Russian Journal of Economics and Law (Sep 2021)
Contradictions of economic theory: a conflict between theory and practice in the age of digitalization
Abstract
Objective: to analyze the works of representatives of the neoclassical school in economic theory, primarily the monograph “Principles of Economics” by Alfred Marshall, in order to identify the gaps (or issues) of neoclassicism that were laid into the foundation of economics at its formation.Methods: the main research method is uniting the historical and the logical when developing the theory of money as a reflection of the practice of the capitalist commodity-money relations development.Results: the article briefly traces the first links of the logical chain “commodity theory - money theory - capital theory” of the Marx’s triad as a reflection of the historical development of the commodity - money - commodity metamorphosis from the viewpoint of the transformation of classical political economy into economics. A critical analysis of its fundamental prerequisites is given; logical contradictions in its construction are shown. It is noted that neoclassicism is not able to explain the practice of modern marketing, in particular branding, and is not ready to analyze the digital economy in general as a segment of the modern economy.Scientific novelty: based on the analysis of the ceteris paribus assumption applied to the demand curve key factors, the article shows that this assumption contradicts modern practice. For the first time, the role of advertising and, more broadly, the information factor were considered, as well as the role and importance of branding, largely determining demand and the demand curve in the digital economy. It is demonstrated for the first time that cryptoeconomics as a fundamentally new direction of financial practice is not included into the scope of mainstream analysis and cannot be recognized by it, since it is based on different methodological prerequisites.Practical significance: the main provisions and conclusions of the article can be widely used in scientific and pedagogical activities, since the agenda is the creation of a new economic theory, including the theory of money, adequate to the information or digital economy at the current stage of society development. The inevitable stage of this difficult and contradictory process of changing the economic paradigm, affecting the entire system of economic relations and structurally expressed in the famous Commodity - Money - Capital triad, is the dialectical denial of the existing system of views, its theoretical overcoming.
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