DID KARL MARX’S “TURN” THE ORIGINAL SOCIAL THEORY OF CLASS STRUGGLE?

Weber, Cameron (2023): DID KARL MARX’S “TURN” THE ORIGINAL SOCIAL THEORY OF CLASS STRUGGLE?

Abstract

In this research I compare and contrast the class-struggle social theory of industrielisme in the writings of the French liberals around the Le Censeur Européen (1817-1819) with that of Karl Marx’s historical materialism. There are many similarities. Both use concepts of historical development and path-dependency, productive and unproductive labor, of exploitation, and of the necessary primacy of the market under capitalism to bring human freedom. Using Theories of Surplus Value (1860) and available correspondence I show that Marx knew about and respected the French liberal historians and political economists, especially Turgot and Augustin Thierry. It would be conjecture to say that Marx “turned” the original French liberal class struggle, that of free and productive man as exploited by the unproductive state, into his own labor as exploited by capital but we do find and present evidence to this effect.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Political Economy, Karl Marx, Turgot, French Liberals, Class Struggle, Capitalism, Path Dependency, Exploitation
• Subjects: B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B1 - History of Economic Thought through 1925 > B12 - Classical (includes Adam Smith); B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B1 - History of Economic Thought through 1925 > B14 - Socialist ; Marxist; D - Microeconomics > D3 - Distribution > D31 - Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions; P - Economic Systems > P1 - Capitalist Systems > P16 - Political Economy; P - Economic Systems > P3 - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions > P32 - Collectives ; Communes ; Agriculture; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z13 - Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology ; Social and Economic Stratification

References

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