ by more than 4 times.

Aristotle (384-322 BC). The project of the ideal state of this philosopher is set out in his works “Nicomachean Ethics”, “Politics”, etc. In them, he, like Xenophon and Plato, insists that the division of society into free and slaves and their labor into mental and physical is determined solely by the “laws of nature” and indicates a more important role in the economy of agriculture, rather than crafts or trade. But the scientist especially clearly demonstrated his commitment to the principles of natural economy in the original concepts about economics and chrematistics.

This concept has a sort of classification character. This is evidenced by the fact that he attributes all types of economy and human activity, from agriculture and cattle breeding to handicraft production and trade, to one of two spheres - natural (economics) and unnatural (chrematistics). The first of them is represented by agriculture, crafts and small trade and should be supported by the state, since its links contribute to meeting the basic vital needs of the population. The second is based on dishonest large-scale trade, intermediary and usury operations carried out in order to achieve an unlimited and selfish goal, the essence of which is the art of making a fortune, i.e. increasing “possession of money.”

Within the framework of his concept, Aristotle, idealizing the slave-owning state structure, artificially “simplified” the most important elements of economic life. For example, according to Aristotle, “5 lodge = 1st house” because their commensurability is supposedly achieved only thanks to money. From the standpoint of the same concept, he tendentiously analyzes the stages of evolution of forms of trade and money circulation. In particular, such early forms of trade as direct commodity exchange and exchange through money belong to them in the sphere of economics, and the movement of trading capital, i.e. when the exchange of goods is carried out with an increase in the money initially advanced for these purposes - to the sphere of chrematistics. The philosopher interprets the forms of monetary circulation in a similar way, relating the functions of money in displaying the measure of value and means of circulation to the sphere of economics, and their use as a means of accumulating profit, i.e. as usurious capital - to the sphere of chrematistics.

Thus, according to Aristotle’s concept under consideration, everything that could undermine the foundations of natural-economic relations (and this is primarily the movement of trade and money capital due to the division of labor) refers to the “costs” of chrematistics. And the latter, in his opinion, are due to a lack of understanding that “in reality, things so different cannot become commensurable,” because the money that arose as a result of an agreement between people, according to the philosopher, is nothing more than a “convenient in use” commodity and “ in our power” so that they (money) become “unusable”. Therefore, he strongly condemns the use of money for purposes other than its intended purpose, i.e. in order to provide convenience in everyday life “for the sake of barter trade,” and openly admits that usury “with good reason causes hatred” in him.

Economic teachings of the Middle Ages

Modern ideas about the features of the economic thought of the Middle Ages (feudal society), as well as those of the ancient world, are based mainly on materials from literary sources that have reached us. But an essential feature of the ideology of the period under review, including in the field of economic life, is its purely theological nature. For this reason, medieval economic doctrines were characterized by a variety of intricacies of scholastic and sophistic judgments, bizarre norms of religious, ethical and authoritarian nature, with the help of which it was supposed to prevent the future establishment of market economic relations and democratic principles of social order.

The medieval type of natural-economic relations, or feudalism, originated, as is known, in the 3rd-8th centuries. in a number of states of the East and V-XI centuries. - in European countries. And from the very beginning, the fullness of political power and economic power was the property of secular and ecclesiastical feudal lords, who both explicitly and implicitly condemned the trends in expanding the scale of the commodity economy and usury.

In economic literature, among the most significant representatives of medieval economic thought in the East, as a rule, the prominent ideologist of the Arab states Ibn Khaldun is mentioned, and in Europe, the leader of the so-called late school of canonism, Thomas Aquinas. Their creative heritage will be discussed further.

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406). His life and work are connected with the Arab countries in northern Africa, where, in the spirit of, as they say, the Asian mode of production, the state traditionally retained the right to own and dispose of significant land and collect burdensome taxes on household income for the needs of the treasury. Moreover, since the beginning of the 7th century. “revelations of God” descended to earth and the Meccan merchant Muhammad, who heard them - the first preacher of the Koran - announced to the Muslim world about a new (Islamic) religious ideology; it seemed that nothing more could weaken the “omnipotence” of anti-market postulates.

