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Classically political economy was the study of the accumulation and distribution of material wealth. The first part of this study involves figuring out how society produces a social surplus or net-product above cost of maintaining labor and productive capital generating that product so that the workers don't starve and all the industries don't get mothballed. The second part involves figuring out who the social surplus or net product actually gets paid to in a financialized market economy as a result of leverage and various state policies particularly concerning land and money.

The classical normative political agenda then usually then revolves around figuring out how to maximize wages for the least advantaged members of society which don't own property. It is thought that doing so will increase the productive energy which the largest fraction of the base of society will be willing to volunteer towards maintaining and replicating the political system, without the need for a top-heavy political system, in a manner resembling a pyramid, but ideally where people are merely ruled by a common set of ideas with regards how to best achieve such a system without the need for an absolute ruler or king.