Sublime

In this process, Marx saw the seeds of a society that would eventually be reduced to two classes—owners and workers.

Marx...was among the very first to recognize that the fever-fits of financial crisis and depression that afflict modern market economies were not a passing phase or something that could be easily cured, but rather a deep disability of the system...

Karl Marx was among the very first to see that the industrial revolution...opens the possibility of a society in which we people can be lovers of wisdom without being supported by the labor of a mass of illiterate, brutalized, half-starved, and overworked slaves...

Marx the economist got a lot about the economic history of the development of modern capitalism in England right--not everything, but he is still very much worth grappling with as an economic historian of 1500-1850. Most important, I think, are his observations that the benefits of industrialization do take a long time--generations--to kick in...

Thus Marx launches himself on the path that leads to ‘socially necessary labour’ as the ‘hidden’ value within every equation of exchange.

Marx saw history as an ongoing struggle between the social classes of each era, the outcome of which was based on the “tension and antagonism” of the struggle. In Marx’s view, this meant capitalist society was a historical stage, not a permanent one. As an economist, he contested the classical view of market growth as a force that produced harmonio

One of Adam Smith’s most intelligent and penetrating readers was the German economist Karl Marx. Marx agreed entirely with Smith’s analysis: specialization had indeed transformed the world and possessed a revolutionary power to enrich individuals and nations. But where he differed from Smith was in his assessment of how desirable this development m