ABSTRACT
Marshall places Smith (and himself, since he sees himself in continuity with Smith) in a tradition of social science that goes back to Plato, where the way in which human beings are organised (through the division of labour) is essential for understanding the economy and society. Because the relations between individuals are constitutive of social reality, the social whole is more than the sum of the parts. Hence Marshall's ([1890] 1920: 21) claim that ‘the life of society is something more than the sum of the lives of its individual members.’
