The Method of Political Economy

The method of political economy is an essentially aprioristic and deductive method. What do I mean when I say the method of political economy is aprioristic? I mean that we construct our discipline in the following way: We always begin with an axiom, an irreducible assumption, an ultimate given. We’ve already discussed this in class. We’ve said that the starting point, the axiom, in economic theory is always the concept of human action. It is self-evident. We cannot deny that the cornerstone on which the theoretical edifice of economics rests is human action without contradicting ourselves. In other words, if I deny that the starting point for the process of building the methodology of economics is human action, I am guilty of an unresolvable logical contradiction, for my denial is precisely a human action. My objective: to make a denial. My means: I launch into an explanation here, etc. I am acting. Furthermore, this concept is obvious to us, not only in the sense that we cannot deny it without contradicting ourselves (in other words, it is axiomatic), but also because intimate experience, through introspection, shows each and every one of us human actors what action is, that it is the ultimate element, that there is none more fundamental, and we build our discipline on it (Fig. 15.1).