[anemoiac]

> No, I meant exactly what I said.

Ah, well then I will continue to be puzzled by your response - i.e. why you think any of the classical "economists" you've named are so much better qualified than Marx to critique Malthus (going back to the original premise of this discussion).

Adam Smith is, of course, famous for being the first "economist," but his legacy isn't the result of him being particularly accurate (nor are his actual economic views very clear or citation-worthy). What did Bastiat even produce that could be cited by economists today? Of course the broken window fallacy is popular in Econ. 101 textbooks, as well as with the Austrians and in the free-market blogosphere, but it's not citable research. Ricardo was a seminal figure in the development of modern economic thought, but he was also a product of his era who was wildly wrong about lots of things. Moreover, Marx was familiar with his work, both adopting and critiquing parts of it throughout his career, so it seems a bit peculiar to lionize Ricardo while portraying Marx as incapable of offering a critique of Malthus.

[xyzzyz]

Let me clarify it then. The poster I responded to claimed that Malthus is a butt joke of economics, which is patently false, and to support that, he cited Marx, whose economic theory is in fact a butt joke of economics. Is that clear now?

[anemoiac]

I can see what you've written, but I'm having trouble with the level of certainty you ascribe to what is surely a highly-subjective claim. It's not at all clear that Malthus is not (or hasn't been), at least partially, a "butt joke of economics", nor is it clear that Marxian economics' heterodox status today has any bearing on the quality of Marx's critique of Malthus.

Both Marx and Malthus have present-day adherents, though current positions have evolved well beyond those of their progenitors, but they've both also been widely panned. Obviously, the fact that neither mass global starvation nor global communism have overwhelmed humanity makes it easy to critique the pair, at least on a superficial level. You might suggest taking a more nuanced examination of their legacies, but I think that would reveal this entire discussion's lack of intelligibility. Perhaps you'd like to take a nuanced view of Malthus, but view Marx superficially?