Nutty Jewish philosophers who wreck civilization

It kind of makes me sad that both Ayn Rand and Karl Marx were Jewish. Together, these two philosophers have caused more devastation to the world than any other dozen in the last 1000 years*. Marx's theories of class uprising and "dictatorship of the proletariat" nudged Russia and China toward disastrous responses to the industrial revolution, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions and the impoverishment of hundreds of millions more. Rand nudged America toward an inappropriate response to the problems of a developed nation (i.e. "water the green spots") that has led to social fragmentation, institutional decay, massive inequality, stagnant incomes, and our current financial crisis. More recent, if less influential Jewish purveyors of bad political philosophy include Leo Strauss, Bill Kristol, and some other luminaries of the "neocon" movement.

Is there something about Jews that makes us bad political philosophers? Is it the fact that, prior to Israel, Jews had never been in charge of actually running a country, and hence haven't been forced to confront the realities of politics?

Actually, I doubt it. A more likely explanation is that Jews just tend to come up with lots of ideas of all kinds. A lot of Jews are professors and writers, and professors and writers tend to...well, profess and write. Given a perfectly normal distribution of good and bad ideas among Jews, coupled with the fact that the danger from bad ideas is usually very large, the result is the illusion that Jews are nuts.

In many academic and literary fields, you find Jews with good ideas and Jews with bad ideas (and some with both!). In economics, for example, you have to balance Paul Samuelson, Bob Solow, Paul Krugman, Kenneth Arrow, Joe Stiglitz, and other heroes of the profession against Robert "rational expectations" Lucas, Robert "stimulus can't work" Barro, Alan "bubbles don't exist" Greenspan, etc., with Milton Friedman and Gary Becker somewhere in between**. Same thing in psychology, sociology, etc. In the natural sciences, of course, bad ideas get weeded out by experiments, so you tend to only hear about the Jews who came up with good stuff (Einstein, Feynman, et. al.)...but I'm sure there were many crackpots we never heard about.

So a good rule of thumb is not "Don't listen to Jewish philosophers," but rather "Think for yourself!" Before you accept the philosophy of an Ayn Rand or a Karl Marx, think about whether it makes sense. And if you think it doesn't make sense, explain that to your friends and relatives. Or even write about how it doesn't make sense. Or even publish a paper about it.

And who knows, you may decide you want to convert to Judaism... ;-)


* I add this caveat specifically to exclude Paul of Antioch (another Jew!), Muhammad (whose grandmother was Jewish), and Confucius (whose full name was Barry Confuciustein). I just made most of that up.

** Note that most Jewish economists are named either "Robert" or "Paul". Also, note that Ed Prescott and Eugene Fama are not Jewish, which is why I have not yet killed myself.