HISTORICAL STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT OF MARKET PRICES

Abstract

The article aims at studying the historical evolution of a market price from the standpoint of distinction of flexible and fixed prices, elemental and controlled methods of pricing. Taking into account the historical method,the main purpose of the article consists inenriching these concepts in order to indicate gradual phases of development of commodity production and exchange so they can be referred to as full-fledged economic categories. As is generally known, the controlled price rigidity was inherent to the pre-capitalist workshop production. Then, there was transition to the elemental flexibility of market prices in the free competition epoch. In the second half of the 20th century, historical conditions considerably changed. The rigidity becomes the most important peculiarity of administrated prices.In the second half of the 20th century, prices of a majority of industrial commodities became more flexible again. Permanent renovation and differentiation of products are the main factors, which have undermined the prevalence of fixed prices in the industrial market. Therefore, the main conclusion of the analysis of the market price historical evolution consists in the existence of a so-called triad in the capitalist pricing evolution: elemental flexibility – controlled rigidity – controlled flexibility of prices for modern and frequently renovated products. This conduces to new opportunities of the analysis of specific peculiarities of the modern market price, which is inherent to that phase of the capitalist production development, which encompasses the large-scale permanent accelerated renovation of industrial products.