Method of Economic Duality

Abstract

The position of the method of economic duality in economic science is obviously paradoxical. On one side, this method is used by scientists for more than two and a half thousand years (starting from Aristotle): modern economic science has been built at a considerable degree with its help. On the other side, it is not acknowledged in economic science and even is not formally defined. As a specific method used only by economic science it is based on the fact that economic phenomena of market economy have dual structure. All economic phenomena are different expressions of labor inputs of commodity producers. But this labor, as is known, has dual nature and is determined as contradictory unity of concrete and abstract labor. Objective connection between labor structure and structure of economic phenomena appears to be the basic structural regularity of market economy. Usage of the given regularity in economic analysis is the essence of the method of economic duality allowing to reveal complicated and contradictory structure of economic phenomena and processes.