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   Beyond the fact that he was born in Scotland in 1723, almost no information is   
   available regarding Smith's childhood days – not even his exact date of birth.   
   It is said that, at the tender age of four, young Adam was kidnapped by   
   gypsies, who eventually    
   abandoned him in response to hot pursuit. As this is virtually the only   
   childhood incident about which we are told, we may be tempted to exaggerate   
   its psychological impact. Nevertheless, it would not be unusual if such a   
   traumatic happening left in    
   Smith's mind an indelible aversion for the fringe elements of society – for   
   anything non-Protestant, illegal, or revolutionary.   
      
   At fourteen, Smith went to the University of Glasgow to study moral   
   philosophy. By the age of twenty-eight he was appointed professor of logic at   
   the same university; and, one year later, he held the more prestigious post of   
   professor of moral philosophy.   
    [399] Social conditions in Scotland at that time, and the University of   
   Glasgow's reputation then as a centre of what was to become the Scottish   
   Enlightenment, combined with Adam Smith's rapid rise up the social ladder   
   leave little doubt that Smith's    
   philosophical viewpoint ran along the accepted religious track of the Church   
   of England which, in the 18th Century, sought to emphasize its Protestant   
   heritage. [400] In contrast, the educational career of David Hume, a brilliant   
   contemporary philosopher    
   and close friend of Smith, was permanently derailed by his early publication   
   of A Treatise of Human Nature, a book popularly condemned at that time as   
   atheistic and heretical. [401] Though Hume later repudiated this book, he was   
   never able to attain the    
   post he desired, the same station that Adam Smith had attained before he was   
   thirty – the prestigious position of Professor of Moral Philosophy.   
      
   While Smith is primarily remembered for his economic thought, he clearly   
   viewed himself as, first and foremost, a moral philosopher, or a religious   
   teacher in the mainstream of Protestant tradition. [402] It comes as little   
   surprise that the principal    
   economic arguments presented in Smith's famous Inquiry into the Nature and   
   Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, had already been set out,   
   almost twenty years earlier, in his less known work, The Theory of Moral   
   Sentiments, published in    
   1759. In the earlier book, Adam Smith presented his thesis that self-seeking   
   individuals are often “led by an invisible hand… without knowing it, without   
   intending it, (to) advance the interest of society”. All that remained for   
   Smith to add in his later    
   book, after he had reaffirmed his mystical, or rather mythical, principle of   
   the “invisible hand” was the impassioned plea for a laissez-faire economy.   
      
   In the same way as Martin Luther and John Calvin had hypocritically opposed   
   the bureaucratic interference of the Church' in matters relating to human   
   religious destiny, so Adam Smith two-facedly objected to the interference of a   
   government-controlled    
   economy. The reasoning, if we may call it that, was basically the same – let   
   humanity enjoy an unhampered relationship with God by running after the   
   material prosperity which Calvin particularly had proclaimed to be one of the   
   surest signs of heavenly    
   favor. And, as a generally unexpressed but quite obvious corollary, if any   
   social injustices should arise, those may be attributed to the sins, or lack   
   of Grace, that the unfortunate masses had incurred.   
      
   Ultimately, it is perhaps the surest proof of Smith's religious-dogma-induced   
   blindness, and of his willful disregard for the certain consequences of those   
   dogmas that, although he envisioned the emergence of monopolies and even   
   claimed to oppose them,    
   he nevertheless refused to modify his theory or temper his support for a   
   laissez-faire economy to allow for development of adequate safeguards to   
   restrain that Frankenstein's monster (which even Smith himself had to admit,   
   his theory would otherwise    
   inevitably spawn). In short, Adam Smith's economic theory is nothing but a   
   more or less secularized reflection of Protestant Christianity, enshrining   
   most notably the radical new Protestant work ethic that had emerged out of the   
   religious reformation    
   boldly launched by Martin Luther and brilliantly carried forward by John   
   Calvin. [403]   
      
   Karl Marx   
   No doubt, modern capitalism would have emerged without Adam Smith. In fact,   
   free enterprise seems to have been established prior to Smith's Inquiry into   
   the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. And the well-recognized link   
   between the Protestant    
   Reformation and capitalism is certainly not dependent upon Adam Smith as the   
   medium. [404] Yet, Adam Smith did facilitate the growth of capitalism, and he   
   does serve to exemplify the connection between Protestantism, the religion,   
   and capitalism, the    
   economic system. Hence, it is productive to analyze the man and his life.   
      
   The argument is similar for our look at Karl Marx. No doubt, communism would   
   have emerged without the help of Marx. In fact, it seems that Marx was, in   
   many ways, more the product of his own time and environment than the maker of   
   them. However, Marx's    
   genius certainly facilitated and expedited the development and growth of   
   communism. And Karl Marx is universally regarded today as the spiritual father   
   of communism. Let us then analyze briefly the life and works of Marx, to see   
   what connection may be    
   found between his religious background and his philosophy. In all fairness, it   
   must be noted and remembered that Marx had a brilliant and innovative mind,   
   and that a perfect correlation between his religious dogma and his social   
   philosophy is not    
   possible. Even were this possible, such a correlation cannot completely   
   discount the pathbreaking nature of his work. Yet, the number of parallels is   
   astounding, and those parallels are entirely consonant with the religious   
   pressures exerted on Marx by    
   his parents and his peer group.   
      
   Both the maternal and paternal grandfathers of Karl Marx were rabbis. And, in   
   the city of Trier, Germany, where Marx was born and grew up, the chief rabbi   
   at that time was Karl's paternal uncle. [405] Marx's father was a successful   
   lawyer who, when an    
   edict was promulgated prohibitting Jews from practicing law, publicly   
   converted to Protestantism. One year following this conversion, in 1818, Karl   
   Marx was born into this strained religious atmosphere. In the beginning, of   
   course, Marx's family probably    
   maintained its Jewish religious practices in secret. However, Marx's father   
   gradually distanced himself from his relations, and soon he abandoned all   
   religious practices. Regarding Marx's mother, it is unlikely that she ever   
   converted to Christianity, or    
   gave up her commitment to Judaism. In 1824, likely in response to the   
   prevalent anti-Semitic pressure and also, no doubt, to safeguard his career,   
   Marx's father arranged for the baptism of all his children. So it was that   
   Karl Marx was compelled to    
   reject his Jewish relatives, his Jewish mother, and perhaps even his own   
   Jewish childhood at the impressionable age of six years. At the age of   
   fifteen, Marx was solemnly confirmed; and, by that time, he had developed a   
   very deep and sincere attachment    
   to Christianity, as well as a general aversion to anything Jewish. Like his   
   own father before him, Marx often took extreme steps to prove his rejection of   
   Judaism, and the genuineness of his own Christian beliefs or attitudes. [406]   
      
      
      
      
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