Thomas Sowell's Book on Marxism, yes or no?

[RadioRaheem84]

Thomas Sowell's book on Marxism is sitting on my shelf collecting dust and just by the first chapter it seems like a good book but I stopped reading it after I found out that Sowell is a libertarian hack.

Has anyone read the book? The only reason I want to read it is because I have yet to find an easy read on Marxist philosophy as of yet. Does it do a fair enough job of describing Marxism in easy to understand manner.

Does anyone have any suggestions of books that explain the dialectical method in an easy to understand manner?

[Creative Destruction]

I didn't know Sowell wrote a book on Marxism. Why don't you give it a read through and let us know how it is beyond the first chapter? (Not trying to be snarky.)

[RadioRaheem84]

The only reason I didn't want to read it was because it might just completely get Marx all wrong and I am still learning and would not want to get confused. I am not that well versed to tell when he has something wrong.

I would like an easy to read book written by a Marxist on Marxist philosophy and economics.

What would be that book? Something in the vein of what Sowell wrote I have yet to find that.

[Creative Destruction]

Try this out:

http://www.marxist.com/what-is-dialectical-materialism.htm

[RadioRaheem84]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0753801876/qid=1114767404/sr=1-12/ref=sr_1_2_12/026-6125559-2757209

What about this one?

[Creative Destruction]

I haven't read that, so I don't know.

[kaylee_book]

soon going to buy that from amazon but currently i'm hooked on another book ;)

[Zanthorus]

If you're worried about getting Marx all wrong it seems like the obvious solution is to read Marx. It's inevitable in paraphrase that the personality of the author mediates your understanding of the text being paraphrased. In some cases this can be beneficial, the author of the paraphrase might answer concerns which were not as pressing to the author of the original and aid in contextualisation, although this kind of activity is more suited to the kind of text which aims at inquiry into a specific area of concern through the particular lens under discussion, rather than the kind which is an easy read guide. But there is really no substitute for a direct relation to the original text.

[#FF0000]

Holy shit what book is it.

I would love to read that doofus tripping over Marx for 200-300 pages

[Yuppie Grinder]

lemme guess
the book is a few hundred of pages explaining that marxism=not freedom, freedom=good

[RadioRaheem84]

Ok so I'm halfway through the book and despite minor errors the book is pretty fair and quite lucid. Sowell is no idiot and confesses that that many many of his peers and economists general critique Marx out of a kneww jerk reaction and have NEVER read him , only works by other conservatives about him.

Sowell even goes into the bitter dispute between the under consumptionalista like Paul Sweezy and more orthodox Marxists. Even he says that the monthly review school is NOT Marxist but a reformed post Marxism molded with the Keynesianism of Joan Robinson. I was floored he knew anything about that at all! He wasn't kidding that he used to be a Marxist.

Most libertarians that I've read lack even the basic foundations for understanding or interpreting Marx so their critiques are so woefully bad that I don't know how they pass for critique but Sowell write a B+ book on the subject.

I skipped to the last chapter and read his final and only critique of Marxism and yrs it was rubbish. After all that fair expose of Marx he ruined it with a slightly better than standard typical right wing critique of Marxism. He even went super psychological saying all is Marxists are just losers who desperately want to trae down society because we are failures. Im not kidding. It's that ludicrous. Throughout the book he explains Marx's critique of capitalism pretty lucid and sounds like a materialist. But then in the last chapter he's pure idealist libertarian and pop psychologist. Also a very bad historian who tries to discredit Lenin in the most absurd way. I'm not even anywhere near close to be an expert on Marxism or ML but I could clearly debunk his examples.

All in all its probably the easiest and most lucid book I've ever read on Marxism and its helped me immensely. I do have to say that Sowell is a true intellectual of the right and as much I think the right is nuts, this man is serious about libertarianism.

[RedMaterialist]

Thomas Sowell's book on Marxism is sitting on my shelf collecting dust and just by the first chapter it seems like a good book but I stopped reading it after I found out that Sowell is a libertarian hack.

Has anyone read the book? The only reason I want to read it is because I have yet to find an easy read on Marxist philosophy as of yet. Does it do a fair enough job of describing Marxism in easy to understand manner.

Does anyone have any suggestions of books that explain the dialectical method in an easy to understand manner?

1. Throw the book away.
2. Unfortunately, dialectics is not easy to understand.

[Remus Bleys]

1. Throw the book away. This is probably true. If he is a libertarian, then he isn't giving good advice on Marx.

2. Unfortunately, dialectics is not easy to understand.
Crap philosophy often is.

[RedMaterialist]

This is probably true. If he is a libertarian, then he isn't giving good advice on Marx.



He is a fascist, reactionary anti-communist

[RadioRaheem84]

This is probably true. If he is a libertarian, then he isn't giving good advice on Marx.

Crap philosophy often is.

So you would consider dialectical or historical materialism to be an extremely flawed philosophy? Would you consider yourself a Marxist?

Although he is libertarian, Sowell used to be a Marxist himself and studied the subject pretty thoroughly and is the only right wing writer I've ever read that has a pretty good grasp of it. Not that it's sound but its way better than the stuff I read from Von Mises and Friedman.

What left me even more confused was Rick Wolffe's book on Marxian Economics; Neoclassical vs Marxian Economics. I just had to put it down, it was trying to be concise but ended up going in so many different directions with his own take on what Marxism means.

[RadioRaheem84]

Anyone else? :confused: