[markharper]

I'd second the other response's recommendation of Richard Wolff's work. He's a marxist and democratic socialist, so read his work understanding his perspective in relation to your own, whatever that might be. That being said, I found his book Competing Economic Theories on neoliberalism, keynsianism, and marxism to be very fair to all sides.

[ralusek]

Richard Wolff's primary argument in favor of socialism is that your employer is stealing from you by making a profit off of your labor. He fundamentally does not understand how markets work.

I am a software engineer. I have a rate of pay that I consider to be more valuable than my labor, for which I will gladly exchange my labor and feel as though I have profited from the transaction. Prospective employers have an amount of labor output that they value more than a rate of pay, for which they will gladly exchange in an attempt to profit from the transaction. We engage in a mutual arrangement, wherein we both walk away having benefitted from the transaction. The fact that the employer has the capacity to profit from my output is not theft. In fact, I would feel absolutely horrible if my employer didn't profit from me at all, because I ALWAYS profit from them.

[markharper]

> He fundamentally does not understand how markets work. I am a software engineer.

I can assure you that the Harvard and Yale educated professor that's written textbooks on the subject knows how markets work. He might be heterodox in his adherence to marxist economics, but he fully understands the orthodox position, almost certainly in more detail than you or I ever will.

[missedthecue]

I think your comment is the classic appeal to authority. "He's a professor at xyz, therefore, he's right".

[monocasa]

It's not just that he's a professor, it's that he has a PhD in economics. The field of economics itself has given the stamp of approval that he both understands the field and has contributed in novel ways to it.

[missedthecue]

Kurt Wise has a PhD in paleontology from Harvard and is a young earth creationist. Again, just because someone has something on their resume does not therefore mean that they are correct.

[monocasa]

The op isn't using the fact Wolff has a PhD in Economics as a argument that he's correct in everything he says, only that the claim that he "doesn't understand how markets work" is absurd on it's face.

Similarly, saying that Kurt Wise doesn't understand geology and paleontology when he has a PhD in the field and has contributed good science is pretty absurd.

Dismissing their claims lie in other arguments.

[markharper]

one correction: neoclassical economics, not neoliberal economics