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Smith Vs Marx

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Although there are times when the three of them are in agreement, most of the time their interpretations of capitalism diverge. An area of agreement is the specialization and the division of labor. Smith argues that this division comes naturally as the market space where people can pursue their interests expands. Even though Marx insists that the division of labor is detrimental to laborers, he admits that this organization of production comes out of the division of classes and is a necessary condition for the emergence of capitalism. Weber describes this division of labor as the formally free, rationally organized labor (Hayek xxxiv). In fact, this notion of formally free labor is supported by Smith’s example of the pin factory in The Wealth …show more content…

For instance, Smith and Marx disagree on the role of natural force. While Smith is a functionalist who argues that natural market force brings everything back to equilibrium, Marx claims that equilibrium is not the norm; rather, crisis is. Marx contends that a crisis arises from the fact that “the bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society” (Tucker 476). However, this seemingly powerful characteristic of capitalism will cause the society to regress into a "state of momentary barbarism" (Tucker 478). According to Marx, as a result of overproduction, all supply of production is no longer accessible and all “industry and commerce seem to be destroyed” (Tucker …show more content…

Marx views the Bourgeoisie and the Proletarians as fundamentally different people at the level of consciousness. Moreover, these two classes are fundamentally divided. Weber, though, would disagree by arguing that both businessmen and laborers are Protestants, which means that they have the same cultural origin and are essentially the same group of people. In fact, God will be pleased by both groups of people if they worked hard despite the fact that businessmen earn much more than laborers do (Hayek 121). This divide between Marx and Weber leads to two distinct yet both insightful origin stories of capitalism. Actually, both of their analytical efforts enable us to interpret the social realities of modern

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In his essay, “I Pin,” Horace Say critiques Adam Smith’s story of a pin factory and puts the work in the perspective of a modern day economist. Adam Smith wrote heavily about how industries, especially manufacturing, can benefit from a division of work within the system. I saw this way of labor as the most effective as it lessened the intensity of one man’s work and, in the end, it greatly affected the rate of production. He believed that the workers should be divided to do specialized tasks based on their certain skills or strengths. He used the example of a pin manufacturer to support his claim.

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1169 Words | 5 Pages

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1719 Words | 7 Pages

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1433 Words | 6 Pages

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1727 Words | 7 Pages

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