To better understand how there was a modern economy, as mankind has learned to find answers to the main questions it is necessary to analyze the thousand-year history of the development of economic systems of civilization.

Depending on the resolution of the major economic problems and the type of ownership of economic resources, there are four main types of economic systems: 1) traditional, 2) market (capitalism), and 3) command (socialism), 4) mixed.

Of these, the most ancient - the traditional economic system.

Traditional economic system - a way of organizing economic life, in which land and capital are in the common ownership of the tribe, and the limited resources allocated in accordance with a long-existing traditions.

As for the ownership of economic resources, the traditional system, it was often collective, ie, hunting grounds, fields and meadows owned by the tribe or community.

Over time, the basic elements of the traditional economic system ceased to hold humanity. Experience has shown that the factors of production are used more efficiently if they are owned by individuals or families rather than collective ownership. None of the richest countries in the world foundation of society is the collective property. But in many of the poorest countries in the world are preserved remnants of such property.

For example, the rapid development of agriculture in Russia accounted for only at the beginning of the XX century., When Stolypin reforms destroyed the collective (community) ownership of land, change of land ownership by individual families. Then came to power in 1917, the communists actually restored the communal ownership of land, declaring the land "public property".

Having built its agriculture on collective ownership, the Soviet Union was not able to for 70 years of XX century. get plenty of food. Moreover, by the early 80's, the food situation has become so bad that the Communist Party was forced to accept a special "Food program," which, however, also has not been implemented, although the money for the development of the agricultural sector has been spent huge.

In contrast, agriculture European countries, the U.S. and Canada, based on private ownership of land and capital, meet the challenge of the abundance of food failed. And so successful that farmers in these countries were able to a large proportion of its production exported to other regions of the world.

Practice has shown that markets and businesses better solve the problem of allocating scarce resources and increased production of vital goods than the councils of elders - the bodies, taking fundamental economic decisions in the traditional system.

That's why the traditional economic system eventually ceased to be the basis of the organization of life in most countries of the world. Its elements have gone into the background and only fragments are preserved in the form of various customs and traditions that are of secondary importance. In most countries, the leading role played different ways of organizing economic cooperation among people.

Has come to replace the traditional market system (capitalism). The basis of this system are:

1) The right to private property;

2) private economic initiative;

3) organization of the market allocation of scarce public resources.

The right to private property is recognized and protected by law the right of an individual to own, use and dispose of a certain type and volume of limited resources (for example, a piece of land, coal mine or factory), and, therefore, benefit from this income. It is an opportunity to own such kind of productive resources such as capital and receive income on this basis led to the second, often-used name of this economic system - capitalism.

Private property - recognized by the society the right of individual citizens and their associations to own, use and dispose of a certain amount of (part of) all kinds of economic resources.

For your information. At first, the right to private property was protected only by force of arms, and the owners were only kings and nobles. But then, after a long path of war and revolution, mankind has created a civilization in which a private owner could become a citizen if his income allowed to purchase the property.

The right of private ownership allows owners of economic resources to make decisions about how to use them (as long as it is not prejudicial to the public interest). However, this is almost unlimited freedom to dispose of economic resources has a downside: the owners of private property have sole economic responsibility for their selections in its use.

Private economic initiative is the right of every owner of productive resources to decide how and to what extent to use them to generate income. In this case, the welfare of each is determined by how well he can sell in the market share, which is owned by: their labor, skills, products of their hands, their own land, their production factory or the ability to organize business operations.

And, finally, the markets - in some way organized activities for the exchange of goods.

It markets:

1) determine the degree of luck some of the economic initiative;

2) form the amount of income that the property brings to its owners;

3) dictate the proportion of the allocation of scarce resources to alternative areas of their use.

The advantage of the market mechanism is that it forces each seller to think about the interests of buyers to obtain benefits for himself. If he will not do this, his product may be unnecessary or too expensive, and instead he will receive benefits only losses. But the buyer is obliged to consider the interests of the seller - he can get the goods only after paying for it at the current market price.

The market system (capitalism) - a way of organizing economic life, in which capital and land are owned by individuals, and limited resources are allocated by markets.

Markets, based on competition, have become the most successful of the ways known to mankind allocation of scarce productive resources and created with the help of their wealth.

