Multiple choice

The author will agree with which of the evaluations of Marx? I. Marx believed in the use of figures to clarify his stand. II. Marx believed that those indirectly linked to production cannot claim a share of the pie. III. Marx believed in interconnectivity of economic events.

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.
Now, whatever may be the value of such teaching as a contribution to economic science, it illustrates by its success one cardinal truth, and by implication it bears witness to another. The first truth is that, no matter how desirable any object may be which is obtruded on the imagination of anybody, nobody will bestir himself in a practical way to demand it until he can be persuaded to believe that its attainment is practically possible. The other is this: that the possibilities of redistributing wealth depend on the causes by which wealth is produced. All wealth, says Marx, can practically be appropriated by the laborers. But why? Because the laborers themselves comprise in their own labor all the forces that produce it. If its production necessitated the activity of any persons other than themselves, these other persons would inevitably have some control over its distribution; since if it were distributed in a manner of which these other persons disapproved, it would be open to them to refuse to take part in its production any longer; and there would, in consequence, be no wealth, or less wealth, to distribute.
Let us, then, examine the precise sense and manner in which this theory of labor as the sole producer of wealth is elaborated and defended by Marx in his Bible of Scientific Socialism. His argument, though the expression of it is very often pedantic and encumbered with superfluous mathematical formulae, is ingenious and interesting, and is associated with historical criticism which, in spite of its defects, is valuable. Marx was, indeed, foremost among those thinkers already referred to who first insisted on the fact that the economic conditions of today are mainly a novel development of others which went before them, and that, having their roots in history, they must be studied by the historical method.

  1. Both I & II

  2. Both I & III

  3. Both II & III

  4. Only I

  5. Only III

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Correct. I is correct because the author states that Marx's arguments were encumbered with superfluous mathematical formulae. III is correct because the last lines of the passage talk about Marx's belief of historical roots of current economic situations.