Belief in the inviolability of class differentiation of society, i.e. in the fact that “Allah gave an advantage to some people over others,” as well as in the godly nature of essentially barter trade, at all stages of the evolution of society from “primitiveness” to “civilization,” Ibn Khaldun tried to strengthen in the souls of all the faithful and Ibn-Khaldun, putting forward with this purpose the concept of some kind of “social physics”. At the same time, the latter is not devoid of individual instructive ideas and historical and economic generalizations, such as, for example, the need for an elevated attitude towards work, condemnation of stinginess, greed and wastefulness, understanding of the objective nature of progressive structural changes in the spheres of the economy, thanks to which people’s long-standing economic concerns In agriculture and cattle breeding, relatively new occupations in handicraft production and trade were added.

The transition to civilization and, accordingly, excessive production of material goods will allow, according to Ibn Khaldun, to multiply national wealth many times over, and over time, each person will be able to gain greater wealth, including luxury goods, but at the same time, universal social and property equality will never come and will not disappear division of society into “layers” (estates) based on property and the principle of “leadership”.

Developing the thesis about the problem of wealth and lack of material goods in society, the thinker points out that it is determined primarily by the size of cities, more precisely, by the degree of their population, and draws the following conclusions:

• with the growth of the city, the abundance of “necessary” and “unnecessary” items increases, leading to a decrease in prices for the first and an increase in prices for the second and at the same time indicating the prosperity of the city;
• the small population of the city is the reason for the shortage and high cost of all material goods necessary for its population;
• the flourishing of the city (as well as society as a whole) is real in the context of the declining size of the war chests, including duties and levies from rulers in city markets.

Finally, Ibn Khaldun considers money to be the most important element of economic life, insisting that its role be played by full-fledged coins made of two metals created by God - gold and silver. According to his thoughts, money reflects the quantitative content of human labor “in everything acquired,” the value of “all movable property,” and in it “the basis of acquisition, accumulation and treasure.” He is completely untendentious when characterizing the “cost of labor,” i.e. wages, arguing that its size depends, firstly, “on the quantity of a person’s work,” secondly, “its place among other labors” and, thirdly, on “people’s need for it” (in labor. - Ya.Ya.).

Thomas of Aquia (Aquinas) (1225-1274). This Italian monk of Dominican origin is considered the most authoritative figure of the above-mentioned school of canonists at a later stage of its development. His views in the field of the socio-economic structure of society differ significantly from the positions of the founder of canonism, or, as they also say, the early school of canonists, Augustine the Blessed (353-430). At the same time, at first glance, Aquinas, like Augustine, relies on the same principles of religious and ethical nature, on the basis of which the school for a number of centuries interpreted the “rules” of economic life, the establishment of “fair prices” and the achievement of equivalent and proportional exchange.

In fact, F. Akviisky, taking into account the realities of his time, is seeking relatively new “explanations” of social inequality in conditions of a more differentiated class division of society than before. In particular, in his work “Summa Theologica” he operates not with isolated, but with mass manifestations of signs of large-scale commodity-money relations asserting themselves day after day in cities that have increased in number and power. In other words, in contrast to the early canonists, F. Aquinas no longer characterizes the progressive growth of urban craft production, large trade and usury operations as exclusively sinful phenomena and does not demand their prohibition.

From the point of view of methodological positions, outwardly the author of the Summa Theologica has almost no differences with the early canonists. However, if the latter adhered to the principle of undeniable authoritarianism of the texts of sacred scripture and the works of church theorists, as well as the method of moral and ethical substantiation of the essence of economic categories and phenomena, then F. Aquinas, along with the named “tools” of research, actively uses the so-called principle of duality of assessments, which allows by means sophistry diametrically change the essence of the original interpretation of an economic phenomenon or economic category.

For example, if the early canonists, dividing labor into mental and physical types, proceeded from the divine (natural) purpose, but did not separate these types from each other, taking into account their influence on the dignity of a person in connection with their position in society, then F. Aquinas “clarifies” this “evidence” in favor of the class division of society. At the same time, he writes: “The division of people into various professions is due, firstly, divine providence, which divided people into classes... Secondly, natural reasons that determined that different people are inclined towards different professions..."(italics mine. - Ya.Ya.u.

The author of the Summa Theologica also takes an ambivalent and compromising position in comparison with the early canonists regarding the interpretation of such economic categories as wealth, exchange, cost (value), money, trade profit, usurious interest. Let us briefly consider this position of the scientist in relation to each named category.

Wealth Since the time of Augustine, it has been considered by canonists as a set of material goods, i.e. in natural form, and was recognized as a sin if it was created by means other than labor applied for it. In accordance with this postulate, the dishonest increase (accumulation) of gold and silver, which were considered by their nature “artificial wealth,” could not correspond to the moral and other norms of society. But, according to Aquinas, "fair prices"(we will discuss them below) can be an undeniable source of growth of private property and the creation of “moderate” wealth, which is not a sin.

