Why don't economists read Marx anymore? Here's my letter to The Chronicle Review:

Russel Jacoby raises several interesting and important points about the apparently conspicuous absence of Freud, Hegel, and Marx from their respective disciplines ("Gone, and Being Forgotten," July 25). I cannot speak to the marginalization of Freud in psychology and Hegel in philosophy, but I can speak to why economists no longer read Marx: for the most part, we don't read him because he contributed nothing of lasting value to the discipline. My undergraduate comparative economic systems professor referred to Marxian economics as having been "stillborn." Thomas Sowell correctly points out that "there is no major premise, doctrine, or tool of analysis in economics today that derived from the writings of Karl Marx" and quotes Paul Samuelson's assessment of Marx as "a minor post-Ricardian."

As I prepare to teach a course entitled "Classical and Marxian Political Economy" this Spring--for which I now plan to assign Jacoby's article, I might add--I would be the first to agree that one's education should include a broad historical overview of the ideas in a particular discipline. I further agree that Marx is an important figure in the history of ideas. He plays a minor role in economics, however, because he has been thoroughly refuted.