Tag Archives: limits to growth

Both Karl Marx and Adam Smith, usually quoted in disagreement, had a great deal in common; they agreed that the basis of value was the energy devoted to labour and capital and they agreed that the control of the means of production was key to the control of prosperity. They also agreed that welfare is paid for out of surplus. Their disagreements were to do with how power structures were maintained and how everyone (even the ‘backward’ races – yes racism was ever-present) might be fed and watered in a more or less dignified manner. And because they saw the world as a vast and inexhaustible store of materials that would, to all intents and purposes, last forever, their schemas were significantly more popular than they had any right to be; neither foresaw the limiting hand of exponential growth or the reaching of Malthusian limits.

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