What if Marx and Smith met? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14747323
What would they talk about? Would this be a more constructive or destructive discussion? What, if at all, would they come up with? What questions would you want to ask (especially with both simultaneously in the room)?
#14747859
What would they talk about? Would this be a more constructive or destructive discussion? What, if at all, would they come up with? What questions would you want to ask (especially with both simultaneously in the room)?

They would probably have agreed with each other about almost everything. After all, it was Adam Smith who invented the labour theory of value, which Marx used as the basis for his own economic analysis. Ironically, it is the 'neo-classical' economists who reject the labour theory of value, and have therefore diverged from Smith's analysis far more radically than Marx ever did. Those ideologues who pit Marx against Smith as polar opposites have clearly never read Marx, and I suspect they haven't even troubled themselves to read Smith either. :lol:
#14748044
Oh yeah I agree totally... They'd agree in many things. I've read from both of them to some extent (more Marx though... And Marxists, especially Rosa Luxemburg). But nether the less, I think it would be interesting to think about what they'd come up with if they'd want to come up with a system. I'm suspecting they'd probably end up with something like the social free market.
#14748135
Potemkin wrote:Those ideologues who pit Marx against Smith as polar opposites have clearly never read Marx, and I suspect they haven't even troubled themselves to read Smith either


As someone who tends toward the neo-classical side...I agree.

Ben_No3 wrote:What would they talk about? Would this be a more constructive or destructive discussion? What, if at all, would they come up with? What questions would you want to ask (especially with both simultaneously in the room)?


"Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and Marx's other notions about class would probably give Adam Smith some indigestion.
#14748162
Reading any 19th century thinker gives me impression that lot of insults will be flying around for minor disagreements specially from the Marx side as Smith is 18th century. :lol:

Anyway I have heard actual self proclaimed marxists saying something along the line of "Damn that Smith". :lol:
#14748188
Anyway I have heard actual self proclaimed marxists saying something along the line of "Damn that Smith". :lol:

Then those self-proclaimed 'Marxists' are idiots. Adam Smith's work was the foundational economic analysis upon which Marx based his own economic thought. In other words, it was Smith who made Marx possible. This, of course, is why the 'neo-classical' economists, horrified by some of the implications of the labour theory of value, went back and 'revised' Smith to remove that embarrassing 'blemish' from his work. This allowed them to recuperate Smith's work, which they could then use (in its 'new and improved' formulation, sort of like 'New Coke', lol) as a stick with which to beat the Marxists over the head, ideologically speaking. The fact that some Marxists have fallen for this trick is just evidence that some Marxists are idiots, that's all.

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