Understanding the laws of the production process is based on the characteristics of such categories as needs and resources.

Needs can be defined as an objective need to provide conditions for the life of people. The classification of needs is very diverse. In modern educational economic literature, the division of needs into primary ones (for clothes, food, drink, etc.) and secondary ones associated with the spiritual, intellectual activity of a person (needs for education, art, etc.) is most often used. The division of these needs is to a certain extent conditional. We are interested economic needs. This is that part of human needs, for the satisfaction of which it is necessary to produce, distribute, exchange and consume material goods.

The interaction between production and needs is twofold. Firstly, production directly affects needs, creating specific goods for consumption, changing the structure of needs and the way of life of people, the ways of consumption. Second, economic needs have a strong reverse action on production, being an internal incentive motive for production activity. At the same time, human demands often overtake production and move it forward.

The deep internal relationship between production and needs is reflected in the law of the rise of needs . This law expresses the objective (not dependent on the will and consciousness of people) the need for growth and improvement of human needs with the development of production and culture. The operation of the law of the rise of needs is manifested in the fact that in the course of historical development the needs of society grow quantitatively and change qualitatively: some of them disappear, others (new ones) appear.

To organize production, it is necessary to have resources, among which are: natural, those. natural benefits used in the production of goods and services (land, its subsoil, raw materials, forests, etc.); capital , or production , - factories, plants, machines, tools and money spent on their acquisition; human - the physical and mental abilities of workers used by them in the production process; entrepreneurial – managerial knowledge of businessmen necessary for the organization profitable production.

But the resources listed above are potential the productive power of society. In reality, only a fraction of the resources are involved in production.

The part of the resources involved in the production process is called production factors.

Factors of production are used in the labor process. labor process It is an expedient human activity aimed at the production of material goods. The labor process constitutes the material basis of social production, but is not identical to it: the production process includes not only labor process , but also economic relations workers to each other in the process of labor activity.

The main elements of the labor process are labor itself, objects of labor and means of labor. Objects of labor - everything that human activity is aimed at (raw materials, materials, fuel, minerals, etc.); means of labor - a thing or a complex of things with the help of which material goods are created (technological equipment, tools, buildings, structures). The means of labor are the most important indicator the level of development of production. They are divided into natural (land, organic fertilizers, pets, etc.) and technical (man-made). The composition of technical means of labor includes various machines, mechanisms, engines, transmission devices. Under the conditions of machine production, mechanical means of labor developed into a system of machines with three main parts: a working machine, an engine, and a transmission device. NTR added a fourth element - a control device that performs the function of mental labor to control machines. Recently, information technology has been increasingly used, which, unlike other machines, does not process energy, not matter, but information. The means of labor and the objects of labor together constitute means of production . But the main element in the labor process is work force. This is a combination of spiritual and physical abilities of a person to work. Why is labor power the main factor of production? Because the labor force not only carries out the labor process, but also produces the means of production. The consumption of labor power is the labor process itself.

The interaction of production factors can be represented in the form of a diagram.

Material and personal factors of production (means of production, land, people with their skills, production experience and skills) in the economic literature are usually called productive forces . The transition from one stage of society to another does not interrupt their development, but presupposes their transformation on a new level.

quality basis. State of the art productive forces is the most important criterion and indicator of social progress. In order to set all factors in motion, it is required to find the correct quantitative ratio between them. This problem is primarily solved by technology. It should be borne in mind that the factors of production at each moment limited in relation to needs.

Rice. 3

A quantitative approach to the economy allows you to determine how much production is able to meet existing and future needs. For this, production possibilities are calculated (in relation to the enterprise, national economy generally).

Production capability refers to the maximum amount of output that is achieved with the full use of production factors. But usually there is not enough production capacity to fully satisfy all kinds of needs. In such a situation, an alternative choice of the needs themselves to be satisfied is used. At any enterprise, such situations constantly arise when it becomes necessary to expand the production of one of the manufactured goods. If an enterprise has a limited set of resources (finance, raw materials, energy, equipment, people), then an increase in the output of one of the goods will inevitably lead to a reduction in the production of another product. In this regard, an increase in the production of one of the goods will require switching to this part of the resources employed in the production of another. This is the essence of the law of rarity: if you fully use limited resources for the production of one good, you must give up the production of a certain amount of another good.

The law of rarity operates at all levels of the economy - from the household to the state level. Our example considers the shop level of a large precast concrete firm. The workshop produces two types of reinforced concrete structures - columns and beams.

In the graph in Figure 4, we have provided data on the possibilities of producing columns and beams in this workshop with full use of all available resources.

There can be two extremes - either to produce only columns, or to produce only beams. Moreover, there may be various options for their production. The combination of options for the simultaneous production of columns and beams is shown in Figure 4.

Any point (A,B,C,D,E,F) on the production possibilities curve of the workshop shows the possible options for the simultaneous production of columns and beams. For example, dot D shows that if you release 9 columns daily, then the remaining resources will only be enough for 3 beams. At the same time, if we want to increase the production of beams, we will need to give up the production of a certain number of columns (for example, 4 beams and 5 columns).

