ABSTRACT
As far as classical political economy is concerned, the conflict of class interests was a basic condition of economic life. Adam Smith, in the Introduction and Plan of Work of the Wealth of Nations, promises to enquire not only into the ‘causes’ of the ‘improvement’ in ‘the productive powers of labour’, but also into ‘the order, according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the different ranks and conditions of men in the society’. The moment one talks of ‘ranks and conditions of men’, one is, in fact, talking of classes. Consider also the following passage:
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed and demand a rent even for its natural produce…He [the labourer] must then pay for the licence to gather them; and must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces.1
