THE CONSTITUTION AS THE REGULATOR OF THE STATE'S ECONOMIC POLICY

Abstract

Introduction. The article examines one of the main problems of modern constitutional economics, namely the role of the constitution as the main law in regulating the state's economic policy. The author substantiates the opinion that the Constitution establishes the statics of the economy in the form of an economic system and at the same time determines its dynamics in the form of economic policy. At the same time, the constitution must legally resolve the contradiction between the economy as a self-governing system and the state as a sovereign organization responsible for maintaining stability and order in society.

Summary of the main research results. Economic policy has a complex structure. Its elements include goals, tools, indicators, objects and subjects. Together, they form a whole system that is not immutable. However, the amount of normative consolidation of the mentioned elements of economic policy in the constitutions of different "generations" differs significantly and has a growing tendency.

The constitutions of the first generation did not mention economic policy. Being liberal-democratic in their ideological basis, in the economic sphere they were limited to the recognition of the inviolability of private property, freedom of business and legal equality of all citizens. However, already the constitutions of the second generation established for the state an active role in the economic system, in particular, its right to exert a regulatory influence on the behavior of economic entities by establishing taxes and duties, establishing state prerogatives and preferences, prohibiting monopolies, etc. Starting with the constitutions of the third generation, adopted at the end of the Second World War, and until now, the economic policy of the state has occupied a significant place in the structure of the main laws, where the presence of special chapters and sections has become a general rule. However, the scope and content of the normative consolidation of economic policy in constitutions varies significantly and depends on many factors: from national traditions of constitutionalism to the specifics of the structure of the national economy and the main challenges facing the country at the time of adoption of the basic law.

Conclusions. The evolution of constitutions follows the path of ever wider regulation of the economic policy of the state is substantiated. Starting with the constitutions of the third generation, adopted at the end of the World War II, and until now, the economic policy of the state has occupied a significant place in the structure of the main laws, where the presence of special chapters and sections has become a general rule. Modern constitutions, regardless of the form of the state and the degree of their economic development: determine the goals and objectives of the economic policy of the state; establish the priorities of the state's economic policy and its individual subspecies; identify key sectors of the economy that require state support; determine the limits of state intervention in the economic system; consolidate the initiative of the state in the economic sphere, the mandatory availability of the state's economic policy; secure separate, most important instruments of state economic policy; establish an institutional mechanism for developing and implementing the state's economic policy.