If resources are not used at 100%, then we will not be on the production possibilities curve, but inside it, for example, at the point Q. This means that we produce 5 columns and 3 beams daily, while saving some of the resources. In this case, we could increase the production of columns and beams at the same time. The boundary of such an increase will still remain the production possibilities curve of the shop.

This limitation of production possibilities extends to the scale of the entire state. Thus, in order to solve a state problem, for example, "Housing 2000", one must bear in mind that equipment, people and building materials are limited in the country and at the same time one will have to give up the construction of factories for the production of food or roads in rural areas.

What happens to the production possibilities curve if the shop floor managers increase the resource limit? If they are given additional workers, money, raw materials? Obviously, by involving new resources, the production possibilities curve can be pushed to the right, and the point M reachable (12 columns and 4 beams). There will be economic growth. But for what? By attracting additional resources. When they are, it is acceptable. Such a way economic growth was named extensive .

What will happen to this curve if engineers develop more economical technologies for the production of beams and columns. Then it will be possible to produce more columns and beams from the same resources, point M will be within reach again. The production possibilities curve will shift to the right.

This path of economic growth, when resources are saved through new technologies and other achievements of scientific and technological progress (STP), is called intense .

The study of the law of rarity and the analysis of the graph (Fig. 4) gives us the opportunity to get acquainted with such a concept of economics as - opportunity cost .

The opportunity cost is the cost of one good expressed in terms of another good. Opportunity costs must be taken into account by citizens, businesses, and governments. When accepting any government program, one must take into account how it will be implemented.

When studying the law of rarity, it is necessary to pay attention to such a phenomenon as rising costs .Each additional beam becomes more and more costly in terms of opportunity cost. In fact: the first beam made us sacrifice one column, the second - two, and the alternative cost of the fifth beam was already equal to five columns. Thus, the cost of beams, expressed in terms of the cost of undermanufactured columns, tends to increase. Each additional beam produced becomes more and more expensive in terms of additional elimination of the production of columns.

1.1. In Russian, the term "economy" has two meanings.

1.1.1. First, the economy is a way of organizing the activities of people aimed at creating goods necessary for consumption. A synonym for this meaning of the word "economy" is the concept of "economy".

Economics - 1) it economic system ensuring the satisfaction of the needs of people and society through the creation and use of the necessary vital goods; 2) economic system, including branches of material production (industry, Agriculture, transport, etc.) and the non-material sphere (education, culture, health care, etc.), which provides society with material and non-material benefits.

1.1.2. Secondly, "economics" refers to (2) the science that investigates how people use the available resources. limited resources to satisfy their unlimited needs for the goods of life. The name of this science was given by Aristotle (384-322 BC) by combining two Greek words: “eikos” - “economy” and “nomos” - “law”, so that “economics” literally means “ economic laws." The word "economics" was first used by the ancient Greek author Xenophon (c. 430-355 or 354 BC) as the title of his work.

Economics - 1) the science of the economy, the methods of its conduct and management, relations between people in the process of production and exchange of goods, the patterns of economic processes; 2) a science that explores how people in conditions of limited resources satisfy ever-growing needs.

1.2. The main economic problem lies in the limitedness of the factors of production and the benefits produced with their help relative to the ever-growing needs of people.

The needs of society in connection with the increase in the population, the acceleration of scientific and technological progress, the deepening of cultural ties and exchanges are constantly increasing and becoming almost limitless. On the contrary, economic opportunities - those real resources that society can direct to satisfy needs - are always, at every moment, limited. How to satisfy with limited resources limitless needs?

What determines the successful solution of the main problem of the economy?

From 1) rules, principles of organization economic activity(the principle of rationality, which allows choosing decisions based on the desire to obtain the greatest economic results with the lowest possible cost of all the resources necessary for this); 2) economic mechanisms, i.e. ways and forms of people combining their efforts in solving life support problems (division of labor and specialization, trade).

The main questions of economics are: 1) what and in what quantity to produce (what goods and services should be offered to consumers)?; 2) how to produce (which method of producing goods with the help of available limited resources should be used)?; 3) how to distribute the produced goods and services (who can claim their ownership).

1.3. Economic activity - all types economic activity people to meet their needs and provide material living conditions.

1.3.1. Types of economic activity: 1) production, 2) distribution, 3) exchange and 4) consumption of goods and services. These four spheres, as stages of a single production process, not only follow each other, but also interpenetrate each other.

Production as a whole (P + R + O + P) is the activity of society aimed at satisfying its needs.

1.3.2. The number of types of consumer goods and services more than doubles every ten years. This historical regularity may be called the law of the rise of needs.

1.3.3. Good.

The means by which needs are satisfied are called goods.

All life goods \u003d free goods (available in an amount greater than the amount of need for them; can be consumed free of charge) + economic goods (goods and services, the volume of which: is insufficient to satisfy people's needs in full; can be increased only by spending factors of production ; have to be distributed in one way or another).

Economic benefits = goods + services that satisfy one or another human need and are available to society in limited quantities.

Goods - 1) any product of economic activity in material form; 2) a product of labor produced for sale on the market; 3) a material object useful to people and therefore valued by them as a blessing.

Service - 1) benefits, usually presented not in the form of things, but in the form of activity; 2) the result of the useful activity of enterprises (organizations) and individuals aimed at meeting certain needs of the population and society; 3) an intangible good that has the form of an activity useful to people.

