Topics:
1. Subject Matter and Methodology: Concept of economic system and socio-economic formation (5 systems), Subject-matter of political economy: Classical, physical, neo-classical, and radical schools (An excursion), Interrelationship between production, exchange. distribution and consumption (PEDC), Concept of production relations and mode of production, Economic categories and economic laws, Methodology: Method of scientific abstraction, Despondence from abstract to the concrete, Unity of logical and historical methods analysis and synthesis etc.
2. Primitive Communal Economy (System without economic exploitation): Anthropological history of human being. The food- gathering economy (Paleolithic savagery), Two stages in the development (appropriation and reproductive economies), Development of productive forces (division of labour), Principal economic law and production relations, Economic law and production relations. Contradictions of the primitive-communal economy. Erosion and Disintegration of primitive economy.
3. Economy of Slavery (First system based on economic exploitation): Origin of slave economy, Objective basis and different types of slavery. Slavery as a global system, Productive forces and large-scale production (latifundia and ergasteria), Principal economic law and production relations under slavery, Usury and trade capital under slavery, Contradictions and erosion of the slavery economic system
4. Feudal Economic System: Dual origin of feudalism, Different types of feudal bondage, Productive forces under feudalism, Principal economic law and agricultural rents under feudalism, Usury and trade capital under feudalism, Contradiction of feudalism and its disintegration.
5. Capitalist Economic System: Pre-Monopoly Capitalism:
Commodity and money. Theory of value (Classical and radical
views), Conversion of money into capital. General theory of capital,
Theory of surplus value: Absolute and relative surplus value, Wage: Essence and forms, Law of accumulation. Metamorphosis and circuit of capital, Composition of capital: Constant and variable, fixed and circulatory. Theory of reproduction (simple and extended). Transformation of surplus value into profit, Rent and interest
6. Economy of Societies of the Middle Ages: English manorial system, medieval crafts and guilds; Enclosure movement and the agrarian revolution in England, A brief survey of the economic conditions prior to the Meiji Restoration in Japan, Orientation, feudalism-example of the Indian Sub-continent.
7. Economic of Modernization: The Capitalist Path: Development of Indian economy: Colonial and post-colonial periods, Industrial revolution in England-causes and consequences, Comparative economic situation of UK Germany Italy, Holland and Spain in the early 19th century, Industrialization process in Japan-the special role of agriculture, Small scale and cottage industry, foreign trade, Zaibatsu government.