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

[Christopher Arthur <arthurcj@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andy and Ajit
I was thinking of the last 2 paras of WN Bk III ch 1.
Chris
>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


17 Bristol Road, Brighton, BN2 1AP, England