Murray E.G. Smith obtained his BA and MA from the University of Manitoba and his PhD from the University of British Columbia.

His principal research and teaching interests are in the areas of theoretical and international political economy, classical sociological theory, Marxist theory, social movements, and the sociology of health and illness.

He has published articles in the Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, Studies in Political Economy, Canadian Journal of Sociology, Science & Society, Review of Radical Political Economics, Brock Review, Rethinking Marxism, Historical Materialism, and Labour/Le Travail, and contributed chapters or entries to several edited book collections and social-science encyclopedias.

Recent books include Global Capitalism in Crisis (Fernwood Publishing, 2010) and Marxist Phoenix: Studies in Historical Materialism and Marxist Socialism (Canadian Scholars Press International, 2014). He is also the author of Invisible Leviathan: The Marxist Critique of Market Despotism beyond Postmodernism (University of Toronto Press, 1994) and the editor of Early Modern Social Theory: Selected Interpretive Readings (Canadian Scholars Press, 1998). An expanded and updated edition of Invisible Leviathan was published by Brill Academic Publishers (Leiden, the Netherlands) in November, 2018 in their Historical Materialism book series, with the new subtitle: Marx’s Law of Value in the Twilight of Capitalism. Smith is also the co-author (with Judith Blackwell and John Sorenson) of Culture of Prejudice (Broadview Press, 2003 and University of Toronto Press, 2008). In April 2021, Fernwood Publishing released Twilight Capitalism: Karl Marx and the Decay of the Capitalist System, co-authored by Murray Smith, Jonah Butovsky and Josh Watterton – a companion volume to Invisible Leviathan.