Services cannot be accumulated, stored or transported. They are targeted (household, communal, transport services, education, treatment, care for children and the elderly).

1.3.4. The influence of the economic sphere on other spheres of public life: 1) the existence of society is impossible without the constant production of material goods; 2) social production and the existing division of labor and property relations determine the emergence and development of its social structure; 3) economically dominant social groups, as a rule, seek to influence the work of the state apparatus and the activities of political parties; 4) in the process of production, the necessary material conditions are created for the development of the spiritual life of society.

1.3.5. What are the main trends in the development of the economic life of society at the turn of the two centuries?

1) At the turn of the 1990s. what is now called the knowledge economy or the new economy was born. Its distinguishing feature is the development of the non-material sphere and the non-material environment of economic activity. The production, distribution and use of knowledge is the basis new economy. 2) On the basis of these changes, the material and spiritual wealth of mankind has sharply increased.

1.4. Production is the process of creating economic goods, which are the starting point of economic activity.

1.4.1. There are three main actors in economic life: families (people), firms, and the state. They interact with each other, coordinating their activities both directly and through the markets for factors of production (resources that can be used to organize the production of goods) and consumer goods (goods that are directly consumed by people).

1.4.2. Production can be simple (produced as much as consumed) or extended (produced more than consumed).

1.4.3. Ways to increase the volume of production: 1) expansion of the use of economic resources (extensive path); 2) increasing the efficiency of their use (intensive way).

1.4.4. An indicator or measure of how efficiently available resources are used is productivity. !!! Performance? labor productivity.

Productivity - 1) this is the volume of goods and services created per unit of cost; 2) the amount of benefits that can be obtained from the use of a unit of a certain type of resource during a fixed period. Costs can be any resources involved in the production process - land, fuel, equipment costs, etc.

Productivity is directly affected by the quality of labor resources, the technologies used, and the effectiveness of management decisions. The main way to increase the productivity of all resources (factors of production) is specialization.

1.4.5. Mankind has based its economic activity on two major elements: 1) specialization and 2) trade.

Types and levels of specialization: 1) specialization of labor of individuals; 2) specialization of the activities of economic organizations; 3) specialization of the country's economy as a whole.

The specialization of human labor is based on the following principles:

1) a conscious division of labor between people; 2) teaching people new professions and skills; 3) the possibility of cooperation, i.e. cooperation in order to achieve a common goal (creation of a complex product or construction of a factory).

Cooperation (lat. cooperatio - cooperation) is a form of organization of labor activity, in which a large number of people conscientiously participate in the same labor process or in different, but unrelated processes.

Specialization (from Latin specialis - special, special) - 1) the concentration of a certain type of activity in the hands of that person or economic organization that copes with it better than others; 2) division of labor into separate operations and their elements.

The division of labor in human society is constantly changing, and the pattern of specialization is becoming more and more complex.

Specialization is impossible without cooperation, which at a higher level acts as a process of socialization of production.

Types of division of labor: 1) professional; 2) detailed; 3) node-by-node; 4) intercompany; 5) in-house; 6) intersectoral; 7) interregional; 8) international.

Stages of the social division of labor.

1. Specialization of labor arose for the first time only about 12 thousand years ago, when the Neolithic (Great Agrarian) Revolution took place. It was then that the first division of labor took place: some people specialized only in hunting, others became cattle breeders or farmers. There was a transition from an appropriating economy to a producing economy.

2. Separation of crafts, industry from agriculture (artisans, later industrialists).

3. Separation of trade from agriculture and crafts (merchants).

4. Finance, banking (usurers).

5. Management, management (technocracy).

1.5. Exchange - 1) an economic operation in the process of which one person transfers a thing, a commodity to another, receiving money or another thing in return; 2) a process in which people receive money or other goods in exchange for the product produced.

If each participant in economic life specializes in the production of a limited range of products, then he must receive (exchange) all other benefits from the outside. In economic life, the exchange of goods usually takes the form of trade between people, firms, regions, countries.

Trade is the activity of people to carry out the exchange of goods and the act of buying and selling.

Operations for the purchase and sale of goods do not create a product. Therefore, trade can be classified as a service.

Exchange? trade. Trade (exchange through money) differs from exchange, the typical form of which is barter (the direct exchange of one commodity for another without the mediation of money).

Barter (from the French barater - to exchange) is a natural exchange of goods, in which one thing is exchanged for another without monetary payment, a trade transaction carried out according to the “goods for goods” scheme. Transactions based on the direct exchange of goods are called barter.

Commerce (from Latin commercium - trade) - trade and trade-intermediary activities, participation in the sale or facilitation of the sale of goods and services. In a broad sense, entrepreneurial activity.

1.6. Distribution - 1) compliance with the proportions in which the produced product is divided between the participants in production, as well as people who are not involved in it; 2) division of the produced product, income between those involved in its production.

1.7. Consumption - the use of the produced product (durables) or its destruction (food, etc.).

1.8. Economic theory how the system of knowledge about the management of the state national economy was called "political economy". This term was introduced into scientific circulation at the beginning of the 17th century. French economist Antoine de Montchretien (1575-1621), who in 1615 wrote the book A Treatise on Political Economy Dedicated to the King and the Crown.

