Marx vs. Smith

On the left, Marx and on the right, Smith: They are facing in opposite directions and yet there is an ironic connection. Marx despised government as the protector of the property of the owning classes, to be done away with in a communist classless society of common interests. Likewise some of Smith's libertarian followers see Government as the problem rather than the solution and seek to minimise it. But neither the pure communist nor pure libertarian visions have ever been realised and tested in practice. The ideal role of Government may in fact be that of a democratic argumentative forum protecting us from the totalising & hegemonic visions of radicals and idealists whose efforts ultimately favour anarchy in the first instance followed by anarchy's drastic antidote in the second instance - dictatorship. 

Recently Blogger seemed to be corrupting posts when they were edited. Hence to be sure of fidelity the rest of this article can be found in the PDF  here