----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- I do not grasp exactly Humberto's point and I am afraid that such a comparison between Smith and Marx is meaningless : Smith was interested in the psychological mechanisms of individual behaviour (including self-interest, see his theory of moral sentiments). Marx was not, as he put it in his famous words: "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness." Or to quote it at length: "In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness." Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Alain Alcouffe ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]