1.8.1. Economic science does not study objective processes like natural phenomena, but the behavior of people in certain economic situations. It is customary to distinguish between: 1) the economy of the family; 2) the economy of the firm; 3) the economy of the region; 4) economics of production factors, goods and services; 5) general economic processes that affect not only the economy of a family, firm, region or a particular market, but the entire economic life of the country as a whole. The first four divisions of economics are usually called the general term microeconomics, while general economic processes are referred to as macroeconomics.

1) Microeconomics is a part of economic science that studies economic relations between individual economic entities (consumers, employees, firms), their activities and impact on the national economy.

2) Macroeconomics - a section of economic science that studies the economy as a whole (the problems of unemployment, poverty, economic growth, the role of the state in regulating the economy and protecting the interests of society).

3) Economic theory necessarily involves consideration of the problems of interconnection national economies with the world economy. The world (international) economy studies the laws of development of the world economy.

1.8.2. Economic schools.

Economic schools are systems of views of representatives of various areas of economic thought, who have their founders and followers, substantiate their own concept, try to explain the laws economic development society and suggest the main directions for its further development.

1) Mercantilism (from Italian mercante - merchant); representatives: Montchretien, Stafford, Scaruffi, Colbert, Ordin-Nashchokin, Pososhkov, Peter I; ideas: Wealth is first of all gold, with which you can buy everything. It is brought in by trade, mainly external. This means that it should be imported, not allowing export, and therefore it is necessary to investigate only the sphere of circulation.

Mercantilism (from the Italian mercante - merchant, merchant) is the first scientific school in political economy, as well as the economic policy of accumulating the country's monetary wealth based on its provisions. Early mercantilism (the last third of the 15th - the middle of the 16th centuries) proceeded from the need to conduct politics with the help of legislation. Late mercantilism (17th century) focused on active protectionism, support for the expansion of commercial capital, and encouragement of domestic industry.

1.1. Early mercantilism - monetarism; ideas: Silver and gold are the only form of wealth. The ban on the export of money from the country.

1.2. Late mercantilism - protectionism (from Latin protectio - patronage, protection); ideas: Increasing the export of manufactured goods, imposing heavy duties on foreign goods, patronizing the national economy.

2) Physiocrats (from Greek physis - nature, kratos - power); Representatives: Kene; ideas: the main source of the country's wealth is agriculture, agricultural production.

3) Classical political economy; representatives: Adam Smith (1723-1790), David Ricardo (1772-1823); ideas: in the creation of social wealth, the main role is played by the sphere of production.

4) Marxism; representatives: Karl Marx (1818-1883); ideas: the labor theory of value + the doctrine of surplus value (its production is achieved through the exploitation of the proletariat, and its appropriation by the capitalists is a constant source of increasing their wealth).

5) Marginalism (from French marginalis - marginal); representatives: Menger, Jevons, Walras; ideas: The task of political economy is to find the most effective ways distribution of limited resources and rational management. The price of a commodity depends on its usefulness and rarity.

6) Keynesianism; John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946); ideas: the need for state regulation of the economy based on the analysis of macroeconomic values.

Keynesianism is the theory of state regulation of the economy. Arose in the 2nd floor. 30s 20th century, had a significant impact on economic policy United States ("New Deal" by Franklin Roosevelt), Great Britain, etc. Keynesianism explores practical ways to stabilize the economy, quantitative relationships of macroeconomic values: national income, investment, employment, consumption, etc.

Economic program: 1) all-round increase in costs state budget, 2) the expansion of public works, 3) the absolute or relative increase in the amount of money in circulation, 4) the regulation of employment, etc.

7) Institutionalism (from Latin institutum - establishment, institutio - custom) - an economic doctrine that focuses on the role played by social institutions in the field of acceptance and direction economic decisions, their efficiency and economic activity in general. Originated in the 19th century.

Representatives: Thorstein Veblen, Galbraith; ideas: the nature of economic development is determined not by the market itself, but by the entire system of economic institutions: firms, trade unions, the state, laws, customs, skills, traditions.

8) Monetarism (Milton Friedman).

The answer to level B tasks is a word, a sequence of letters or numbers. In the matching tasks, you need to write the letters of your chosen answers in the correct sequence.

IN 1. Enter the concept corresponding to the definition: "The organization of people's activities aimed at creating benefits that can satisfy their needs."

Answer: _________________

AT 2. Insert the missing word: “The science of economics belongs to the category of …….. sciences.”

Answer:_______________

AT 3. In the list below, mark the types economic systems:

1) Advanced 2) Command

3) Traditional 4) Industrial

5) Industrial 6) Market

7) Technotronic 8) Mixed

Answer: _____________

AT 4. Complete the sentence: “The desire and ability of a consumer to buy a specific product at a specific time and in a specific place is called ……..”

Answer:______________

AT 5. Establish a correspondence between the concepts that characterize the economy of the consumer, given in the first column, and their definitions, given in the second column.

AT 6. Find examples in the list below that characterize capital as a factor of production.

