Write a letter as if you are Adam Smith to Karl Marx, or Karl Marx to Adam Smith. Explain your ideas on economics (capitalism vs. socialism) and why they are better. Your response should be in a letter format, including a greeting, body, and farewell. It must contain at least one paragraph.

Amongst the most influential and prominent economists of the last few centuries, Adam  Smith and Karl Marx, are noted for their distinct theoretical contributions. In his watershed  Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith that each  individual would try to maximize his own benefit. In doing so, consumers would only pay  as much as or less than they would value the benefit derived from a good, and producers  would only sell for as much as or higher than they would have spent on producing a good.  In his idealistic economy, there would be no surplus or deficit supply or demand; markets  would always be in equilibrium, and the benefits to consumers and producers alike would  be maximized. There would be a limited role for the government in such an economic  system.

it would have concentrated power in the executive branch of the government. it would have restored balance among the three branches of government. it would have set a precedent for government intervention in the economy. it would have signaled an end to all the programs of roosevelt’s new deal.

did this .

from thales, who is often considered the first western philosopher, to the stoics and skeptics, ancient greek philosophy opened the doors to a particular way of thinking that provided the roots for the western intellectual tradition. here, there is often an explicit preference for the life of reason and rational thought. we find proto-scientific explanations of the natural world in the milesian thinkers, and we hear democritus posit atoms—indivisible and invisible units—as the basic stuff of all matter. with socrates comes a sustained inquiry into ethical matters—an orientation towards human living and the best life for human beings. with plato comes one of the most creative and flexible ways of doing philosophy, which some have since attempted to imitate by writing philosophical dialogues covering topics still of interest today in ethics, political thought, metaphysics, and epistemology. plato’s student, aristotle, was one of the most prolific of ancient authors. he wrote treatises on each of these topics, as well as on the investigation of the natural world, including the composition of animals. the hellenists—epicurus, the cynics, the stoics, and the skeptics—developed schools or movements devoted to distinct philosophical lifestyles, each with reason at its foundation.

with this preference for reason came a critique of traditional ways of living, believing, and thinking, which sometimes caused political trouble for the philosophers themselves. xenophanes directly challenged the traditional anthropomorphic depiction of the gods, and socrates was put to death for allegedly inventing new gods and not believing in the gods mandated by the city of athens. after the fall of alexander the great, and because of aristotle’s ties with alexander and his court, aristotle escaped the same fate as socrates by fleeing athens. epicurus, like xenophanes, claimed that the mass of people is impious, since the people conceive of the gods as little more than superhumans, even though human characteristics cannot appropriately be ascribed to the gods. in short, not only did ancient greek philosophy pave the way for the western intellectual tradition, including modern science, but it also shook cultural foundations in its own time.