A valuable book about pre-Marxist economists

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Additional chapters concerning biographical highlights of Adam Smith and David Ricardo are all too brief, but are nevertheless highly instructive. For instance, it is very telling that Adam Smith was not only acutely aware One of the many stimulating fringe benefits of reading of James Watt's significant contributions in the domain Karl Marx's writings on economics is the tremendous of applied technology. When the father of the steam amount of incisive comments on his predecessors within engine became a target of the retrograde medieval guild the field of economic thought. Those who have managed corporations-which expressly forbade him any further their way through the main works of the cofounder of experimentations-Smith provided Watt with research scientific socialism will undoubtedly be familiar with names like David Ricardo, Sismondi, the Physiocrats, Rubin's 1929 work was, to my knowledge, the first James Stuart, and—last but not least-Adam Smith. concerted attempt by a Marxist economist to write such a Yet, to someone without prior knowledge of this history of economic thought. It remained largely subject matter, the full extent of their contributions will unknown outside the Soviet Union until the recent by and large continue to remain a clouded translation and re-edition of this volume by British mystery—unless one takes copious notes of Marx's widely dispersed comments about these thinkers and Within the Soviet Union today, however, Rubin's work is even less well known than in the West. From It is Isaac Ilyich Rubin's merit to have tackled this 1926 onwards he was a research associate at the task of clarifying the precise role and contribution of prestigious Marx-Engels Institute. Yet, although not these pre-Marxist economists. In 40 well-written and active in any opposition current, he became one of the therefore easily readable chapters, he manages to give a first victims of the Stalinist purges when he was arrested comprehensive overview of the history of economic in December 1930 on trumped-up charges of thought from the period of merchant capitalism starting "Menshevism." From then on he spent his life either in in the 16th century up to the last notable representative prison or in internal exile until 1937, when his traces of the classical school, John Stuart Mill, who published "A History of Economic Thought" and Rubin's other Rubin tends to concentrate on the pathbreaking major work, "Essays on Marx's Theory of Value," are advances which each school of thought or individual reminders of the important contributions which the made, compared to their respective predecessors. Yet he young Soviet Republic's social scientists were able to equally stresses their shortcomings and impasses. generate within the short space of a dozen or so years Most frequently their failings were due to the inherent limitations of the time-period they were living in. Rubin Above all, "A History of Economic Thought" is the therefore presents each major school of thought with an best currently available book on the subject of preintroductory chapter in which he describes the economic Marxian economics. As such, it fills a gaping void in setting which determined the lives and work of their SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1986 15 A History of Economic Thought, by Isaac Rubin. Ink Links, London, 1979. attempts to put them into perspective. his main works in the mid-19th century. Ilyich leading intellectuals. facilities at the University of Glasgow.

revolutionary Marxists. disappeared somewhere in the vast gulag.

after the October Revolution.

Marxist literature. Adam BOOK REVIEW Phil Evans/Kapital for Beginners Smith