ABSTRACT
Classical and Marxian political economy were both concerned with the distribution of income in class terms. While Marx criticised classical political economy, it was a tradition with which he sought intellectual engagement. Engagement with other schools of thought is a worthy and productive activity. A quarter of a century ago, Morishima noted: ‘It is our great misfortune that economists have for a long time been divided between the “orthodox” and Marxian camps as a result of cliquishness ... They are at daggers drawn and describe each other as a society for reactionaries and a society for economists with lower I.Q.s’ (1973, p.1). There are, of course, exceptions, such as analytical Marxism, whose practitioners have engaged with modern mainstream theorists.
