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Harvey C. Mansfield briefly contrasts Smith vs. Marx on the nature of self-interest in his
article "Self-Interest Rightly Understood" (Political Theory, Vol. 23, Issue 1, Feb. 1995,
48-66.)
 
According to Mansfield, Smith follows Montesquieu and Hume in regarding self-interest as
natural; the system of natural liberty makes use of self-interest to promote the general
good. Marx, however, builds on the Rousseau-Kant-Hegel tradition that views the present
human condition (the condition of the interested self) as highly unnatural. The
contradictions inherent in the nature that Smith accepts must be resolved, for Marx, in
the dialectical process of history.
 
Jack Bladel 
 
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