Talk:Political economy/Archive 1

message: Consumption does not have as a goal or an intent the return of goods to a state of waste.  And consumption (the realization of utility) does not always create waste. --208.54.14.9 20:18, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consumption and Distribution 

message: I'm concerned that this article contains a lot of non-mainstream viewpoints not attributed to the people who hold them, and has nowhere near enough references to ensure verifiability. Many mainstream sources describe "political economy" as nothing more than an alternative term for economics.  For example, the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Political Economy has two paragraphs which says no more than that.  The current Wikipedia article is completely different; most of it is unsourced and most of it appears to me to be based on views held by certain particular schools of thought (such as Marxism) without identifying who holds those views.   There is nothing wrong with including the views of all schools of thought within Wikipedia. However, it is essential that they are attributed correctly, particularly where they relate to views which many would regard as outside the mainstream (such as the view that the whole subject of economics is flawed and misguided and that it needs to be replaced by something better called "political economy".) Enchanter 19:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of sources and neutral attribution 

message: The first paragraph of this article attributes the introduction of the labour theory of value to John Locke. However, the Wikilink to LTV in that very sentence, reads:
... the theory has been traced back to Treatise of Taxes, written in 1662 by Sir William Petty.
In fact, Locke is not mentioned anywhere in that article. I will leave it for someone else to fix, since I don't know which, if either, is correct. --Horse Badorties 04:48, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Labour theory of value attribution 

message: Enchanter, if you don't understand something do not delete it -- explain what you don't understand so others can try to improve the article by making it clearer.  Don't delete relevant conteent. Slrubenstein
:I don't understand why this sentence , "Within economics the term is more closely associated with game theory.".  More closely associated with game theory than what? Who associates political economy with game theory?  Political economy, as described in the rest of the article, has no obvious connection with game theory whatsoever - certainly no more than mainstream economics.  As far as I'm aware, game theory is used no more by people who describe what they do as "political economy" than those who describe what they do as "economics". Enchanter
I agree with you about the grammar (I don't think I wrote the sentence).  But when I was in grad. school I took a course on political economy that was virtually all game-theory.  I have talked to others (My own discipline does not use  game theory with, or as political economy) and they tell me that it is common in some disciplines to use "political economy" to refer to a body of knowledge that depends on game theory. Slrubenstein
:I've never heard that before, and I don't think it's a mainstream view.  I would be interested in references to works which describe political economy as mainly being based on game theory, because I certainly have never seen any.  Game theory is well established in economics, and it would be just as possible to take a graduate course in economics that emphasised game theory.
:More generally, I think this article still has many serious deficiencies - mainly that it describes non-mainstream views without attributing them.  It starts off with a marxist style definition of political economy as the study of "relations of production".  It completely skates over the common use of political economy as covering more-or-less the same field of study as economics, despite this being the view taken by Britannica, Encarta, the New Palgrave, and academic course titles and journals that are too numerous to mention.  It's full of errors, starting in the second sentence which contrasts political economy with the ideas of the physiocrats, despite it having been the physiocrats who first used the term.  And the bulk of the article is a fairly confused presentation of Marxist influenced economics, without making it properly clear what schools of though do and don't hold these views, and without making it clear that these are not generally the views of mainstream economists. Enchanter
I happen to agree with your second comment.  In anthropology and sociology "political economy" is indeed identified with Marxism, but not in other disciplines.  If you care to look at the history, I think much of what you refer to was added by Stirling Newberry but I may be wrong -- if I am right maybe he can respond to your comment ... Slrubenstein
::Everyone may already know this but... Marxism is recognized as a significant branch in political economy (how significant is a good question, especially in our 21st century).  It is obviously widely discredited in policy and business circles and you will most likely hear about it only in very technical and/or academic work.  I agree, this article leans too far towards Marxism (and doesn't seem to realize it?).  The first step I would take is to identify some of the most influential schools in political economy (neo-classical, Marxist, and something like Austrian School come to mind).
::Game theory is a popular synthetic branch of mathematics and economics for modeling.  It's pretty effective at simplification, which makes it great for teaching and explaining because it allows conceptualization and quantification to work together.  For example, comparative advantage is pretty clear with a matrix.  But this is not the majority of economics, only one perspective.  The techniques you use to model and analyze models need not be game theory.  Now, I would imagine many newer analytic theories and even some old ones have been coopted under the label "game theory", but that's another issue. 
:::Game theory is a popular synthetic branch of mathematics and economics for modeling. It may be used as a way of modeling economic behavior, but it is more purely mathematics and/or logic (depending on how you taxonomize things), which is then applied to economics, psychology, sociology, politics, and many other fields. Game theory qua game theory antedates its economic applications. Van Neuman and Morgenstern's germinal publication did examine economics, but that was an application of the mathematics. According to the WP article on game theory, it was first used to describe a card playing strategy in the 18th Century. John Elder 18:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as the term "political economy", I have always associated it with the fact that organization inherently creates, sustains, and influences exchange via a market.  Thus, the political organization of the world *contributes* to the creation, maintenance, and happenings of the market. The assumption here is that rational choice dictates a modicum of organization, and that choice of organization is political-economic. --Vector4F 05:25, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Game Theory 

message: Until October 2007 the article stated that Smith held the chair in moral philosophy at Glasgow.  Then it was changed to read that Smith was "Chairman of Moral Philosophy".  Someone who holds a chair in a university is not a chairman, they are a professor.  A chairman is someone who heads a committee or presides over a meeting.  Can we change it back please - unless of course there is some evidence that this usage which sounds so odd today was actually employed at the time?  Thanks.   Andy Denis (talk) 16:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smith a 'chairman'? 

message: I've cleaned up the discussion page to keep the conversation more organized and readable. The article itself suffers from a lack of readability; perhaps organizing the talk page will enable better discussion and a better article. Please follow Wikipedia standards, namely Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines and Wikipedia:Talk page layout. This means a threaded discussion Help:Using talk pages#Indentation and signing your comments (Wikipedia:Signatures). Dpetley (talk) 04:24, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: A Note on Keeping the Discussion organized

message: Hi, I noticed that there's an error in the dates in the etymology section of the articles. The years are supposed to be 17XX and instead its written 19XX. I didn't fix it because I don't know what the right date is in the 1700's so please fix it.
thank you
Noabeny (talk) 19:56, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  a mistake in the dates in the etymology section 

message: 1) Very few references in this article, particularly the last section which is filled with unsourced definitions of various disciplines. 
2) We could add something about the various theories that attempt to explain the origins of or motivations behind the creation of Political Economy/International PE/International Relations. I favour the fragmentation theory or the idea that:
The disciplines (in reverse order of their institutional establishment) of IPE, IR, Political
Science and Economics are, arguably, outcomes of the fragmentation of political economy,
from at least the marginalist revolution of the 1870s onwards. In this revolution, the
socio-political contents of political economy (in particular, its basis in history, class relations
and the social production of wealth) was evicted from the new-found discipline of
economics, and replaced with assumptions about homo economicus, scarce resources,
subjective preference theory and market equilibrium. One of the founders of marginalism
argued that ‘the supposed conflict of labour with capital is a delusion. The real conflict
is between producers and consumers’ (Jevons, 1887: 98). The prior concerns of
political economy were subsequently reincorporated within other emergent academic
disciplines (Milonakis and Fine, 2009; Wallerstein, 2001).
Benjamin Selwyn (2014) 'Twenty-first-century International Political Economy: A class-relational perspective' European Journal of International Relations 1–25
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 (talk • contribs) 23:51, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  no references? and add fragmentation theory