Adam Smith homely observations, making them feel comfortable all along." Classical economists presented competing theories of those of Smith, termed the "labour theory of value". Later Marxian economics descending from classical economics also use Smith's labour theories, in part. The first volume of Karl Marx's major work, "Das Kapital", was published in German in 1867. In it, Marx focused on the labour theory of value and what he considered to be the exploitation of labour by capital. The labour theory of value held that the value of a thing was determined by the labour that went into its production. This contrasts with
Value product only to the net output of "capitalist" production, not to the valuation of "all" production in a society, part of which may of course not be commercial production at all. The concept is formulated more precisely when Marx considers the reproduction and distribution of the national income (see e.g. his manuscript called "Results of the Immediate [or Direct] Process of Production", available in English in the Pelican edition of "Das Kapital"), and also online; and the last chapters of "Das Kapital" Volume 3). Marx wrote this in 1864, i.e. about 70 years or so before the first comprehensive Gross National