Moral and Ethical Political Economy: to the 200th Anniversary of the S . Sismondi’s Book “New Principles Of Political Economy”

The relevance of the article is due to the significant date — the 200th anniversary of the publication in 1819 of the “New Principles of Political Economy” (“Nouveaux principes d’économie politique, ou de la richesse dans ses rapports avec la population”) by Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi (also known as Jean Charles Leonard Simonde de Sismondi), the founder of the economic romanticism. In this book, the purpose of this branch of human knowledge for the first time is interpreted not through the prism of the dominant ideas of economic liberalism at the turn of the XVIII–XIX centuries, but from the point of view of moral and ethical values. Here Sismondi examines and comprehends the alternative arguments formulated against the adherents of classical political economy (and, above all, the author of “On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation” published in 1817 by D. Ricardo) about the unattainability of automatic self-regulation of the market system and the expediency of its permanent regulation by the state within the framework of economic reforms that can provide a leading role in the economy of small business. Through historical and economic analysis, the author compared the evaluative judgments about the innovations contained in the book by S. Sismondi, related to the moral paradigm of political economy he justified, in the works of K. Marx, V. I. Lenin, S. Gide, S. Rist, M. Blaug and other researchers of economic science in the past and present. The author substantiates the generalizing conclusion that creativity of S. Sismondi, in the context of moral and ethical political-economic values, contrasted his own vision of scientific and practical problems — political economy and the implementation of the proposed reform project, the absolutisation of the principles of economic liberalism for the formation of a non-cyclical crisis-free socio-oriented economic system and the achievement of social justice in society.