Encyclopedia Britannica:
POLITICAL ECONOMY
branch of social science, which later developed into economics, concerned
with the raising of revenue by the state and the increase of the state's
general resources. The term was introduced about the beginning of the 17th
century to describe the study of the problems of the princely states, which
at the close of the Middle Ages in Europe replaced the
feudal-ecclesiastical political order. Adam Smith, the first to present a
comprehensive systematized study, seemed to equate political economy with
the treatment of "the nature and causes of the wealth of nations."
After the nationalistic epoch gave way to individualism or liberalism in
the late 18th century, the older state-oriented literature came to be
called mercantilism. Works in this period, including David Ricardo's
Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817) and John Stuart Mill's
Principles of Political Economy (1848), gave increased attention to
problems of value and distribution.
The term economics replaced political economy in general usage during the
20th century; the change of name accompanied the expansion of the
discipline itself, which had become subdivided into a number of specialties.
Louis Proyect
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