Unlearning Economics — The Many Straw Men Surrounding Marx

Debunking some of the persistent myths about Marx and Marxism.

Every school of thought likes to claim that the other schools of thought misunderstand or misinterpret them, and hence that their criticisms miss the mark by attacking a 'straw man'. Sadly, it is often true that this is the case, and I am guilty of misinterpreting my opponents on many occasions. However, in my opinion, there is little contest for the most frequently misrepresented figure around: it has to be Karl Marx.

For many, Marxist theories should be laid to rest. His labour theory of value is often referred to as "discredited", superseded by the subjective theory of value, while historical materialism and its lofty ideals about changing human nature are held to be equally fallacious. His purported views on colonialism (and their Leninist children), while not entirely wrong, are held to be incomplete as they fail to include non-capitalist instances of these phenomena. Finally, his historical ideas about the 'inevitable' overthrow of class war and victory of socialism are seen as naive and deterministic, and, to a degree, ethnocentric.

However, as I will show, such crude caricatures have been around for over a century, and were often repudiated by Marx (and his collaborator, Friedrich Engels) themselves. In actuality, Marx's theories are generally coherent and illuminating, even if you disagree with them.

Peiria
The Many Straw Men Surrounding Marx
Unlearning Economics