ABSTRACT
This chapter explains attention to hitherto neglected romantic and Utopian elements in Karl Marx's theory of progress, with particular reference to issues of social policy and economic theory. Marx's theory of progress opens up a vast utopia in which, according to his view, the power of man over man will disappear and, as a result, "real human freedom" will for the first time be realized. The general character of the unlimited possibilities appears in the more or less random statements made by Marx and Frederick Engels concerning the basic features of the communist regime. In David Ricardo's view the basic factor in the accumulation of capital and, hence, the cause of economic growth and decline was the scarcity of good land. Ricardo thought that in the natural course of events the employment of an increasing quantity of labor to produce a given amount of product was called for.
