This paper provides a comparison between Adam Smith and David Ricardo’s treatments of poverty in a capitalist society. The comparison focus on the different arguments they use to relate poverty to inequality and institutional realities. The discussion points out the life experiences of each...

During the 20th century, Marxism and non-egalitarian or classical liberalism debated the properties of economic reasoning, that is, the way economic institutions value multiple ends. This debate produced an implicit consensus between market socialists and non-egalitarian liberals about...