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The Meaning and Function of Economic Policy Today1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Peter F. Drucker
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Extract

Most people today mean not one but two things, when they speak of “Economic Policy”. Sometimes they mean the attainment of economic ends by means of political techniques: the “economic” concept of economic policy. Or again they mean the attainment of noneconomic, political ends by means of economic techniques: the “political” concept of economic policy. The first concept is the one the professional economist would be likely to use; and it is the only one current in economic theory. The other, the “political” concept, is that of practical politics today. It is not only war economics—whether of the Democracies or of the Nazis—that is based on a “political” economic policy but also many plans for the future such as, for instance, the Beveridge Report. For the “security” to which this and similar plans aspire, is not an economic concept but a political and social one; and it is “economic security” only because its realization is sought through economic means.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1943 , pp. 216 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1943

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References

2 The Marxist substitution of “labor value” for the exchange value of the Market is, of course, only a change in accounting practices, not one of basic principles; the Marxist concept of society is fully as much an economic concept as that of orthodox capitalism, and in no way an alternative to it.

3 I have tried to analyse the cause of the collapse of the economic society, and the meaning of this collapse for politics and society in my book: The End of Economic Man (New York and London. 1939)Google Scholar.