1) Factory building 2) Skilled workers

3) Machine tools 4) Information

5) Tools 6) Management staff

Answer:_________________

AT 7. The economy is a set of complex and simple actions performed by people in the field of:

1) Production 2) Distribution

3) Governance of the state 4) Maintain order in society

5) Consumption of products of labor

Answer:______________

AT 8. Complete the sentence: "The main goal of the state in relation to monopolies is ........."

Answer:________________

AT 9. Match the forms of ownership given in the first column with the examples given in the second.

AT 10 O'CLOCK. Insert a concept corresponding to the definition: “The totality of citizens of working age (from 15 years old to retirement age) who do not suffer from diseases that preclude participation in labor is called ………. »

Answer:____________________

Level C assignments Give a detailed answer.

C1. Determine which form of ownership the enterprise illustrates in the following example, and name the rights of its employees: Employees of the Start enterprise strive to make production more efficient, as they receive part of the enterprise's income by owning it securities. This right to income remains with them even after dismissal.

C2. Highlight real, not declarative benefits market economy:

· Constant stimulation of production efficiency.

· Identity of personal and public interests.

Efficient (through customized, decentralized solutions)

Functioning and adapting to change.

Providing needs in order of importance (necessities first, then luxuries).

· Individual economic freedom.

C3. "Competition is the life of commerce and the death of merchants" (E. Hubbard)

1) How do you understand the words of E. Hubbard?

2) Isn't the "death of merchants" a manifestation of the inhumanity of competition?

3) What are the functions of competition in a market economy?

4) Give two examples of the influence of the market on production.

C4. Two economists were arguing on the topic: "Which is more correct to pay more attention to in such a difficult time that Russia is going through now - economy or culture?" One assured: “Of course, the economy! It is the root of the problem!” The second objected: “Is it right: this? Perhaps the truth lies precisely in the reverse logic: if you abandon culture, education, then any initial successes in the economy will eventually come to naught, since it cannot eventually achieve great results in an uncultured, spiritually degraded society.

· What is the issue raised in this dispute?

Who do you think is right in this dispute? Why?

· Give two sayings, proverbs illustrating the relationship between economics and education, economics and culture.

· Give two examples of modern reality or from history, confirming, in your opinion, the correctness of one of the disputants.

C5. Read the text and do the tasks for it.

ON THE DIVISION OF LABOR

The greatest progress in the development of the productive power of labor, and a considerable share of the art, skill and ingenuity with which it is directed and applied, were, apparently, the result of the division of labor ...

For example, let's take... the production of pins. A worker who is not trained in this production (the division of labor made the latter a special profession) and who does not know how to handle the machines used in it (the impetus for the invention of the latter was probably also given by this division of labor) can hardly, perhaps, with all his diligence make one pin a day and, in any case, will not make twenty pins. But with the organization that this production now has, it is subdivided into a number of specialties, each of which, in turn, is a special occupation.

One worker pulls the wire. the other straightens, the third cuts ... Thus, the complex labor of production of pins is divided into approximately eighteen independent operations ... I have seen ... a manufactory of this kind, where only ten workers were employed and where, consequently, some of them performed according to two and three different operations ... These ten people worked out over 48,000 pins a day.

... The division of labor in any trade, in whatever extent it may be introduced, causes a corresponding increase in labor productivity. Apparently, the separation of labor from each other of various professions and occupations was caused by this advantage. At the same time, such a distinction usually goes further in countries that have reached a higher stage of industrial development: what in the wild state of society is the work of one person, in a more developed ... is done by several.

.. .Every individual worker becomes more experienced and knowledgeable in his particular specialty; on the whole more work is done, and a great increase in the production of every kind of object leads, in a society properly governed, to that general welfare which extends even to the lowest strata of the people. A. Smith

1) What economic problems considered by the author? List two of them.

C6. Indicate three ways to overcome the alienation of the worker from property, conditions and results of work.

C7. From the proposed problematic statements, select one and express your thoughts about the problem raised in the form of an essay based on the use of knowledge of the social science course, facts of social life and personal experience.

1. "There are no free breakfasts." (Barton Crane )

2. "We need to think not about what can be useful to us, but only about what we cannot do without." (D. Jerome)

3. "Money doesn't smell" (Vespassian)

Answers on the topic Economic sphere of society

LEVEL A

job number	Answer	job number	Answer	job number	Answer

LEVEL B

job number	Answer
	Economy
	Public
	2 3 6 8
	Demand
	1G 2A 3B 4V
	1 3 5
	1 2 5
	Support for competition
	1B 2A 3B 4B 5A 6A

LEVEL C

C2. item 1.: as a result of the law of "supply and demand" there is a constant stimulation of production efficiency, i.e. the desire of the manufacturer to improve the quality of products and reduce the cost of it in order to obtain greater profits; item 2.: as a result, there is an identity of personal and public interests, i.e. both the producer and the consumer of the product benefit equally; point 3.: the consequence is effective (through individual, decentralized solutions) functioning and adaptation to changes; item 5.: which provides economic freedom producer and consumer. The answer allows other justifications that do not contradict the meaning of the judgments.

