THE BOOKS THAT DEFINED INDUSTRIAL WORLD

7/29/2019 THE BOOKS THAT DEFINED INDUSTRIAL WORLD

1/6

Dino Memovic

08.12.2011

[THE BOOKS THAT DEFINED

INDUSTRIAL WORLD]Analysis of two great books on political economy. Capital: The Critique of

Political Economy by Karl Marx, and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.


2/6

The Books That Provoked Me

This paper has for its subjectthe works of two great political

economists: Capital: The Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx, andAnInquiry into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.

Their works inspired me to get more knowledge about economics. The purpose of

this essay is to state the greatest ideas and major misconceptions in these

books.

First I will state the major flaws in Capital. The biggest flaws are

the obvious overemphasizing of the suffering of the working class, and the

highly difficult style of writing used by Marx.

Marx obviously overemphasizes the suffering of the work class. That can

be clearly seen in the order in which he presents the tales of suffering. Hestarts with a fairytale story of Capitalists successes, immediately beaten

down by the tale of workers suffering. Although he uses the actual data, he

overdoes the stories he used for proving his point. The biggest flow of this

book, probably the reason why this book isnt as influential as The Wealth of

the Nations, is the style in which this book was written. Marx precisely says

what he meant in every sentence. This goes so far that most of the sentences

can be used as definitions. The problem with this style is that there are

2100 pages of definitions in this book. This makes Capital hard to read, even

by readers with an extensive knowledge about the subject. Also this makes

Capital practically useless for an average entrepreneur of the time and eventoday. Of course despite the flaws Capital made a significant influence on

economy, but an even bigger influence on sociology.

As to some of the concepts in Capital, Marx heavily criticizes the

commodity fetishism of other political economists of the time, as well as

their ignorance for the condition of the work class. He made a good

observation that if workers didnt fight for their right by striking, the

employers would decide the work conditions in their own favor, which they

later did by employing women and children. Women and children failed to

realize the collective power of workers, which made them easy targets for

exploitation.

The most important effect of Capital is its impact on the sociology of

labor. I find his theory on division of labor more advanced than Smiths.

What we can surely say for Marx is that he is one of the first to fully


3/6

elaborate the connection between the major elements of labor: hours of work,

time of the day spent working, productivity, and the physical and mental

health of laborers. One must agree it is a major breakthrough in social

sciences. Also his theory conclusively proves that its more profitable to

pay employees X amount of money for a 6-9 hour work day, than to pay the same

amount for 10 or more hours of work a day.

I understand this claim that one must look at productivity of the whole

labor force of a nation. Assume that a laborer gets an X amount of money for

a 6-9 hour work day, during which he meets the average production of Z. Now

if the employer increases the work day to 10 or more hours, our laborer cant

keep the productivity level more than his optimal 6-9 hour work time. So, he

will work under the crippling effect of fatigue for the rest of the work day.

If he continues to work under these conditions for extended period of time,his brain will degenerate. The best reasons for these conditions are: the

lack of activity in areas other than specific work for which the laborer is

employed, and the lack of rest caused by extended work day. This gives us a

society of barely capable humans working only to survive, careless of self-

improvement. The type of people pressed down by the hardship of their lives

care little about anything besides filling their immediate needs, and even

less about their productivity. So by employing laborers for more than their

optimal hours of work per day, although it gives the employer a better money

per hour rate, will lower production per day. So by making workers work more

than their optimal work limit, they will actually produce less, as well as

increase the expenses of utilities and amortization of the production

facility. With this elaboration I will conclude part of this paper dedicated

to Capital by Karl Marx, a book that greatly influenced modern Sociology. Who

if not for a rather complex language in which it was written it would have a

much greater influence on economics.

Now Ill state major flaws of the second book that greatly inspired me.

Adam Smith, the writer of the book, has three big misconceptions in his book

concerning: the traditional economies, unsuccessfulness of the trade

companies, and his theory concerning military matters.

