Economic Activity as an Object of Research

Abstract

A study of labor in economic theory has taken an important place until the beginning of the XXI century. The comprehension of labor as a factor of production within the framework of the neoclassical paradigm and the basis of society in the Marxist paradigm led to a contradiction between the creation of economic benefits and the preservation of the world in which a human exists. There has been a need to interpret human activity to explain the influence of economic processes on the external world since the idea of labor in economics does not solve such problems. Economic activity was reviewed by scientists as an act towards a society. At the same time, the theory of activity emphasizes the importance of activity as an object of research and the intentions of people as factors influencing it. It is concluded that in economics it is necessary to consider a human as a part of nature and to investigate his relationship which pursues economic benefits with the elements of nature. The content of economic activity is reviewed in the article and it is concluded that economic activity includes idealization and changing the state of the external world. Idealization is the basis for the cognition of economic phenomena by economic agents and an important method of cognition in modern economics. It anticipates all acts of activity of economic agents, therefore, an understanding of the values that exist in society as a factor that forms an awareness of economic reality. A teleological approach was used in determining of economic activity and the need to study economic reality and to build economic models with a preliminary account of the goal of creating an economic system for the development of humanity in the future was emphasized. The unity of the relationship of a person with other people and nature and the study of it from the standpoint of the possibilities of harmonious and long-term interaction is the basis for the development of socio-economic activity. An important role for the formation of objective knowledge and goals of human activity is played by the economists’ comprehension of the research’s results in the field of philosophy.