Marx vs Smith re Capitalism
Marx vs. Smith re: Capitalism Capitalism is a very unique form of economic system. ... There have been a great number of economist philosophers who have shared their views on what they believe the system of capitalism is and how it works. Adam Smith and Karl Marx are two out of a number of people whose philosophical works have helped people to better understand the nature of the market capitalist system. I thought it would be very interesting to contrast Marx and Smith’s views simply because both of these philosophers have opposite stands on their thoughts about this system. For example, Adam Smith is known as the defender of capitalism and believes that this system is the best form of economic system that any society could devise, whereas Karl Marx is known as the cofounder (along with Frederick Engels) of communism and believes that the dominant class is destined to one day be overthrown by the working class, thus eliminating class inequalities and creating a classless society (Encarta). Before I begin to contrast Marx and Smith’s views on capitalism, we need to examine three things. First, we must look at an overview on the economic system of capitalism. Second, we need to take a look at some of Adam Smith’s theories on capitalism, and third we need to take a look at some of the theories proposed by Karl Marx on capitalism. After we do all three of these, then we can analyze and compare the philosophies of Marx and Smith. Capitalism can be defined as an economy in which material goods are produced as commodities for a society wide competitive market by competing capitalist firms which purchase material commodities and commodified labour power in a society wide market to carry on profit seeking activity. ... There are three circuits of capitalism which are used to accumulate profit. ... C-M` The only circuit of capitalism that I want to focus on is the third one since it is the only circuit of capitalism that produces real material wealth.