Hi, I hope this message finds you well. 2000 words +- essay in political theory. the essay question is the following: Adam Smith represents the ideal market as a place fundamentally marked by freedom, while Marx believes that the “free market” obliterates certain aspects of human freedom and agency. According to Marx, how do capitalist societies reconfigure the problem of freedom and what challenges does this reconfiguration pose to human flourishing? I believe that the question needs to be answered via a two-fold response which shows how according to Marx capitalism view freedom (in contrast to Smith) and how the consequences of this view of freedom on individuals and our arguments should not only answer the question but show why it is interesting to explain this. We are therefore asked to tackle questions such as: How do alienation and the commodity-form make it increasingly difficult for the capitalist worker to consciously understand himself/herself in the world and to formulate rational, empowering choices? How does the Invisible Hand of the market allocate decisions in ways that deny choice, rather than provide it? Why do some people have only their labour to sell on the market, and what kinds of freedoms are such labourers afforded by the market? What, according to Marx, would a more robust vision of human freedom look like? We are asked to provide a solid argument and structure presented in the introduction, and to think about not only what you are arguing, but why it might be important or unexpected or interesting. We are asked to deeply analyse 2-3 main texts that I will provide, and you can possibly add one extra text. We are asked to explain, have a personal interpretation and to provide critical thinking towards the texts, mainly on Marx but also Smith. It is required to pay attention to not only what an author says, but how they say it, particularly to their use of language. What assumptions, juxtapositions, play on words, conflations or oppositions do they deploy to help make their case? We are asked to relate those texts to the topic of freedom and give a solid argument and answer the question. I will write the essay on my own as well so I do not need a very fancy and polished essay but more some help on providing a thorough critical analysis of those texts and how they are written and what it adds to the arguments and providing counter arguments that can help solidify my case. It is important to clearly state what the arguments our in the introduction. The parts of the texts we were given to read are the following, but you can obviously use different sections of those books if you believe they were useful for the argumentation Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Dover, 2007. -Essay on “Estranged Labor”, pp 80-98 Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 1, -Chapter 1, pp 26-59 -Chapter 6, pp 119-125 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Cambridge University Press, 2004 -Part I, Section 1, Chapter 1, pg 11-17, Chapter 3-4, pp 20-28; Chapter 5, pp 28-32. -Part III, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 (point 1-9), pp 128-138 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Cambridge University Press, 1993 – Book1, pp 3-49 I havent been able to download the two Adam Smith texts into PDFs but please let me know if you can’t find them on your own, as I will therefore find a way to forward them to you. Thank you so much.
