Robert Service’s new biography of Trotsky is reviewed in today’s Wall Street Journal. Having read Service’s excellent biography of Lenin a few years ago, this seems like a book worth reading. Joshua Rubenstein’s thoughtful review touches on some thoughts about socialism and socialists.

Socialism had three major failings. The first is what economists study most closely. It is the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism, because of the rejection of prices and money as a medium of exchange. Whether you support socialist ideals or…

Read the full story

Obama’s racist, communist, America-bashing Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, has resigned after revelations that he was a 9/11 “Truther,” who believed that George Bush may have been behind the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

But Obama has long been aware of Jones’ extremism, wacky statements, and arrest record, which would have come to light months ago during the White House vetting process, as former White House staffer Jeffrey Lord and National Review’s Andrew McCarthy note. The Secret Service would have investigated Jones’ past and Marxist views…

Read the full story

My father-in-law, a Marxist trade unionist and former Trotskyite candidate for the French Parliament, called me up last night at 2 a.m. to congratulate me on Obama being elected.   He told me how proud he was for America.  Since he doesn’t speak fluent English, and I don’t speak fluent French, I’m not quite sure why he was proud.

I don’t think it’s because he thinks Obama is a Marxist.  (I doubt he knows that Obama gave money to Marxist activists like the Maoist Michael…

Read the full story