----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Larry Willmore quoted Popper on Marx: "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." Well, I'm quite sure Karl Popper was right about many things, but I can't believe his opinions on Marx fall in that category. His "sense of facts"? Anyone who believes that Marx marshalled facts correctly, or even honestly, should read George Boyer's "The Historical Background of the Communist Manifesto" (Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, Fall 1998) for starters. Marx chose his facts carefully, and later in life chose to ignore lots of obvious facts that didn't suit his views. I also have a hard time understanding how Popper could praise Marx for distrusting verbiage. As regards hypocrisy, Paul Johnson's chapter on Marx in *Intellectuals* demonstrates how Marx treated the few members of the proletariat he ever had direct contact with. I recognize that ideas and personalities must be separated, but when the issue of hypocrisy is raised . . . . Whatever Marx's merits, I don't see them falling in the categories cited by Popper. Neil Skaggs Illinois State University ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]