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R Mercer's avatar

A lot of people like to talk about Adam Smith. Not a lot of people actually have READ Adam Smith (which includes his Theory of Moral Sentiments).

The same can be said for Marx. I do not know a lot of people who have actually read Capital. I will freely admit that I have not read the entire thing (it is three volumes versus the two volumes of Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations).

Both Marx and Smith get cherry-picked a lot (as does the Bible or any "scripture").

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Linnea's avatar

It is the three volumes of Das Capital that puts them off! Marx's work was theory based and never fit the world of labor and capitalism as it was evolving in the late 19th century. In 2023 we have a worse problem, fewer Americans understand capitalism or how it actually works.

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Dave Conant - MO's avatar

It also has to do with the fact that Marx is, at best, a tedious writer.

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R Mercer's avatar

Being a translation (if you are reading it in English) doesn't help.

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Dave Conant - MO's avatar

That's also true and my German isn't good enough to read the original, but Lenin is much clearer in his contributions.

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R Mercer's avatar

Which is interesting because most translations of Russian are as bad or worse than translations from German, in my experience (I could read both at one time, but haven't done that much over the last few decades)

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Dave Conant - MO's avatar

Possibly because Lenin's writings were translated into German first? I think he was just a more organized thinker than Marx and he was certainly the more practically oriented of the two.

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HoyaGoon's avatar

Same with people invoking Orwell. Or the Bible, apparently.

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James Stoner's avatar

Unlike Adam Smith or Karl Marx (both OK in small doses), Orwell was and remains a great read. Huxley, too, if you want to go there.

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Christopher Wood's avatar

Certainly the latter --- except for the chapters and verses in the Old Testament with all the smiting of one's enemies and the incest! Both induce a pant snake in certain "religious" types.

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MillennialExistential's avatar

There's nothing better than people who cite Orwell to argue against socialism.

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Stephen A. Cullum's avatar

I have down loaded Moral Sentiments but not read it yet. Eventually I will get around to it.

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