In a world driven by tariff wars, techno-nationalism, and post-pandemic economic nationalism, the old philosophical questions—Who creates value? Who controls it? Who deserves what?—have returned with urgency. From Plato’s ideal state to Marx’s class struggle, from Adam Smith’s invisible hand to Mariana Mazzucato’s entrepreneurial state, today’s economic conflicts are echoes of enduring debates over value, justice, and the moral purpose of wealth.
The Ancient Questions Still Haunt Us
Plato, in The Republic, imagined a harmonious society where the ruling class owned no private property, their virtue protected by the absence of economic incentives.¹ He feared that private wealth would distort justice. That fear has materialized today in the form of corporate lobbying, monopolistic tech empires, and nation-states weaponizing economic influence through trade restrictions and subsidies.
Aristotle went a step further. In Politics, he distinguished between use value—goods used to satisfy real human needs—and exchange value, goods traded for profit.² The moral economy, he argued, must serve life’s necessities, not limitless wealth. His critique of chrematistics—the accumulation of wealth for its own sake—rings loudly in an era where financial markets overshadow real economies, and where tariff wars are fought not over food or essentials, but over semiconductors, data, and carbon credits.
From Smith’s Markets to Marx’s Machines
Adam Smith, believed in free markets guided by moral restraint.³ He supported tariffs selectively, especially when they helped nurture domestic industries—a fact that modern free-traders often ignore. Smith’s warning against monopolies is prophetic in today’s world, where Big Tech and Big Pharma extract value while resisting taxation, regulation, and competition.
Then came Karl Marx, who took Aristotle’s distinction further. He argued that capitalism transformed exchange value into an engine of systemic exploitation, alienating labor and prioritizing profit over human needs.⁴ For Marx, the capitalist formula—Money → Commodity → More Money—was a cycle of endless accumulation, where workers produce value but are cut off from its rewards. Replace “factory worker” with “data generator” today, and the analogy still holds.
In Marxist terms, the current tariff wars—especially the U.S.-China tech rivalry—are not simply economic disputes. They are strategic struggles over who controls surplus value in the age of automation and AI. And in a world where wealth is increasingly extracted, not created, his critique feels strikingly contemporary.
The Modern Turn: Rethinking Value and Redistribution
Enter today’s economic thinkers, who are reviving and reinterpreting these age-old concerns.
- Thomas Piketty, in Capital in the Twenty-First Century, shows how wealth concentration and inequality have returned to levels not seen since the 19th century.⁵ He argues for global taxation of capital and sees unchecked accumulation as a threat to democracy itself—an echo of Plato’s fear that wealth corrupts the political soul.
- Mariana Mazzucato, in The Value of Everything, flips the script on who creates value.⁶ For her, it’s not just entrepreneurs or financiers—it’s the public sector, the caregivers, the scientists, the teachers. She argues that value extraction is now masquerading as value creation, especially in finance, digital platforms, and IP-heavy industries. Her call to reclaim the public role in markets resonates as governments pump billions into industrial policy and green transitions while waging tariff battles in their name.
- Ha-Joon Chang, in Kicking Away the Ladder, critiques the hypocrisy of rich countries preaching free trade while using protectionism during their own industrial rise.⁷ His insight is brutally relevant as the U.S. revives subsidies, China scales up state-led capitalism, and Europe imposes green tariffs to protect domestic industries under the climate banner.
Tariff Wars: Not Just Trade, But a Clash Over Value
What we’re seeing now is not just a fragmentation of global trade norms—it’s a revaluation of value itself. Chips, software, rare earths, AI models, and climate technologies are not just commodities. They are tools of geopolitical leverage, markers of national resilience, and vessels of future wealth.
From Aristotle’s warning about wealth for its own sake, to Marx’s exposure of capital’s logic, to Mazzucato’s challenge to redefine who produces value, the struggle at hand is philosophical at its core. The tariff war is not just a tax—it is a moral question disguised as economic policy.
Conclusion: A Battle Centuries in the Making
Today’s trade wars, strategic tariffs, and global decoupling trends are not new phenomena. They are modern manifestations of ancient philosophical and economic debates: about labor, justice, value, and the limits of accumulation. Whether framed by Plato’s republic, Smith’s invisible hand, Marx’s exploitation, or Mazzucato’s public value, the questions remain:
Who creates value? Who captures it? And who decides what wealth is really for?
Until we answer these questions with clarity and collective purpose, tariff wars will continue not just as symptoms of economic tension—but as symbols of our unresolved ethical crisis.
References
- Plato, The Republic, trans. G.M.A. Grube (Hackett Publishing, 1992).
- Aristotle, Politics, trans. Benjamin Jowett, Book I.
- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book IV.
- Karl Marx, Capital: Volume I, trans. Ben Fowkes (Penguin Classics, 1990).
- Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Harvard University Press, 2014).
- Mariana Mazzucato, The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (PublicAffairs, 2018).
- Ha-Joon Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder (Anthem Press, 2002).
Indian Political Debate 