Le statut épistémologique des lois économiques du socialisme

This article examines some of the debates that accompanied the drafting of Political Economy issued by the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., published in 1954. As early as the October revolution, Soviet Russia faced massive economic problems, which in turn raised indirectly epistemological questions about the status of the laws that govern the economic order: Are economic laws universal or relative? Are they historical or trans-historical? Written after Stalin's order, Political Economy (1954) provides U.S.S.R. official answer to the question of the status of economic laws, recognizing the existence of economic laws proper to a socialist economy. Thus amending Marx's promise of a pathway to the "realm of liberty", Political Economy assesses that a socialist economy is subjected to objective constraints that justify, e.g., the persistence of value in the Soviet economy. Thus, the disenchanted analyses contained in Political Economy are reminiscent of some analyses of Marx stating, in spite of his historicism, some universal economic laws.