Karl Marx Essay

Adam Smith and Karl Marx were some of the most influential economists in the last few centuries. Marx believed that the bourgeois would get richer and the proletarians would get poorer. In contrast, Smith believed that capitalism was the best economic system a country should follow. Although they differed in their views of the social decisions made in the society, the market and hierarchical competition, and the effects of specialization on human beings, the final goals of both philosophies are similar but with different approaches.

Karl Marx directs his attention to the bourgeois and proletarians in The Communist Manifesto. Marx thought that the two classes would continue to raise the conflicts in their corresponding classes because of the nature of capitalism. Karl Marx viewed the bourgeois as “the ‘dangerous classes.’ The social scum” (Marx 20), which depicts the status of bourgeois in his eyes. They own nothing but the right to sell their own labor. In order to remove the wealthy class from its position, Marx advocated the people to start a revolution.

In order to change the current political and economic ideologies from the bourgeois, the proletariat would need to create its own unique ideology and fight against the capitalist forces from the upper classes. According to Marx, a revolution against the bourgeois is the only way for oppressed peoples to improve their station in life. They must overthrow the old social and political structures and create a new one in their favor. In Marx’s article, it states that “the bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie” (Mar...

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...every man’s business to some one simple operation, and by making this operation the sole employment of his life” (Smith 13). Smith’s economic theory was based on how individuals’ self-interest benefits the economy rather than the artificial laws enforced by the government.

Adam Smith and Karl Marx have very different theoretical contributions, yet aiming for the prosperity of the people through different methods. Adam Smith suggested that the free market, where producers are free to produce anything they want as well as charge the customers what they want, would result in a most efficient economic structure for consumers and producers due to the specialization. In contrast, Karl Marx suggested that workers would be broken away from capitalism or factory owners because he believed that such system provides an advantage for the rich and a disadvantage for the poor.