> tedious, sermonizing, simplistic and unconvincing
Astonishing. You weren't able to finish a long, wordy book describing a philosophy you don't agree with?
> She could have distilled her viewpoint into a couple of paragraphs
Wow, you mean as she did plenty of times, which you can easily find by doing a cursory search?
The idea that you shouldn't support your central thesis with as much evidence as you can muster is faintly preposterous.
I don't find Marx to be subtle or complex. I think his viewpoint can be summed up in one sentence, "From each according to ability, to each according to need." Nevertheless, I don't begrudge him writing many giant volumes of "tedious, sermonizing, simplistic, and unconvincing" supporting text.
Atlas Shrugged wasn't supposed to be subtle or reflect complex realities or any other thing you imagine is a requirement for being a great novel. It was written to express Ayn Rand's philosophy and obviously was hugely successful at doing so.
As much as I don't like Marx, he's still more complex than that.
You may like to read _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ by Karl Popper. It is a strong critique of Marx (and Plato and Hegel). But it also goes into some detail about what Marx's views are (which is an important part of criticizing them). Marx was wrong, and can be criticized a lot more thoroughly than that brief summary of his views allows.
One thing your summary of Marx misses, for example, is his historicism: his ideas about being able to predict the future of society, in a scientific manner, based on history. This is a bad mistake: it's an attempt to legitimize prophecy and call it science.
Well, no kidding. Which was part of my point. A summary of someone's views is not a substitute for the real thing. This is true for Ayn Rand as well, but folks who hate her don't like to admit this.
(Disclosure: I'm not remotely a Randian. I'm just sick of the bias I see here.)
Astonishing. You weren't able to finish a long, wordy book describing a philosophy you don't agree with?
> She could have distilled her viewpoint into a couple of paragraphs
Wow, you mean as she did plenty of times, which you can easily find by doing a cursory search?
The idea that you shouldn't support your central thesis with as much evidence as you can muster is faintly preposterous.
I don't find Marx to be subtle or complex. I think his viewpoint can be summed up in one sentence, "From each according to ability, to each according to need." Nevertheless, I don't begrudge him writing many giant volumes of "tedious, sermonizing, simplistic, and unconvincing" supporting text.
Atlas Shrugged wasn't supposed to be subtle or reflect complex realities or any other thing you imagine is a requirement for being a great novel. It was written to express Ayn Rand's philosophy and obviously was hugely successful at doing so.