Theoretical Contributions Of Classical Political Economy To Marx

The dissertation mainly researches the relationship between the theory of Marx’sand classical political economics. It sought to back to the context of politicaleconomics and modern intellectual history. Around the debate the nature of capitalistsocial relations, Marx started the inheritance and criticism to classical politicaleconomics. Classical political economics is a theoretical analysis of the capitalistsociety, Marx was in a critique of political economy in understanding the historicalnature of capitalist mode of production, and put forward a conception beyond thecapitalist politics. The full text structure is as follows:Chapter one, Political economics is the science of modern civil society. Politicaleconomics of Adam Smith as a social theory puts an end to the traditional concept ofpolitical theory, through placing the economy at the core of modern politics, whichopens up a new domain for the modern political philosophy. Kant and Hegel doidealism reflection of political economics, which constitutes the politicaltranscendence of the civil society, but also lays the background of history for Marx’scritique of capitalism at a higher theoretical level.Chapter two, through the critique of Hegel’s law philosophy, Marx realized “theanatomy of the civil society should seek to the political economics”. Classical polialeconomics historically analyses the origin of civil society from the perspective ofproperty rights and economic, which constitutes the important theoretical source ofhistorical materialism. But the classical political economics in its essence is a kind oftheory of civil society, whose main purpose is to prove the legitimacy of civil society,and the historical materialism to go beyond the civil society theory in the level of"historical science", namely the critique of political economy.Chapter three, social problem is a path for Marx into the critique of politicaleconomy. Young Marx had defended on the law for the benefit of the poor, but beforethe poor were justified, Smith had proved that the poor and the rich had the same in the ethics moral legitimacy, which reversed the traditional western social prejudice againstthe poor. The classical political economics resorts to the free market to solve the socialproblems, which says free exchange can maximize production efficiency and promotesocial harmony. Marx’s critique of political economics just points out that utopiacharacteristics of market principles and proves that social relations of capitalism is thecause for social problems.Chapter four, Marx has reshaped the political economics production concept."The Wealth of Nations" of Smith has two faces, on the one hand it proves theexistence of class conflict in the capitalist society from the perspective of production,on the other hand it suggests that capitalism is harmonious starting from the exchange.The former was modified by David Ricardo, developing "The poor politicaleconomics" lineage. The latter was inherited by J·B·Say and N·Senior, and developed"The rich political economics" on behalf of the interests of the bourgeoisie. Marx notonly inherited the moral standing of "the poor political economics", but also deepenedthe stipulation of the concept of production in the context of historical materialism,which realizes the scientific criticism of the capitalist system by revealing thehistorical essence of capitalist production.Chapter five, justice is the theme of the Marx’s political economics. In the modernsense, the essence of justice problem is economic problem. Smith’s understanding ofjustice refers to the justice of exchange. Based on the theory of labor value, Ricardosocialist rewrites the exchange justice as distributive justice. Marx thinks, distributivejustice is still limited to the capitalist mode of production. Scientific socialism shouldbe based on the production of revolution, through the construction of a reasonablemode of production to meet the needs of human nature, to lay the material premise forall-round development of the real person’s free individuality, namely productionjustice.