Marxists are often chided for prizing theory over reality, but Kevin Schmiesing’s assessment in Law & Liberty of Andrew Hartman’s 550-page Karl Marx in America finds this author largely does the opposite. Hartman’s descriptions of communism’s rancorous currents flowing through America are interesting and largely accurate, writes Schmiesing, but his evaluation of Marxism as philosophy is weak. This in turn blinds Hartman to the key question: why did Communism never really catch on in America?
At Least He Paid his Losing Bet
Paul Ehrlich, author of the spectacularly incorrect 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb, recently died at 93. Despite his longevity, Ronald Bailey points out in Reason, Ehrlich did not live to see even one of his numerous apocalyptic predictions come true. The world’s population certainly grew, but not merely larger, richer and fatter too. Most famously, Ehrlich once bet economist Julian Simon that the world was approaching economic collapse – but in 1990 had to mail Simon a cheque.
