ABSTRACT
Once the neo-classicals and the ‘marginalists’ had made their debut, the issue of an antagonistic relationship between social categories, so much to the fore in classical political economy, was ushered out of the limelight, and a process of atomisation set in: an individual unit of a factor of production became the focal point of analysis, classes lost their erstwhile pre-eminence. Moreover, each factor was supposedly paid according to its marginal product and the sum of such payments exhausted total output; the conclusion was thus drawn that there could be no divergence of interests among the different economic classes, since class conflicts were ruled out, and the state was seen as capable of regulating income distribution through, for instance, fiscal policy; tranquillity was the order of the day.
