RH351Rhetoric of Economic Thought

TransparenciesSet 4

Marx, Marxian economics;Socialism, scientific andutopian

Economic Analysis – key contributors, 19th century

Karl Marx (1818 – 1883)

Adam Smith(1723 – 1790)

David Ricardo (1772 – 1823)

1800 1900

August Cournot (1807 – 1877)

Johann von Thünen (1793 – 1850)

Hermann Gossen (1810 – 1858)

John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873)

Stanley Jevons (1835 – 1882)

Leon Walras (1834 – 1910)

Carl Menger (1840 – 1921)

Alfred Marshall (1842 – 1924)Walras

Cournot

Marshall

Jevons

Mill

Karl Marx and his alternative vision / critical analysis

I. Biographical details: • b. 1818 - d. 1883 • 1835 - 1840: University of Trier / University of Berlin -- Under the

spell of Hegal • 1843 - 1845: Paris -- Intense study of classical economists and French

socialists • 1848: Revolution in Europe / Publication of The Communist

Manifesto • 1849: Moves to London • 1867: Publication of Capital, V1

II. Historical background and intellectual influences

A. Historical background 1. Industrial revolution in England 2. Political revolution in France (1789 – 1799)

B. Intellectual influences

1. Historical analysis a. German historicism and historical materialism

• Hegel's philosophy • The New Hegelians and historical materialism

b. Utopianism, Utopian socialism and social planning • Condorcet (1743 – 1794) • Charles Fourier (1772 – 1837) • Saint Simon (1760 - 1825) • Robert Owen ()

2. Classical political economy 3. The early 19th century debate over law and property

• Babeuf, Francois, Noel (1760–97) • Proudhon, Pierre Joseph (1809–65)

II. Marx’s economics and sociology

A. The Communist Manifesto - Outline and mode of argument B. The labor theory of value C. Growth and concentration of capital, exploitation D. Class consciousness, class conflict, economic crisis E. Socialism, scientific and utopian; Communism; Social Democracy

“After a long respite the human mind is once again moving forward … The science of social organization will become a positive science. Its theory will be based on the general observations of Condorcet."

Saint Simon(1760 – 1825)

Charles Fourier(1772 – 1837)

“If your sciences dictated by wisdom have served only to perpetuate poverty and strife, give us rather

sciences dictated by folly, provided that they quiet furies and relieve the miseries of peoples."

Robert Owen(1801 – 1877)

New Lanark

Early socialist thought

Influences on Marx

Hegel (and the “Young Hegelians”)

Early Socialists Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Babeuf Saint Simon (and the “Saint Simonians”) Charles Fourier Robert Owen

Classical economists Adam Smith David Ricardo Jean-Charles-Leonard Simonde de Sismondide Sismondi

(1773-1842)

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865)

G. F. W. Hegel (1770-1831)

The general result at which I arrived and which, once won,  served as a guiding thread for my studies, can be briefly formulated as follows: In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or -- what is but a legal expression for the same thing -- with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution.

Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)

Marx’s “guiding thread”

Friedrich Hayek, 1899 – 1992

Marxians also proceeded, quite consistently, positively to discourage any inquiry into the actual organization and working o the socialist society of the future. If the change was to be brought about by the inexorable logic of history, if it was the inevitable result of evolution, there was little need for knowing in detail what exactly the new society would be like.”

Friedrich Hayek, “Socialist Calculation,”in Collectivist Economic Planning

The “systems” debate