Comparing The Beliefs Of Adam Smith And Karl Marx

The two great minds of Adam Smith and Karl Marx have just as many similarities as they have differences. Both want to help the general populous by reducing poverty. Both have a distaste for big business and elitists. Both believed that the most valuable entity in an economy was labor and the ability to produce goods. Both were philosophers and economists that put great thought into the morals of their economic systems. Despite having common goals and beliefs, they differed in how to achieve an economy that worked for everyone, not just the über wealthy.

Economics, and economic theory, is solely based on the ideas and predictions of how specific events will affect a country 's economy in the near future. Not only this, but these theories also help to predict how each group, or class of people, will be affected. There have been plenty of theorists throughout time; however, two of the more influential theorists, Adam Smith and Karl Marx, have left an irrefutable impact on economic theory as a whole. Though both theorists were equally as influential and revered economists, Smith and Marx have differentiating views, especially on the capitalist market economies effects on the working poor. From the wage labor bargain to the evolution of work as a result of the division of labor, both economists

Reclaiming Our Economic Spaces. One of the fundamental points on which Adam Smith and Karl Marx agreed is that workers should own their means of production. Though not widely noted, in the small enterprises of Adam Smith's ideal economy the worker was generally also the owner and manager. Furthermore, Smith assumed that enterprises would be locally owned and that their owners would thus be imbedded in a framework of local community values and interests. While Smith believed in the benefits of trade, he considered it logical that most markets would be local because of the costs and uncertainties of trading with foreign lands. He took an especially dim view of large corporations with absentee owners that used their political and market power to extract monopoly profits.

Marx and Smith both saw it as an economy and society marked by poverty, exploitation, and inequality. Squashes manorialism, feudalism, Christianity all together.

The task of political economy, Marx argued, was to understand all the presumptions within productive and social relations which made social life in a given form possible at a particular time.(Peterson,17). In some nations, as Hobbes states, the lives of the poor are "nasty,brutish and short", by contrast in other nations , the poor do better within same levels of wealth. The aim of political economy is to understand the processes that produce these differences. The two historical figures that analyzed capitalism were A.Smith and K.Marx. Their philosophy differ in the way each viewed the human conditions and the role of the individual. It could be argued that history has shown Smith to be right and Marx to be wrong but the fact is that each of these men understood capitalism on different terms although both had similar material aims.

Moving a society forward requires a goal for all to work towards. Philosophers like Smith and Hegel believe that progress in society comes from conflict. While the conflict is not necessarily the primary goal, progress comes from an invisible hand. However, Marx will argue that class conflict should be eliminated to allow for the free development of all. All three try to explain societal progress, the only difference is in execution. So, it must be asked; Is conflict beneficial for progress? Is progress known from experience? Does experience prove that a radical rupture of ideas is needed? Do members of the society need to be aware of the goal, or is an invisible hand present? Each with their own strengths and weakness all three philosophers attempt to answer these questions.

Durkheim: What makes society progressive is the growth of a nation towards the better. What makes a nation powerful and grow is the division of labor. It has been apparent over the centuries of technological growth that within a society the more societal advancements there are, the more division of labor there is within the nation. Durkheim considered the division of labor has a natural law, one that not only was in humans but all organisms. Durkheim felt that although everything should be divided into his or her own labor, it was all for the greater good, the social solidarity.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of human trades do not require imagination - they do not even require intelligence. Why employ a doctor with 8+ years of schooling, if his job could be automated?

Socialism is viewed as the alternative to capitalism as it strives for equality as it argues a society can achieve more through collective actions rather than acting alone, motivated by personal gain. The main things socialists strive for are things such as, equal share of wealth, an end to the exploitati...

While not exactly identical, the theories presented by Karl Marx and John Locke surprisingly compliment one another. In the most extreme case, we could even argue that in the absence of Locke’s theories to form a precedent, Marx’s ideas would also be non-existent. They both hold baseline assumptions that power is maintained by the people, and that this power can be exercised by the collective cooperation of people. In this essay, we will examine the unique connection and compatibility which can be inferred from their works. In an attempt to organize our argument in a comprehensive manner, we will put each author on a linear spectrum, Locke forming the beginning and Marx representing the end. This way, we will try to emulate the realistic periodic