Exchange in the ancient world and in the Middle Ages, it was perceived by researchers as an act of expression of the will of people, the result of which is proportional and equivalent. Without rejecting this principle, F. Aquinas draws attention to numerous examples that turn exchange into a subjective process that ensures equality of benefits received in a seemingly unequal exchange of things. In other words, the conditions of exchange are violated only when the thing “comes to the benefit of one and to the detriment of another.”

"Fair price"- this is a category that in the economic teachings of the canonists replaced the categories “cost” (value), “market price”. It was established and secured in a certain territory by the feudal nobility. Its level was “explained” by early canonists, as a rule, by reference to labor and material costs in the process of commodity production. However, F. Aquinas cost-based approach to setting a “fair price” considers it an insufficiently comprehensive description. According to him, along with this, it should be recognized that the seller can “rightfully sell a thing for more than it is worth in itself,” and at the same time it “will not be sold for more than it costs the owner,” otherwise damage will be caused and the seller, who will not receive the amount of money corresponding to his position in society, and the entire “social life”.

Money (coins) F. Aquinas is interpreted similarly to the authors of the ancient world and early canonism. He points out that the reason for their emergence was the will of people to have the “surest measure” in “trade and turnover.” Expressing his commitment to the nominalistic concept of money, the author of the Summa Theologica recognizes that although coins have an “intrinsic value,” the state nevertheless has the right to allow some deviation in the value of a coin from its “intrinsic value.” Here the scientist is again true to his predilection for duality, on the one hand, recognizing that the deterioration of the coin can make it meaningless to measure the value of money on the foreign market, and on the other hand, entrusting the state with the right to establish the “face value” of the money to be minted at its own discretion.

Trading profits and usurious interest were condemned by the canonists as displeasing, i.e. sinful phenomena. F. Aquinas also “condemned” them with certain reservations and clarifications. Therefore, as a result, in his opinion, trading profits and interest on loans should still be appropriated by the merchant (merchant) and the usurer, respectively, if it is obvious that they are committing completely decent acts. In other words, it is necessary that this kind of income is not an end in itself, but a well-deserved payment and reward for the labor, transport and other material costs that take place in trade and lending operations, and even for the risk.

As we can see, the Summa Theologica is replete with dual characteristics and scholastic judgments, which its author resorts to in search of ways of reconciliation and compromise on many seemingly mutually exclusive theoretical positions. What has been said in modern economic literature is attributed to the economic views of early or late canonism.

The economic views of the Middle Ages (feudal society), judging by the literary sources that have come down to us, are of a clearly theological nature. The scientific heritage of the spiritual ideologists of this era, including in the field of economic policy, is filled with scholasticism, sophistic reasoning, religious and ethical norms, through which they justify the class character and hierarchical structure of society, the growth of concentration of political power and economic power among secular and church feudal lords. Their doctrines are also characterized by an ambiguous interpretation of the need to expand the scale of marketability of the economy, condemnation or implicit approval of usury and other signs of rejection in the economy of the fundamental principles of market relations.

Medieval economic thought in eastern countries. Islamic Arab East

The author of one of the significant concepts of social progress based on economic factors is the prominent thinker of the Arab East Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) 4, who lived and worked in the North African countries of the Maghreb. By this time, here, in addition to the inherited traditions of antiquity, which allowed the state to retain and dispose of a large fund of land and replenish the treasury with taxes, the “omnipotent” postulates of the Koran, which formed the basis of what arose at the beginning of the 7th century, were added. new religious ideology - Islam. Moreover, it is noteworthy that a certain Prophet Muhammad, undoubtedly a merchant from Mecca, experienced in economic problems, “heard” and then spread the “revelations of God” in his sermons, thereby becoming the founder of Islam.

Ibn Khaldun’s concept (“social physics”) does not reject the godly nature of trade and the exalted attitude towards work proclaimed by Islam in the Koran, the condemnation of stinginess, greed and wastefulness, as well as the fact that “Allah has given the advantage of some people over others.” Its main achievement is a differentiated description of the evolution of society from “primitivity” to “civilization.” The latter, in his opinion, added such progressive spheres of economic activity as crafts and trade to the traditional economic activities of people in agriculture and cattle breeding. The successful development of all sectors of the economy, the thinker believes, will make it possible to multiply the wealth of the people many times over and make luxury the property of every person. However, the transition to civilization with its capabilities for excessive production of material goods, the scientist warns, does not mean that universal social and property equality will come and there will be no need for “leadership” over subjects and for dividing society into classes (“layers”) based on property.