C3. 1) In the course of competition, inefficient industries are ousted. 2) The market performs a "sanitizing" function, displacing not only inefficient production, but also those that do not meet the needs of consumers. 3) Functions: price - conducted by "knocking down" prices; non-price - improvement of technology and organization: production, cost reduction, improvement of production quality. 4) Variants of examples should correspond to the disclosure of the essence of the problem.

C4. The content of the correct answer: 1) The dispute raised the problem of the relationship between two spheres of society - economic and spiritual. 2) In this dispute, the second opponent is right, since “if you abandon culture”; there will be a general degradation of society and there will be no one to produce products for. 3) Various examples are allowed to reveal the essence of the problem. 4) For example, the locomotive of the father and son of the Cherepanovs in serf, uneducated Russia was forgotten for a long time. Various examples are allowed that reveal the essence of the problem.

C5. The content of the correct answers to the tasks to the text. 1) The answer may contain problems: society and the division of labor; production and division of labor; worker and division of labor. 2) The answer may contain the following positions: growth of labor productivity; increase in production volumes; the growth of the welfare of citizens; increase in the qualifications of workers. 3) Examples can be given: separation of professions and specialties from each other; increase in labor productivity; introduction of new equipment and technologies. 4) The answer may include, for example, the following positions: the level of qualification of employees; technical progress; division of labor.

To answer such a question as what is the economy, we have to understand many problems of the economy. And the very first thing we need to do is find out what "economy" is. This task is all the more essential because in Russian the term "economy" has two meanings.

First, they call it a way of organizing people's activities aimed at creating the goods they need for consumption. A synonym for this meaning is the concept of "economy".

Secondly, "economy" (or "economy" - as it is customary to write in English-speaking countries) means a science that studies how people use the limited resources available to satisfy their unlimited needs for the goods of life. The very name of this science was given by the great scientists Ancient Greece Aristotle by combining two words: "eikos" - "economy" and "nomos" - "law", so that "economy" literally translated from ancient Greek means "laws of the economy". Because the economics studies the behavior of people, then it belongs to the category of social (social) sciences, just like history or philosophy, although the research methods used in it involve a wider use of mathematics and a variety of graphs. You will meet some of them on the pages of this textbook - with their help it will be easier for you to understand the essence of various economic processes and the logic of behavior of participants in economic activity.

Economy- a science that studies the behavior of participants in the process of economic activity.

There are three main actors in economic life: families, firms, and the state. They interact with each other, coordinating their activities both directly and through the markets for factors of production (i.e., resources with which you can organize the production of goods) and consumer goods (goods that are directly consumed by people).

It is difficult to overestimate the role that firms and the state play in the economic life of society.

And yet the main characters of the economy are the individual, the family.

The fact is that it is precisely for the sake of meeting the needs of people, their specific needs for goods, that economic activity should be carried out in any country.

blessings- everything that is valued by people as a means of satisfying their needs.

In addition, the activities of both firms and government organizations, as well as events in certain markets, are determined by the decisions that people make.

That is why economic science does not study objective processes like natural phenomena, but the behavior of people in various economic situations. This behavior is determined by the subjective desires and interests of people, the formation of which has common rational grounds. By examining them, economics helps people, firms, and governments to better anticipate the consequences of their decisions in the economy.

It is customary to distinguish:

1. family economics (i.e., economic processes associated with a household run by a single person or a group of close people living together);
2. the economy of the firm (i.e., economic processes associated with the activities of organizations that produce goods for sale);
3. the economy of the region (i.e., economic processes associated with the activities of firms located in a certain region of the country, and the people who live there);
4. the economics of markets for factors of production, goods and services (i.e., economic processes associated with the sale and purchase of goods directly consumed by people or used to organize the activities of firms); Factors of production- resources used by people to create life's goods.
5. general economic processes (i.e., processes that affect not only the economy of a family, firm, region or a particular market, but also the entire economic life of the country as a whole).

The first four divisions of economics are commonly referred to by the generic term " microeconomics”, while the study of general economic processes is the concern of macroeconomics.

On the pages of this textbook we will talk about the problems of the economy. Therefore, the first thing we need to do is to find out what this word - "economy" - means. This task is all the more essential because in Russian the term "economy" has two meanings.

Firstly, this is the name given to the method of organizing people's activities aimed at creating the goods they need for consumption, that is, to satisfy their needs. A synonym for this meaning of the word "economy" is the concept of "economy".

Need- this is an inherent need or lack in a person for something necessary for the maintenance of his body, security or pleasure.

Secondly, "economics" refers to the science that studies how people use the limited resources available to satisfy their unlimited needs for the goods of life. The very name of this science came to us from Ancient Greece and literally translated from ancient Greek means “laws of the economy” (“eikos” - “economy” and “nomos” - “law”). Since economics studies the behavior of people, it belongs to the category of social (social) sciences, just like history or philosophy.

As we see in fig. 1-1, there are three main actors in economic life: citizens (families), firms, and the state. They interact with each other, coordinating their activities both directly and through the markets for factors of production (i.e., resources with which you can organize the production of goods) and consumer goods (goods that are directly consumed by people and which people exchange using market procedures ).

Rice. 1-1. The device of the economy

blessings- everything that is valued by people as a means of satisfying their needs.

Economy- a science that studies the behavior of participants in the process of economic activity.

Factors of production- resources used by people to create life's goods.

