The Withering Away of Political Economy

George Walsh (c.1923-2001) was one of those old-school professors who wrote little but read everything. These four lectures on Marxism, delivered in the mid-80s a few years before the collapse of the Soviet bloc, distill decades of study of Marxist ideas with great insight and humor. Lecture 1 covers the Marxism’s intellectual precursors; lecture 2 delves into Marxist philosophy; lecture 3 goes into Marxist economics; and lecture 4 finishes with Marxist politics. The Salem Center’s Bryan Caplan, who heard Walsh live in 1989, has plans to make all of Walsh’s “lost” lectures on the history of ideas once again available to the curious public.