The political economy of S. N. Bulgakov (to the 150th anniversary of his birth)

Introduction. 2021 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of S. N. Bulgakov, an outstanding Russian scientist, economist and philosopher. The aim of the study is to assess the scientific contribution of S. N. Bulgakov to the development of Russian socio-economic thought. Materials and methods. The work was written on the basis of the economic writings of S. N. Bulgakov, documents and materials of that era, as well as contemporary Russian and foreign publications. The article uses a dialectical approach, methods of induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, structural-functional and program-targeted research methods. Results. The article reveals the scientific contribution of S. N. Bulgakov to the formulation and solution of urgent problems of the humanities and economics. The place and role of S. N. Bulgakov in the history of Russian and world science are revealed. The problems of the fundamental work of S. N. Bulgakov “Capitalism and Agriculture” (1900) and his other economic studies are considered in detail. An assessment is given to the ideas of the formation of a humanistic political economy, the doctrine of “Christian socialism”, the relationship between the principles of spiritual, moral and rationalistic approaches in the study of the national economy. The specific views of the scientist on the agrarian economy are shown: agrarian overpopulation, the nature of agricultural labor, the operation of the law of diminishing land fertility, the peculiarities of domestic agriculture, the nature of land rent. The idea of the legitimacy of the ideas and conclusions of S. N. Bulgakov about the nature and prospects of the development of capitalism in Russia, the spread of small and medium-sized forms of organization of agrarian production, understanding of the agrarian economy in the “broad” and “narrow” sense is substantiated. Discussion and Conclusion. A comparative analysis of the views of S. N. Bulgakov, N. I. Bukharin, K. Marx, V. I. Lenin, A. Smith, A. V. Chayanov on the general theoretical aspects of the development of agricultural production is carried out. Shown are modern studies devoted to the ideas of S. N. Bulgakov in the field of socio-economic analysis.