It is difficult to overestimate the role that firms and the state play in the economic life of society. And yet the most important of the actors in the economy is the individual, the family, or, as economists prefer to say, the household. The fact is that it is precisely for the sake of meeting the needs of households, their specific needs for goods, that economic activity should be carried out in any country.

Household- this is one or more people living together and independently making decisions about how to generate income through the use of their own factors of production and spending these incomes on the purchase of goods and services for personal consumption.

The simplest version of a household is a family consisting of parents and childrenliving in the same apartment or house and leading a common household. The adult members of this family own at least the labor factor of production and provide firms with the opportunity to use it for a fee, receiving income in the form of wages for this. And then they decide how to spend this income: on food, clothes, housing and utilities, organization of summer holidays, etc.

But in addition to labor, household members (if they are co-owners of commercial organizations - firms) may also own other factors of production, for example, factories, land etc. From the use of these factors of production, households also receive income. Finally, all households in the country are co-owners natural resources country and other property administered by the government on their behalf. Therefore, ultimately, everything that the country uses in economic activity, and everything that it creates as a result of it, belongs to households, i.e. citizens of the country, whose behavior in the sphere of economic activity determines everything that happens in the country and how it develops.

So, economic science studies how people can behave in certain economic situations and what can happen in the end. The results of this study help people, firms and the state to better anticipate the consequences of their decisions in the field of the economy and make smarter, more rational decisions.

As you know, all living inhabitants of the Earth receive food from nature, but only people have learned how to obtain the benefits necessary to satisfy their needs, in a volume and assortment greater than wild nature can provide.

Not all benefits, however, have to be actually mined. Air, for example, we do not produce, it is given to us by nature, and we can receive such benefits freely. And therefore, economic science divides all goods into two groups:

1. free (bestowed by nature, gratuitous) benefits;
2. economic benefits.

Free goods are those necessary goods (mostly natural) that are available to people in an amount much greater than the amount of need for them. Therefore, they do not need to be produced, and people can consume them not only freely, but also for free. It is this group of goods that includes air, sunlight, rains, oceans.

And yet, the main range of people's needs is satisfied not by free, but by economic goods, that is, goods and services created by man. Their volume:

insufficient to meet the needs of people in full;

can be increased only through the expenditure of factors of production, i.e. those elements production process, without which it is impossible;

have to be distributed in one way or another.

And if people now live better than in antiquity, then this has been achieved thanks to an increase in the volume and improvement in the properties of precisely these - economic - goods (food, clothing, housing, etc.).

Man invented the wheel, tamed wild animals, created agriculture and learned how to deal with fire. And yet, the true source of the current prosperity and power of the peoples of the Earth is an extremely developed mechanism for combining efforts for the sake of solving common problems. Moreover, the most important of these tasks is the production of an ever greater volume of vital goods, that is, the creation of conditions for improving people's lives.

For the production of vital goods, people use the resources of nature, their labor and special devices (tools, equipment, production facilities, etc.). All these are called factors of production.

There are three main types of factors of production:

1. work;
2. earth;

Speaking of labor as a factor of production, we mean the activity of people in the production of goods and services. At the same time, by "purchase of labor" we actually mean the acquisition of the right to receive specific labor services from a person over a certain period.

Work- the mental and physical abilities of people, their skills and experience, which are used in the form of services necessary for the production of economic benefits.

Speaking of land as a factor of production, we mean all types of natural resources suitable for the production of economic goods.

Speaking of capital, we mean buildings and structures for production purposes, machine tools and equipment, etc., that is, everything necessary for the production of goods or services (for more details on capital and its types, see § 8).

For the convenience of analyzing economic processes, one more variety of factors of production is often distinguished from labor - entrepreneurial abilities. By this word we will denote the abilities inherent in some people:

1. correctly assess what new products can be successfully offered to customers or what technologies for the production of existing products should be introduced to obtain the greatest benefit;
2. to take risks, which means the willingness to take on the risk of losing one's savings invested in a new commercial project, and the risk of the futility of the effort and time spent on its implementation;
3. successfully coordinate the use of other factors of production to create the goods needed by society.

At first glance, it may seem incomprehensible how entrepreneurial abilities differ from labor, because often the creator of a business - an entrepreneur - works side by side with his employees in it, and the difference between their activities is difficult to distinguish. But this difference exists, and it is very significant: the employee does what the owner-entrepreneur tells him, and is responsible for what he was told to do now.

And the entrepreneur, relying on his abilities, decides what exactly should be produced in the company, in what quantity and how. Moreover, his decisions are future-oriented, which requires the ability to anticipate how much and at what price he can sell. It is this special ability that leads economists to speak of entrepreneurial ability as a special factor of production.

Note that a hired leader (manager) cannot be called an entrepreneur: he does not conduct business with his own money, and in case of failure of the company, he can only lose his position and wages. The owner of the company can lose all the money that he invested in its creation.

In the XX century. Another very specific type of factors of production has acquired immeasurably greater than before importance for economic activity: information, that is, all the knowledge and information that people need for conscious activity in the world of the economy. The volume of this resource cannot be accurately measured, although its value is huge and constantly growing.

