从物质到社会:经济学研究对象的三阶段演变及其内在逻辑

From Material to Society: The Three-stage Evolution of Economics Subject and Its Inherent Logic

经济学的研究目的在于提高国民和社会的福利,这不仅包含物质福利,也包含社会福利;而且,不同历史时期的福利内涵是不同的,这导致了经济学的演变。事实上,尽管现代主流经济学将研究对象集中在稀缺性资源的配置上,但这却不是经济学过去也不会是未来研究的主要领域。从经济学说的发展史来看,经济学的研究对象发生了三次重大变更:一是整个古典主义时期,古典政治经济学集中于物质财富创造的探究;二是边际革命以后,新古典经济学集中于资源配置和货币交换的研究;三是20世纪70年代以后,经济学日益关注更为广泛的社会效用,从而导致现代经济学的研究内容大大拓宽。

The main purpose of economic research is to improve national and social welfare. It contains not only material welfare,but also social benefits. Also,the welfare connotation changed at different times in history. Those changes lead to the evolution of economics. In fact,although modern mainstream economics still concentrate the subject of study on placement of scarce resources,the focus of research in economics will not be the issue of wealth distribution. The subject of economic study has experienced three significant changes. The first one,holding by Classical Economics is the focus on material welfare creation. The second one,highly emphasized by Neoclassical Economics,is the notion that includes distribution of resources and money exchange. The last one,promoted by modern mainstream economics after the 1970 s,broadens the research content greatly due to referring to extensive social utility.