HEGEL AND POLITICAL ECONOMICS: CONTRIBUTIONS FOR A HISTORICAL AND PHILOLOGICAL DEBATE

Abstract

In this article we present the debate that has arisen among different Hegelian authors about the importance, transcendence and epistemological scope of the concept of political economy in Hegel. The debate about the economic influences on Hegel’s work oscillates between the possibility of direct influences of readings of James Steuart and Adam Smith and indirect dialogues with both authors through readings of Locke’s, Hume’s and Ferguson’s concepts of economy. Here we outline the interpretation of exegetes such as Georg Lukács, Norbert Waszek, José María Ripalda, Erzsébet Rózsa or Tetsushi Harada, who, among other authors, inject life to an already obscure debate. The lack of writings and the marginality of Hegel's texts on the phenomenon of political economy make the analysis an arduous task. Here we propose to reconstruct historiographically the central theoretical aspects of Hegel, through works, trends and translations, on the phenomenon of political economy. The analysis will lead us to recognize a difference in the treatment of the subject between the young and the old Hegel, but that transversally understands the political economy not in the form of elucubration about principles and axioms that compose it, but in the ethical implications  that it entails. To corroborate that, we will put to judgment the different hypotheses about Hegel's economic position in his own Philosophy of law, as well as in their respective lessons.