Rorty vs. Marx vs. Proudhon: Is it a "Pity" that the Best Political Economist of the Nineteenth Century Majored in Philosophy?

The claims some Marxists make for "the dialectical method" are overblown and unconvincing. But Marx's Hegelian background did help him see important things other critics of capitalism missed.

Note: I’ll be chatting about this essay with Stefan Bertram-Lee at This is Revolution podcast this afternoon at 4 PM East Coast/1 West Coast. You can watch that there or cross-streamed to GTAA.

A common story about the philosophical foundations of Marxism goes something like this:

In the beginning, there was Hegel. He had a “dialectical” understanding of …