By traditional economies I mean: the tribal nations of the world, the

Romans, the Greeks, and the medieval kingdoms. Smith foolishly assumes that

the tribal nations are a bunch of savages who cant possibly have anything

worthy of research in their systems. As for the Romans, the Greeks and the


4/6

medieval nations, his opinion isnt much better. He fails to realize that the

point of state and big landowners isnt only to make profit, but also to keep

the population happy and alive so that they can use them when necessary for

their political games (of course I mean war). Also, he didnt realize that

the Arabs and Mongols had their respective kingdoms, which inherited the

science and culture of Roman and Chinese empires, while Europe was struggling

in darkness of medieval period.Kingdoms even today, admired for splendor

and accomplishments of their respective cultures.

As for the trade companies, Smiths theory about their bankruptcy is

wrong. He mistakenly blames commerce with those far destinations as reason

for their bankruptcy. Hes wrong. In reality the only reason for their

bankruptcy is the selfishness and the lack of business ability of persons in

charge of those trade companies.

The biggest flaw is his theory concerning military matters. First, he

calls the armies of Arabs, Greeks, Romans, Tartars and similar warlike

nations militia. To disapprove this claim I must first define the word

militia: militia is an army composed of common citizens mustered to respond

to an immediate threat. In this we cannot include the warlike nations

mentioned before because war is the common part of their everyday life. Since

early childhood the whole nation is bound to prepare for war. Combined with

complete authority of the tribal chief excludes these armies from militia.

Second, he assumes the training of units the only factor in warfare.

But in reality, equally or even more important is the grasp of

strategy and logistics (how to supply and move the army) of the army

commander. By grasp of strategy I mean his ability to organize, deploy,

inspire and discipline his army. And the logistics of an army include

feeding, clothing, and keeping the army clean, as well as finding the best

way to move an army from point A to B. Without these, even the best trained

army is completely useless.

Of course this book has its good sides, In his book we see the root of

an idea which shapes todays economy. He noticed that markets, in order to

prosper, must merge into one. In his book I find no clue that he released the

importance of his discovery. And it will pass almost three centuries for us

to realize the necessity for a global market. For its the only known way to

reach the maximum of business potential of an unmerged market.


5/6

To summarize, genius is evident in this book. Although there are some

major misconceptions in his book, they are probably caused by lack of

information and common stereotypes of his time. The Wealth of Nations still

stands as the most elaborate work on economic theory and economic systems of

the time it was written. The big advantage of this book over Capital is the

practical usefulness of Smiths style of writing. His writing is simple enough

to be understood by a common proprietor. This is probably the reason why his

book had such a tremendous effect on economy.

Finally, I will evaluate an important theory recognized by both of

these writers. Theory says that slave labor isnt profitable or practical for

the industrial age. Ignoring the modern concept of slavery being a taboo,

lets evaluate this theory from a perspective of an 18th Century man. Slaves

are not considered human, but a lower race. Their master has full power overtheir lives. His sole expense, except the high price of purchasing one, is

feeding and clothing slaves. This is a much lower cost than an average wage.

But slaves know that they are too valuable to their master for him to kill

them. They are too expensive for murder, so they can slack. They are careless

for the rest of the masters property. This makes them inadequate for any

type of labor besides farming with primitive tools. This fact disqualifies

slaves for use in any type of industrial work, which at the time of writing

of these two books started to gain importance. One can see that eventually no

one will pay the high price for a slave which is useless in the early

industrial society. This eventually abolished slavery.

I wrote this paper to prove both my interest and academic ability in

economics. In it I gave major concepts and misconceptions of these two books.

They inspired me to find out more about economics, as they did to thousands

that have read them before me. One thing stands, these two belong to the

golden masterpieces of early political economy.

Note: if you find any mistakes, misassumptions, or want to suggest any

changes please send your corrections to [email protected]. Also, if you want

further explanations or elaborations of this paper please contact me.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


6/6

Works Cited

Marks, Karl, Das Kapital Kritik der Politischen Oekonomie, Moskov, Progress

Publishers, 1999, E-book

Smith, Adam,An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,London, The Electric Book Company Ltd, 1998, E-book

Documents

THE BOOKS THAT DEFINED INDUSTRIAL WORLD