Date: Mon, 26 May 1997 13:02:11 +0100
From: Lew <Lew-AT-dialogues.demon.co.uk>
Subject: M-SCI: M-TH: Popper's critique of Marxism 


In article <19970525.221743.6799.0.farmelantj-AT-juno.com>, James Farmelant
<farmelantj-AT-juno.com> writes

<Snip>

Popper's criticism of Marxism stood on a misquotation in his book _The
Poverty of Historicism_ (1957). Popper attacked the notion that there
are laws of human development, and that knowing these laws enable us to
predict the future course of human history. On page 49 he misquoted from
Marx's _Capital_, where he says the aim is "to lay bare the economic law
of motion of human society". Marx actually wrote that his aim was to lay
bare the economic law of motion of "modern society" - capitalism. The
economic law of capitalism, Marx's law of value, is in fact quite
specific to capitalism 

This misquotation was pointed out long ago to Popper and his publishers,
but every few years it is reprinted with the falsification unaltered. 
-- 
Lew


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