Intellectual Giants on the left?

Economics Political Theory
1

Where are the intellectual giants for socialism or social democracy or interventionism or whatever

Really I can’t find any strong literature on the political theory, I just don’t understand maybe Noam Chomsky but I don’t really consider him to be an intellectual giant, Keynes really didn’t produce anything of value in his political theory

I know there are tons of college professors and literati who are collectivist but where are the intellectual giants? Stuff that’s actually widely read by throughout the movement.

Furthermore what are their principles other then egalitarianism?

Or is it really true what Hayek said about how powerful these secondhand dealers in ideas can be?

2

Paul Samuelson, maybe?

3

But Samuelson is part of the Neoclassical School, I learned the concept of Marginal Utility from his textbook.

4

Whole books from living leftist writers I have only read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Which is complete and utter garbage, the book is a nonsensical analogy between Pinochet’s economic doctrines and electroshock therapy / sensory deprivation etc used in old mental asylums. Somehow this is supposed to prove capitalism is bad … I have no idea how.

You can’t expect much from a movement that lists someone that make titles like this Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot among it’s top writers … it just reaks of intellectual height and genius … or maybe not.

5

The man gleefully cheered on the non-existent growth of the Soviet economy.

6

Yeah. That’s the mainstream. He thought that there was a trade off between the soviet’s human rights violations and their “robust growth.” Leftists would never justify human right violations, even in the face of soviet “economic prosperity.”

The leftist leaders are Marx, Chomsky, Foucault, Klein, and Michael Moore.

7

Fair point. It must always be Human Entitlements Rights at the expense of Economic Freedom, Comrade E. [8-|]

8

Haha, indeed.

9

I haven’t heard of Foucault but basically they don’t really have intellectual giants? I’ve looked and I can’t find them but I do remember in various audio lectures and books Rothbard was usually criticizing some popular socialist or social democrat like in man economy and state it was professor Galbraith for his Affluent Society book

I’m curious what happens to these guys, do they show up and their ideas are popular but popularity just wanes because the ideas aren’t particularly strong. Or is it because of the trends in academia or is it like every decade or so another wave of socialist authors publish some work only for it to end up never being printed again.

I guess Chomsky is probably the most qualified of those 5 which isn’t saying much I just can’t forget him trying to use the collapse of the soviet union as an argument against capitalism saying it brought them right back into the 3rd world while leaving out minor details like how their government was bankrupt before it collapsed or how their currency was nearly destroyed or how the KGB took over his analyses are just terrible and it just worries me to hear him sound so certain when he speaks

So it’s more or less propagated in high schools, universities, the media I don’t know but if it really does lack any intellectual giants it really seems like it may be propaganda

10

Rawls? G.A. Cohen?

11

This part is basically true though. The “privatization” in Russia was horrible and just distributed everything to the political elite. How this is a proof against capitalism is the real question.

Naomi Klein is even worse using the fall of the Soviet union as an argument against capitalism. Also it proves that we want to give people electric shocks until they don’t remember who they are and the re-build there personalities…