经济学研究的两大基本内容及其对知识结构的要求——对日益狭隘化的现代主流经济学之反思

The Two Basic Contents in Researches of Economics and Their Requirements for Related Knowledge:Reflection on the Increasingly Narrowing Modern Mainstream Economics

经济学的根本目的是提高国民和社会的福利,这不仅关涉到自然资源的利用问题,而且关涉到人与人之间的社会关系。相应地,经济学的研究内容包含了伦理学和工程学两个方面:它们是相辅相成的,共同构建了整个经济学的理论大厦。事实上,不仅经济学与伦理学之间的关系源远流长,而且即使是专注于研究自然资源配置问题的主流经济学,也根本无法脱离具体的社会关系。正因如此,经济学的研究需要非常广泛的知识;否则,根本无法理解具体的经济现象,也无法提供合理的政策建议。然而,现代主流经济学日益局限于工程学一个方面,并极端地采取抽象化的分析路线,偏重于数理的训练而疏忽其他社会科学领域知识的吸收,从而造成了理论与现实的脱节。

The basic purpose of economics is to increase social welfare of the nation, which relates not only to the issue of utilization of natural resources, but also to the social relationships between human beings. Accordingly, the research content of economics includes both ethics and engineering： they can complement each other, jointly constructing the theoretical framework for the whole body of economics. In fact, not only the relationship between economics and ethics can go back to ancient times, but also the mainstream economics, which focuses on the allocation of natural resources, can never get rid of concrete social relations. As a result, a wide range of knowledge is needed for the research of economics. Otherwise, it is virtually impossible to understand the concrete economic phenomena, nor put forward any reasonable policy suggestion. However, there is a widening gap between economic theory and practice since modem mainstream economics has been strictly confined to engineering, going to the extreme of adopting abstract analysis, and paying too much attention on mathematical training while neglecting the absorption of knowledge of other social sciences.