----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 
 
For what it is worth, my vote goes to Adam Smith as the "greatest  
economist."   
 
But Marx is surely a close runner-up.  He is admired even by his critics.  
 Karl Popper, for example, in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS  
ENEMIES, wrote (p. 82, third paragraph of chapter 13) that "one  
cannot do justice to Marx without recognizing his sincerity.  His open- 
mindedness, his sense of facts, his distrust of verbiage, and especially  
of moralizing verbiage, made him one of the world's most influential  
fighters against hypocrisy and pharisaism. ... His sincerity in his search  
for truth and his intellectual honesty distinguish him, I believe, from  
many of his followers."   
 
Nonetheless Popper would have answered Brad DeLong's query "Does  
anyone think Marx was correct?" in the negative.  "In spite of his  
merits," wrote Popper, "Marx was ... a false prophet.  He was a  
prophet of the course of history, and his prophecies did not come true;  
but this is not my main accusation.  It is much more important that he  
mislead scores of intelligent people into believing that historical  
prophecy is the scientific way of approaching social problems."   
 
Larry Willmore 
 
------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]