Yeah, what needs to be said about Marx is that his utopian and ill-thought out political ideas aside, he actually studied economics.
Karl Marx never supported central planning. This must be emphasised by all means. He knew that a single central authority couldn’t sit down and calculate the best way of allocating resources. He supported efficiency and allowing the players involved in trade and production to determine how they allocated their own given resources based on the specific information available to them; specific information which would never be available to centralized government authorities.
Obviously, he may well have recognized that businessmen had the potential to use offices of central authorities for their benefit and contribute to the misallocation of resources, but he assumed that giving the powers of allocation to the workers would solve this problem; he did not anticipate that it would only be used to justify further central planning “in the name of the People”, which is what happened, instead of simply letting people with capital run the show with enterprises, whatever “class divisions” it may create. Ultimately, while the status granted to businessmen has allowed them the most capacity in destroying the free market, at least we can rest easy knowing that no group of people have remained the richest forever. After all, how many Rockerfellers do you see in top richest lists, compared to back in the 1940s?
The issue is not that Marx supported central planning but that he did not support property rights. He wanted property to be controlled by the people? The only mechanism keep people from taking property from others is a defined system or private property rights and a defined system to handle aggression. Once private property was removed from society, society became a giant mob plundering the most vulnerable. Eventually the most violent mob, Lenin and his crew, seized political power and without private property rights seized control of the economy. The result was terrible.
Rational, stable and productive society is based upon two simple principals: Non Aggression and Private Property Rights through Homesteading. Without these principals society is doomed to fail as producers and property owners fall prey to aggression until there is nothing being produced.
Reading Mises and Hayek doesn’t mean you subscribe to their ideas.
Reagan was a Democrat turned Republican, and part of a group that called themselves conservatives. Modern conservatives use classical liberalism as the basis of their philosophy, even though they don’t adhere to it completely. They’ve taken bits and pieces of different economic and political philosophies and created something that works for them - the reasoning is somewhat flawed, but they do try. I wouldn’t necessarily say that conservatism is an off-shoot of classical liberalism, but conservatives do. While they like to link to classical liberalism as a way to tell people they’ve been here from the beginning, the movement isn’t that old.
Reagan talked about small government, but did a lot to create bigger government - especially increasing executive power. So his rhetoric on fiscal issues was more closely linked to libertarianism, but his actions were as Republican as they’ve always been. On social issues libertarians and conservatives are at the opposite end of the spectrum, so for anyone to suggest that Reagan was a libertarian needs to look more closely at Reagan’s stances toward social issues.
My view on Reagan and taxes is that taxation was already so high when he took office. To increase revenue, lowering taxes was necessary. So while many will say that he pushed for lower taxation based on libertarian principles, my belief is that he wanted more revenue to build up the military. This is consistent with previous Republican administrations. I’d say Reagan had enough understanding of the Austrian and Chicago Schools to form a basic policy for an economic turn-around, but he did so only to obtain Republican goals and cannot be considered a full-fledge proponent of libertarian ideas. Reagan wasn’t stupid - he used whatever worked to his advantage. That included a Fed policy of controlling interest rates to fuel economic growth (i.e., a massive bubble). This worked for around 30 years, but we are now seeing the price to be paid for that policy.
In addition, there’s a big difference between Reagan the Reformer and Reagan the Emperor. The assassination attempt was about the time where this difference is most recognizable. The problem with the State is that once in power even well meaning people will turn to the bad - whether it’s due to the political climate or from the human flaw of becoming corrupt from power. Reagan also delegated a lot more than previous presidents, and some question whether or not he was all there by the end of his presidency, especially in light of Alzheimers.
Reagan was one of the most influential presidents. I woudn’t necessarily say he was great, but then I don’t really see any presidents that I’d even call great. If there was one positive thing from Reagan’s presidency, it’s that some economic principles proposed by Austrians were put into practice, albeit limited and brief.