Objective and Subjective Factors in Economy and Economics

Abstract

The paper is aimed to substantiate that in modern economy, besides the market, a public sphere exists and develops according to its inherent non-market logic. This issue is regarded from the point of view of correlation between objective and subjective factors in the economy. The author expounds his conception of these factors’ correlation, the evolution of scientific insights in their role in society, explains the specificity of subjective forces’ functioning judging from the positions of methodological dualism, which combines the principles of individualism and collectivism. The dual nature of human personality combining contradictory fundamentals of instinctive individualism and collectivism acquired in society explains people’s substantial behavioral differences under market conditions and in the public sphere. In the paper the differing importance of objective and subjective factors in the market and non-market spheres of economy is substantiated: the market area is managed mainly by objective regularities, which reduce people’s subjective actions to a common denominator, whereas in the public sphere, on the contrary, the leading role is played by subjective notions of public interests, of benefit and mischief resulting from any intentions, of further development goals and ways. In the final part of the research the author presents his characteristic of the public sphere, which functions besides the market but with the latter demands in view, and therefore requires an in-depth study of its inherent regularities, including the state fulfilling its regulating role in market economy.