Ibn Khaldun showed an understanding that the provision of citizens with basic necessities and luxuries, or, in his terminology, “necessary” and “non-necessary,” depended primarily on the degree of population of the city, symbolizing both its prosperity and decline. Therefore, if a city grows, it will have plenty of both “necessary” and “unnecessary”; at the same time, prices for the first (thanks to the participation of city residents in agriculture) will decrease, and for the second (due to a sharp increase in demand for luxury goods) they will increase. And vice versa, the decline of a city as a result of the small population living in it causes a shortage and high cost of all material goods without exception. At the same time, the thinker notes that the lower the level of taxes is set (including duties and levies from rulers in city markets), the more realistic is the flourishing of any city and society as a whole.

Ibn Khaldun considers money to be the most important element of economic life, insisting that its role be played by full-fledged coins made of two metals created by God - gold and silver. According to his thoughts, money reflects the quantitative content of human labor “in everything acquired,” the value of “all movable property,” and in it “the basis of acquisition, accumulation and treasure.” He is completely untendentious when characterizing the “cost of labor,” i.e. wages, arguing that its size depends, firstly, “on the amount of human labor,” secondly, “its place among other labors,” and thirdly, on “people’s need for it” (in labor. - Ya.Ya.).

Medieval economic thought in Western European countries. Catholic Canon School

The most significant author of Western European economic thought of the Middle Ages is usually called the Dominican Italian monk Thomas Aquinas (Aquinas) (1225-1274), classified as a saint by the Catholic Church in 1879. He became a worthy successor and opponent of one of the founders of the school of early canonism, Augustine the Blessed (St. Augustine) (353-430), who at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 5th centuries, being a bishop in the possessions of the Roman Empire in North Africa, laid down the dogmatic non-alternative principles of religious ethical approach to economic problems. And these principles during the V-XI centuries. remained almost unshakable.

During the early Middle Ages, the dominant economic thought of the early canonists categorically condemned commercial profits and usurious interest, characterizing them as the result of improper exchange and appropriation of other people's labor, i.e. like a sin. Equivalent and proportional exchange was considered possible only if “fair prices” were established. The authors of church laws (canons) also opposed the contemptuous attitude toward physical labor characteristic of the ideologists of the ancient world and the exclusive right to the wealth of individuals to the detriment of the majority of the population. Large trade and lending operations, as sinful phenomena, were generally prohibited.

However, in the XIII-XIV centuries, during the heyday of the late Middle Ages (when class differentiation of society intensified, the number and economic power of cities increased, in which, along with agriculture, crafts, trades, trade and usury began to flourish, i.e. when commodity -monetary relations acquired a fateful significance for society and the state), later canonists expanded the range of arguments “explaining” economic problems and the causes of social inequality. What is meant here is that the methodological basis on which the early canonists relied was primarily the authoritarianism of evidence (through references to the texts of scripture and the works of church theorists) and the moral and ethical characteristics of economic categories (including the provision of a “fair price”). To these principles, the later canonists added the principle of duality of assessments, which allows, through comments, clarifications and reservations, the original interpretation of a specific economic phenomenon or economic category to be presented in a different or even opposite sense.

The above is obvious from the judgments of F. Aquinas on many economic problems that were relevant in the countries of Western Europe in the Middle Ages and reflected in his treatise “Summa Theologica”. For example, if the early canonists, dividing labor into mental and physical types, proceeded from the divine (natural) purpose, but did not separate these types from each other, taking into account their influence on human dignity in connection with their position in society, then F. Aquinas “ clarifies" this "evidence" in favor of the class division of society. At the same time, he writes: “The division of people into various professions is due, firstly, to divine providence, which divided people into classes... Secondly, to natural reasons that determined that different people are inclined to different professions...” 5

The author of the Summa Theologica also takes an ambivalent and compromising position in comparison with the early canonists regarding the interpretation of such economic categories as wealth, exchange, cost (value), money, trade profit, usurious interest. Let us briefly consider this position of the scientist in relation to each named category.

