Organizations and Markets

| Peter Klein |

The founders of social movements and schools of thought often try to distance themselves from their followers. (Or their later interpreters do this for them). Thus one can ask if Freud was a Freudian, Ricardo a Ricardian, Walras a Walrasian, Keynes a Keynesian (chapter 5 Keynesian? chapter 12 Keynesian?), and so on. Future scholars will no doubt debate whether Foss was really a Fossian (you have to wonder about some of his disciples).

Andrew Kliman is a True Marxist and argues, in his new book, that fellow Marxists have gone off track by accepting what Kliman calls “the myth of inconsistency.” In other words, contrary to both Marx’s critics and his disciples, there are no internal inconsistencies in Das Capital. “It had to be done,” states one dust-jacket endorsement: “someone has finally rescued Marx from the Marxists.” Bertell Ollman, perhaps today’s most famous living Marxist, says Kliman’s arguments “operate like a buzz saw clearing away the underbrush of misplaced criticisms that have kept the real Capital hidden from most of its potential readers.” Given how many college students have been forced to slog through at least one volume of Marx’s lengthy tome — with little or no exposure to Marx’s critics — it’s hard to believe that Marx’s true message has remained hidden for so long. Nonetheless, devotees of the secondary literature on Marx will surely wish to add this volume to their collections.

Update: Orthodox Freudians have long denied Carl Jung’s claim that Freud had an affair with his wife’s younger sister, but apparently he did after all. (Love the Herald-Tribune headline: “Hotel Log Hints at Desire That Freud Didn’t Repress.”

Update II: Andrew emails to say I didn’t get it quite right: “Actually, I’d be foolish to say that there aren’t inconsistencies in Capital, so I don’t.  My argument is restricted to the allegations of inconsistency that are extant.  Also, in regard to ‘True Marxist,’ which sounds a bit like Hoffer’s ‘True Believer,’ I point out several times in the book that “logically consistent” doesn’t mean correct or true.”