Recently I have stumbled upon a paper published in the
Economy&Society (1988, vol.17 no.2). It is written by Denis Meuret and its
title is "A political genealogy of political economy". Actually it is a
clever attempt to propose a post-modernist interpretation of the birth and
the establishment of Political Economy. Meuret's farmework is based in a
(inherently contradictory?) combination of Foucault's theory of knowledge
(as a programme of truth but without calling into question its actual
truthfullness) and the Annales economic historiography. His main thesis is
that Political Economy became the dominant discourse because it constructed
a better political framework for the co-existence of capital, state and
those trying to protect themselves from their power. Thus, the reasons for
the emergence of Political Economy are to be found in the field of the
political rather than that of the economic. It is indicative that, for
Meuret, the final crisis of the ancien regime (the last stage of the feudal
system) is caused mainly by political reasons; and particularly political
ideological and discoursive factors.
I wonder if anyone has heard or read anything else about Denis
Meuret or knows anything more about his work and his affiliations.
Stavros Mavroudeas
Assistant Professor in Political Economy
University of Macedonia
Dept. of Economic Studies
156 Egnatia
P.O.Box 1591
540-06 Thessaloniki
GREECE
e-mail: smavro@macedonia.uom.gr
tel: +30 +31 -891779
Fax: +30 +31 -891750