Kieran Healy

By Any Other Name

David Adesnik runs across a quote from Marx describing Marx’s own efforts to speculate on the stock market and comments

You know, if Marx had just written a book called “The Working Man’s Guide to the Stock Market” everyone would’ve turned out rich and happy and we all could’ve avoided that whole unpleasant business with Lenin and Stalin.

Two things jump to mind. The first, of course, is that Marx did write “The Working Man’s Guide to the Stock Market,” it’s just

He should have gone into the movie business with his brothers rather than being an economist. Harpo, Groucho, Chico, Gummo, and Zeppo did quite well for themselves.

Relax, he wrote 150 years ago. Let’s see if any of what we write is still remembered after 150 years.

“Everyone would have turned out rich and happy…” That, my friends, is exactly what Marx was after. He called it “communism.” The stock market he compared to a giant casino. And he appears to have the average person’s luck therein!

“Everyone would have turned out rich and happy…” That, my friends, is exactly what Marx was after. He called it “communism.” The stock market he compared to a giant casino. And he appears to have had the average person’s luck therein!

(About like my luck running computers.)

I believe Kieran has inadvertantly summed up my entire undergraduate lectures on Marx in class entitled ‘Revolutionary Political Thought’. Essentially the prof told us what a annoying guy Marx was for two days and thus why he should be dismissed. He then spent three days cataloging the same type of complaints for Rousseau. Then we spent the rest of the class talking about how virtuous Burke was.

“Putting $1,000 in the pockets of 310,000 families with urgent needs is going to provide far more stimulus to the economy than putting the same $310 million in my pockets”.

This quote by the “class warrior” Warren Buffet (from today’s WaPo). It looks like Buffet was Karl Marx in his previous birth.

Milton Friedman had an idea about 30 years ago, which was way ahead of its time and may still be.

Impose a single low tax percentage on everyone – no loopholes or exemptions or cut-offs. Then pay everyone in the country a yearly check, about enough to live on at the poverty level. No exceptions, rich and poor. Dismantle most of the IRS and the federal welfare system, which would save an enormous amount. Let everyone decide what they want to do with their money. If they want to and can make more, they can go for it.

The purpose was not to stimulate spending but to get rid of bureaucracy, but it could have both effects.

It’ll never happen of course.

Milton Friedman had an idea about 30 years ago, which was way ahead of its time and may still be.

Impose a single low tax percentage on everyone – no loopholes or exemptions or cut-offs. Then pay everyone in the country a yearly check, about enough to live on at the poverty level. No exceptions, rich and poor. Dismantle most of the IRS and the federal welfare system, which would save an enormous amount. Let everyone decide what they want to do with their money. If they want to and can make more, they can go for it.

The purpose was not to stimulate spending but to get rid of bureaucracy, but it could have both effects.

It’ll never happen of course.