Of course, the market system has its drawbacks. In particular, it gives rise to enormous differences in levels of income and wealth, with some bathe in luxury, while others are mired in poverty.

Such differences in income have long encouraged people to treat capitalism as "unfair" economic system and ask for a more perfect device of his life. These dreams have led to the emergence in the nineteenth century. social movement, named in honor of Marxism, its chief ideologue - German journalist and economist Karl Marx. He and his followers have argued that the market system has exhausted its possibilities of development and has become a brake on further growth of the welfare of mankind. Therefore it is proposed to replace the new economic system - a command, or socialism (from Lat. Societas - «Company»).

The command economic system (socialism) - a way of organizing economic life, in which capital and land are owned by the state, and the distribution of scarce resources is carried out on the instructions of the central government and in accordance with the plans.

Birth of a command economic system was the result of a number of socialist revolution, which was the ideological banner of Marxism. The exact same model command system was developed by the leaders of the Russian Communist Party, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

According to the Marxist theory of the human race could dramatically speed your way to the well-being and to eliminate differences in individual well-being of citizens through the abolition of private property, eliminate competition and conduct of all economic activities of the country on the basis of a single obligatory (policy) of the plan, which is being developed by the scientific leadership of the state basis. The roots of this theory are in the Middle Ages, in the so-called social utopia, but its practical realization came just at the XX century., When there was the socialist camp.

If all the resources (inputs) are declared public property, but really they sovereignly dispose of state and party officials, it involves very dangerous economic consequences. Income individuals and businesses no longer depend on how well they use limited resources as a result of their work is really necessary to society. More important are other criteria:

a) for the enterprise - the degree of fulfillment and over-fulfillment of the targets for the production of goods. That's what business leaders were awarded medals and appointed ministers. Never mind that these products can be quite uninteresting to buyers who - whether they have freedom of choice - would prefer other benefits;

b) for the people - the nature of the relationship with the boss, which distributes most of scarce goods (cars, apartments, furniture, trips abroad, etc.), or take the title, opening the access to the "closed distributors", where these scarce goods can be bought free.

As a result, in the command system:

1) even the simplest of people need the benefits were "deficient". Common sight in major cities have become "jumpers", ie, residents of small towns and villages, who came with big backpacks to buy food, because their food stores just did not have anything;

2) The mass of enterprises continuously suffered losses, and even there was such a striking their category, as planned unprofitable enterprise. In this case, employees of these enterprises still received regular salaries and bonuses;

3) The biggest success for the citizens and businesses have to "get" some imported goods or equipment. At the turn of the Yugoslav women's boots were recorded in the evening.

In the end, the end of the XX century. became an epoch of profound disappointment in the possibilities of planning and command system, and the former socialist countries engaged in a difficult task revival of private property and the market system.

Speaking about the campaign or command a market economic system, it should be remembered that in its purest form can be found only in the pages of scientific papers. The real economic life, on the contrary, is always a mixture of elements of different economic systems.

The modern economic system is the most developed countries of the world it is mixed. Many national and regional economic problems are solved by the state.

As a rule, the state is now involved in the economic life of the community for two reasons:

1) some of the needs of society due to their nature (the content of the army, the development of legislation, the organization of traffic, control of epidemics, etc.), it can satisfy better than is possible only on the basis of market mechanisms;

2) it can mitigate the negative effects of market mechanisms (too large differences in the wealth of the citizens, the damage to the environment from the activities of commercial companies, etc.).

Therefore, to civilization at the end of XX century. has become the predominant mixed economic system.

Mixed economic system - a way of organizing economic life, in which land and capital are privately owned, and the distribution of scarce resources is carried out both markets and substantial participation by the state.

In such an economic system is the basis of private ownership of economic resources, although in some countries (France, Germany, Great Britain, etc.) there is a fairly large public sector. It includes enterprise, the capital of which is wholly or partly owned by the state (for example, the German airline "Lufthansa"), but that a) does not receive from the state plans, and b) operate on market principles, and c) are forced to compete with private firms.

In these countries, the main economic issues mostly solved markets. They are also distributing the major part of economic resources. However, some of the resources centralized and distributed by the state, using the Command mechanisms to compensate for some of the weaknesses of market mechanisms