Improving the methods of using economic resources (factors of production), mankind has put two most important elements in the basis of its economic activity: specialization and the exchange of the fruits of its specialized labor.

The specialization of labor is based on the principles worked out by people over the long centuries of developing their economy. The most important of them are:

1. Conscious division of labor between people.
2. Teaching people new professions and skills.
3. The possibility of cooperation, i.e. cooperation for the sake of achieving a common goal (for example, creating a complex product or building a factory).

Specialization- the concentration of a certain type of activity in the hands of that person or economic organization that copes with it better than others.

According to archaeologists and historians, the specialization of labor first appeared about 12,000 years ago. It was then that people first discovered: the cultivation of crops allows you not to die of hunger even during a settled life. So, you can no longer wander in search of food and build YOUR HOUSE.

That's when it happened public division labor: some people became hunters, others - cattle breeders, others - farmers. Now the list of professions has many thousands of names. The vast majority of professions require training (sometimes many years) in special skills and labor techniques.

What is the value of labor specialization, why has it become the most important stone in the foundation of the economic life of society? There are several main reasons for this.

Firstly, all people are naturally different, or, to put it simply, endowed with different abilities. Therefore, they are unequally adapted to the performance of certain types of work. Specialization allows each person to find that field of activity, that type of work, that profession, where his abilities will manifest themselves most fully, and work will be the least burdensome.

Secondly, specialization allows people to achieve ever greater skill in the implementation of their chosen activity. And this makes it possible to produce goods or provide services with more and more high level quality.

Thirdly, the growth of skill allows people to spend less and less time on the production of goods and avoid wasting it when switching from one type of work to another.

In other words, specialization turned out to be the main way to increase the productivity of all resources (factors of production) that people use to produce the economic goods they need, and above all the resource that we call labor.

Speaking of productivity, we mean by this the useful result that can be obtained from a unit economic resource for a certain period. For example, labor productivity is the number of products that one worker produced per unit of time (for example, per day, per month, per year). And the productivity of the land will be measured by the mass of the crop obtained from 1 hectare of arable land per year.

How the growth of productivity actually occurs due to the deepening of specialization can be seen in the example of the assembly line, which was widely used in the establishment of mass production by the famous American engineer and entrepreneur Henry Ford.

It is thanks to the specialization of labor and the growth on this basis of its productivity that people have the opportunity to produce more goods of a certain type than they needed for their own consumption. This means that they have the opportunity to exchange surpluses of such goods, and the exchange is regular, and not from time to time. It must be said that the ability to exchange goods is a unique feature of people, which distinguishes them from other inhabitants of the Earth no less than upright walking or the ability to think. As the great Scottish economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) wisely remarked: “No one has ever seen a dog knowingly exchange a bone with another dog...”

The regular exchange of goods and services underlies the most important sphere of human activity - trade, that is, the exchange of goods in the form of buying and selling goods and services for money. Trade connects people and firms specializing in the production of certain goods or the provision of various services into a single whole - the economy of the country or the planet as a whole. Without trade, the development of specialization would be impossible, which means that it would be more difficult for people to achieve an increase in the amount of economic benefits available to them.

Product- a material object produced for exchange.

Service- an intangible good, which has the form of a useful activity that people are willing to carry out in exchange for other services or goods.

Trade- voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange of goods in the form of buying and selling goods and services for money.

Moreover, only a combination of specialization and trade allowed to resolve the contradiction between:

• the desire of people to obtain for their use a huge variety of different goods and
• the ability of each person to produce a limited range of goods.

Indeed, even in your own room you will find the benefits created by manufacturers engaged in various types of specialized labor: builder, furniture maker, glass blower, carpenter, electrician, machine builder, etc. No one person is able to master all the many professions necessary to create all the variety goods that we enjoy today. In addition, the creation of each good requires a certain time, and if a person created all the benefits for himself, then he could, at best, satisfy many of his needs only in the declining days.

Therefore, people eventually understood: the combination of specialization and the regular exchange of the fruits of specialized labor makes it possible to receive benefits in a larger volume, in a larger assortment and faster.

If a country skillfully interlocks the “gears” of specialization and trade, then:

• specialization leads to an increase in labor productivity;
• the growth of labor productivity increases the amount of goods available to people;
• the increased volume of goods offered for sale and ensures the growth of consumption of these goods by people and the growth, respectively, of the income of sellers (producers);
• the incomes received as a result of trade are directed to the development of production and the improvement of the specialization of labor.

Symbolically, this connection can be represented as a clock that measures the course of the economic progress of mankind (Fig. 1-2). As long as the dial of this watch is intact, and the hands go in the right direction, the country is getting richer, and the people in it live better and better. But if the development of specialization is disrupted in a country, or if productivity falls, if trade is too poorly developed, or if people do not invest part of their income in the development of the production of goods, then economic difficulties arise in this country. And interruptions or stopping the clock of economic progress always lead to 1-2. to the same result: people's lives are getting worse Economic hours.

Rice. 1-2. economic clock

This rule applies to all countries, even to those whose citizens seem to be guaranteed a prosperous existence thanks to the natural wealth at their disposal. Of course, the presence of such wealth facilitates the path to high prosperity, but the wealth of subsoil, arable land or forests in itself does not guarantee prosperity.