Since the time of Augustine, wealth has been considered by canonists as a set of material goods, i.e. in natural form, and was recognized as a sin if it was created by means other than the labor put into it. In accordance with this postulate, the dishonest increase (accumulation) of gold and silver, which were considered by their nature “artificial wealth,” could not correspond to the moral and other norms of society. But, according to Aquinas, “fair prices” (discussed below) can be an undeniable source of the growth of private property and the creation of “moderate” wealth, which is not a sin.

Exchange in the ancient world and in the Middle Ages was perceived by researchers as an act of will of people, the result of which is proportional and equivalent. Without rejecting this principle, F. Aquinas draws attention to numerous examples that turn exchange into a subjective process that ensures equality of benefits received in a seemingly unequal exchange of things. In other words, the terms of exchange are violated only when the thing “comes to the benefit of one and to the detriment of another.”

“Fair price” is a category that in the economic teachings of the canonists replaced the categories “cost” (value), “market price”. It was established and secured in a certain territory by the feudal nobility. Its level was “explained” by early canonists, as a rule, by reference to labor and material costs in the process of commodity production. However, F. Aquinas considers the costly approach of assigning a “fair price” to be an insufficiently comprehensive characteristic. According to him, along with this, it should be recognized that the seller can “rightfully sell a thing for more than it is worth in itself,” and at the same time it “will not be sold for more than it costs the owner,” otherwise damage will be caused and the seller, who will not receive the amount of money corresponding to his position in society, and the entire “social life”.

Money (coins) by F. Aquinas are interpreted similarly to the authors of the ancient world and early canonism. He points out that the reason for their emergence was the will of people to have the “surest measure” in “trade and turnover.” Expressing his commitment to the nominalistic concept of money, the author of the Summa Theologica recognizes that although coins have an “intrinsic value,” the state nevertheless has the right to allow some deviation in the value of a coin from its “intrinsic value.” Here the scientist is again true to his predilection for duality, on the one hand, recognizing that the deterioration of the coin can make it meaningless to measure the value of money on the foreign market, and on the other, entrusting the state with the right to establish the “face value” of the money to be minted at its own discretion.

Trade profits and usurious interest were condemned by the canonists as unpalatable, i.e. sinful phenomena. F. Aquinas also “condemned” them with certain reservations and clarifications. Therefore, as a result, in his opinion, trading profits and interest on loans should still be appropriated by the merchant (merchant) and the usurer, respectively, if it is obvious that they are committing completely decent acts. In other words, it is necessary that this kind of income is not an end in itself, but a well-deserved payment and reward for the labor, transport and other material costs that take place in trade and lending operations, and even for the risk.

Questions and tasks for control

1. Give the arguments of the authors of economic ideas and concepts of the ancient world and the Middle Ages, through which they defended the priority of natural economy and condemned the expansion of the scale of commodity-money relations. Is it possible to agree with them that money did not arise spontaneously, but as a result of an agreement between people?

2. What are the features of the model of an ideal state in the works of Aristotle? Reveal the essence of the Aristotelian concept of economics and chrematistics.

3. What are the main features of medieval economic thought in the Arab East? Explain the essence of Ibn Khaldun’s concept of “social physics”.

4. What methodological principles did the early and late canonists use in their economic views? Give examples of historical analogies in totalitarian states of the 20th century.

5. Compare the interpretations of the main economic categories during the periods of early and late canonism. How are they formed in modern economic literature?

Aristotle. Op. in 4 volumes. M.: Mysl, 1975-1983.

Arthashastra, or the Science of Politics. M.-L.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1959.

Ancient Chinese philosophy. Collection of texts. In 2 volumes. M.: Thought 1972-1973.

Ignatenko A.A. Ibn Khaldun. M.: Mysl, 1980.

Plato. Op. in 3 volumes. M.: Mysl, 1968-1972.

Samuelson P. Economics. In 2 volumes. M.: NPO "Algon", 1992.

Lecture 3. Mercantilism - economic thought during the emergence of market economic relations

After studying this topic, you will know:

That it was precisely during the period of economic ideas of mercantilism that market economic relations prevailed, displacing the natural economy that had once played the leading role;

What is the mercantilist concept of wealth and why was it generally believed that achieving a trade surplus is impossible without a national policy of “beggar your neighbor”;

What are the features of the protectionist sentiments of mercantilists at the early and late stages in the development of mercantilism;

Why is the mercantilist economic concept a! “economic theory in its infancy” (M. Blaug) and “was a system of practical politics” (N. Kondratiev), which cared “about the development of the market system in completely non-market ways” (K. Polanyi);

Since when did economics become known as political economy?