IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ejw/journl/v21y2024i2p357-384.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Should We Quantify Karl Marx?

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph Francis

Abstract

A 2023 article by Phillip Magness and Michael Makovi in the Journal of Political Economy contends that Karl Marx had little intellectual influence before the Russian Revolution. Yet the back issues of that same journal show that Marx was well-known in the decade before 1917, and that impression is confirmed by name searches of the JSTOR database. Furthermore, Magness and Makovi have misapplied the synthetic control method because no combination of other authors from the Google Ngram Viewer can be a meaningful proxy for Marx. A growing share of N-grams is, in any case, more an indication of Marx’s fame than his intellectual influence. Ultimately, quantitative methods are of limited use and the more traditional tools of intellectual history should be used to determine both what Marx’s ideas actually were and how their influence has evolved over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph Francis, 2024. "Should We Quantify Karl Marx?," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 21(2), pages 357–384-3, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:21:y:2024:i:2:p:357-384
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/File+download/1322/FrancisSept2024.pdf?mimetype=pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/1365
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Karl Marx; Russian Revolution; synthetic control method; quantitative methods; intellectual history;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B14 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist
    • B24 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist; Scraffian
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:21:y:2024:i:2:p:357-384. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jason Briggeman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edgmuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.