Re: [OPE-L] Hegel's and Smith's historical materialism?

[Andrew Brown <A.Brown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris,

You seem to be saying that Smith was both materialist and historical but
admitted he had the wrong history. Probably requires a bit of
elaboration.

I'd suggest Smith and classical political economy were certainly
materialist (they had classes based on production, they introduce the
LTV) but not really historical because capitalist classes are taken as
natural and 'history' merely a set of aberrations prior to the natural
(capitalist) order.

Simon Clarke (Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology) is interesting on
this (and on Hegel and on parallels between Hegel and CPE from Marx's
perspective)

Andy

-----Original Message-----
From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christopher
Arthur
Sent: 06 October 2005 21:41
To: OPE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Hegel's and Smith's historical materialism?

>Am I off-track here?  Did Smith have a historical materialist
>perspective?  Did Hegel?
>
>In solidarity, Jerry

No.
Smith gives a theory of history going from agriculture to the twons to
foreign trade and then ruefully admits the real development was exactly
the
opposite!
For a study of Hegel's early work see my chapter on him in my book 'The
New
Dialectic and Marx's Capital' It is true he gives more importancce to
labour in the early work but it is still in the interests of the spirit.
Chris

17 Bristol Road, Brighton, BN2 1AP, England