Sovietologists had trouble understanding the Soviet economy because they regarded Marx as irrelevant to their task. One reason for this mistake is that they assumed Marx’s concepts of “alienation” and “freedom” had the humanistic orientation of common usage rather than the peculiarly economic meaning stipulated by Marx.

Paul Craig Roberts is the John M. Olin fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy.
Economic History and DevelopmentEconomic PolicyEconomistsEconomyGovernment and PoliticsLaw and LibertyPhilosophy and ReligionPolitical HistoryPolitical Theory
Other Independent Review articles by Paul Craig Roberts
Winter 2020/21 What Is Supply-Side Economics? Four Decades Later Wikipedia and Academic Economists Still Don’t Know
Fall 2009 Letter to the Editor
Spring 2003 The Causes of Wrongful Conviction
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