Can you help me?

JKSCHW at aol.com JKSCHW at aol.com
Sun Feb 13 19:27:36 PST 2000


In a message dated 00-02-13 16:46:42 EST, you write:

<< A seminal work is David Ramsey Steele's book _From Marx to Mises_.

Published in the US in 1992 but drawing on work produced in the previous

15 or so years. It's mainly concerned with "the economic calculation

argument" but it articulates the libertarian New Right argument against

Marxism. Steele (a Brit) had spent the previous decade as a Marxist and

a decade earlier had written for the underground magazine, Oz.

>>

I think that in addition to its historical value Steele's is a very good book--of course I am more impressed by Hayekian arguments than many here. But it is a clear, intellectually pretty honest, and useful survey of the calculation debate. I have met Steele and argued with him; we didn't get along--unlike the situation with N. Scott Arnold, a Hayek-influenced right winger at U Al Birmingham, who is a pretty good friend of mine. Arnold wrote a very fine book Marxism, Karl Marx's Radical Critique of Capitalist Society, that is sufficiently honest to give a very plausible and powerful reading of Marx, rather than a caricature. He gives Marx credit where he thinks it is die, and concedes Marx a good deal more than most on the right would. Scott and I used to do a dog and pont show on market socialism back when I was a professor. I think any intellectually self-respecting Marxist ought to read Steele and Arnold and think through how to answer them. --jks



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