POLITISCHE ÖKONOMIE‐HEUTE *

SUMMARY Political Economy—today . While fully appreciating the functions and achievements of pure theory and of econometrics, the writer considers it necessary to bear in mind those elements of our science which the classical economists, Friedrich List and Karl Marx called “political economy”. In agreement with Kuznets and others, he postulates a transition from the theory of the market‐economy to an economy which is capable of dealing adequately with the problems of economic growth, and he gives some examples of the functions of a political economy in our day. Reference is made to such questions as development of under‐developed countries, the drawing‐up of a national economic budget, reform of the international monetary system, and trade‐cycle policy ( Konjunkturpolitik ). Special emphasis is laid on the need to distinguish between a western and an eastern world economy, since this alone makes it possible to comprehend the difference in the division of industry and labour, the difference in general structure and the difference in susceptibility to crises. The writer also draws attention to the political prerequisites of any economic integration of Europe, since this will become possible only if there is retrenchment of exaggerated rights of sovereignty. A return, along these lines, to the principles of a political economy suited to the times is all the more urgent in that, as the writer pointed out in an earlier article (cf. Kyklas , Vol. VIII, 1955, No. 1, p. 1 ff.), we are about to enter upon a new stage of the industrial revolution, and one which is likely to be much wider in scope than even its nineteenth‐century predecessor.