Inheritance and Transcendence: An Examination of the Gains and Losses of Classical Political Economy from the Perspective of Marx
Classical political economy, as the theoretical crystallisation of bourgeois economic consciousness, presents a complex intellectual landscape in which its historical contributions and inherent limitations are intertwined. Taking Marx's critique of political economy as the methodological point of departure, this paper systematically reviews the theoretical evolution from William Petty and Adam Smith to David Ricardo. Across four dimensions—the deepening of the labour theory of value, the concealment of the source of surplus value, the divergence of research methods, and the opposition of historical conceptions—it analyses why the classical school's 'gains' laid a scientific foundation and why its 'losses' plunged it into an inextricable theoretical impasse. The study shows that the fundamental defects of classical political economy, namely the naturalisation of economic categories and the eternalisation of the capitalist mode of production, could only be thoroughly liquidated within the horizon of Marx's dialectics and historical materialism; while the historical merits of the classical school in analysing the law of value and class relations were, through the creative transformation effected in Capital, sublated into the theoretical premises of proletarian political economy. A renewed examination of this intellectual moment is of foundational significance for understanding the theoretical origins of contemporary critiques of political economy.
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