ABSTRACT
By the time Marx came to formulate his interpretation and critique of Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in ‘Theories of Surplus Value’, he was already well acquainted with its content. He read the book as early as 1844 and had used its analyses as the main basis for his critical discussion of capitalism, as it was portrayed by political economy, in the Paris Manuscripts (CW, 3, 235ff. ). There were also numerous references to it in the Grundrisse manuscripts and in the Contribution. In ‘Theories’, the essential core of the work was subjected to a critique in depth and it was the second most detailed part of Marx's critical history of political economy, after that dealing with Ricardo's Principles. 1 Marx's critique was directed at both the methodology and substance of Adam Smith's work. The critique of Smith occupied much of notebooks VI to IX and was taken up again in notebooks XI and XII. The former part contained Marx's analysis of Smith's exchange value theory and a lengthy analysis of various theories of productive and unproductive labour which centred around Smith's views on the subject. Smith's theory of ‘cost price’ was dealt with in notebook XI and his theory of rent in notebook XII.
