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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: New book by T. Sowell
Message-ID: <138@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Mar-85 14:40:31 EST
Article-I.D.: ubvax.138
Posted: Wed Mar 20 14:40:31 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 25-Mar-85 02:38:53 EST
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Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, CA
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I've also looked at Thomas Sowell's book on Marxism.  It's rhetorical
strategy -- the way the book is organized to make its points -- strikes
me as very nasty.  Like a lot of neoconservative tomes that way --
first a little fair, clear, objective summary of the opposition's
theoretical point of view, followed by lots of hyperbole, personal
innuendo, and categorical statements of failure in the real world
for the theory built with good, naive, misguided intentions.  The fair
objective summary gets people to open the book and, if the strategy
succeeds, gives the innuendo a cloak of legitimacy.  If the innuendo
follows the summary in the book, then the reader should infer that
the innuendo follows from the summary like stones from clear water.

The major parts I object to are first, the combination of a refusal
to look at later Marxist work than Marx's and a very sloppy sampling
of Lenin's writings, with a charge that the failure of the Marxist
project is a practical failure for which Marx's theory is responsible;
and second, the extraordinary bitterness involved in the description
of Marx's life in the chapter "Marx the Man", which could have come
out of the cheapest National Enquirer.  That whole chapter is one
long cheap shot, EVEN IF IT IS TRUE.  (Of course, Sowell could defend
his presentation of Marx the man as a balanced one -- after all, he
does mention that Marx loved and doted on his children!)

The description of the economic theory and some of its blind spots is
not bad, but since Sowell refuses to deal with modern revisions which
solve significant problems left open by Marx, the reader has no way
to judge whether Sowell's objections to the economic theory are answerable
or not.  This is just another expression of critical meanness which
should not be tolerated in so-called "scholarly" work, I think.

Overall, I couldn't recommend the Sowell book to anyone who doesn't
already know the subject matter.

Tony Wuersch
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