Chapter 1 - The Economy

The introduction to the Objective Political Economy above partly overlaps with this first chapter. The methodological choices are, however, argued below in a more complete manner, the field of study is more precisely delimited, and the hypothesis of monetary perfection is posited until its removal in the final chapter.

Whatever one does, a political economy is shaped by its starting point in such a way that crossing the threshold of an exact science will prove either possible or impossible. For this to be possible, it is necessary in particular that at the outset the object of study receives a formal definition, which OPE accomplishes using the SysFEAT formal ontology.

Propositions

• 1.1 For its logical coherence, economic thought must rely on definitions that are valid within the framework of a formal ontology
• 1.2 Let us define a market (or economic) exchange as the exchange of a good or service for a quantity of money, or for another a good or service.
• 1.3 All gift, voluntary or forced, of a quantity of money or of another thing having a market value, is a transfer of an item of economic exchange.
• 1.4 The object of the Objective Political Economy is that which is specific to economic exchanges and to the transfer of the terms of these exchanges.
• 1.5 The field of the Objective Political Economy comprises only two types of production and no consumption.
• 1.6 The Objective Political Economy must first be studied under the assumption of monetary perfection.
• 1.7 Let us distinguish, as scales of observation of economic phenomena, mesonomy, macronomy, and micronomy.