In what ways was Smiths Wealth of Nations innovative and revolutionary
1. In what ways was Smith’s Wealth of Nations (and Scottish Enlightenment thought more broadly) innovative and revolutionary? To what extent do Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment provide the foundations for Karl Marx and The Communist Manifesto?
The key to this question is the argument that Smith’s treatise on political economy is not a report on how people ‘have to’ (must) inter-relate but an account of how they relate within one type or mode of society, namely, ‘commercial life’. Smith and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers were some of the first to systematically study ‘social systems’ down through the ages and develop ‘philosophical histories‘ of human modes of existence. From this basis, you can develop other arguments which ‘link’ the works of Smith and Marx, such as ‘economic classes’.
Relevant Course Documents:
McGrail, B. (2020a) ‘2.1 An Introduction to Classical Political Economy’, part of LLL2 Markets & Crises: The Study of Political Economy, CAHSS International Foundation Programme, The University of Edinburgh.
McGrail, B. (2020b) ‘3.1 Adam Smith – An Intellectual Biography’, part of LLL2 Markets & Crises: The Study of Political Economy, CAHSS International Foundation Programme, The University of Edinburgh.
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