There are reasons why engineers, technologists, entrepreneurs, etc., tend as a minority group to find Marx’s theories so appalling. It goes way beyond the individual vs. the tribe thing. Inevitably, those praising Marx and his theories express an economic model – an actual mathematical equation purporting to represent something real, in factual economies, and the equations are so overwhelmingly simplistic that they can’t possibly model anything close to something real. It may not even be purely mathematical. Sometimes it is as simple as a political assertion masked as an equation, as if it was a law of nature. For example:

PRICE = COST + PROFIT (1)

As if that wasn’t just an assertion, but the actual economic ‘law’ that determined PRICE—ie, that set PRICE. It is true, in that one definition of PROFIT can be expressed as

PROFIT=PRICE-COST (2)

and one can be easily derived from the other, but the cause/effect implication is far different in those two equations, (1) and (2). (1) carries with it the implication that PRICE is determined by COST+PROFIT, while (2) carries with it the implication that PROFIT is determines by PRICE-COST, and only one in fact can be true, in a cause and effect sense. The assertion that PRICE is set by COST+PROFIT is a political assertion, and one that doesn’t bear much scrutiny in the real world.

The required disciplines of the hard science – significance, uncertainty analysis, calibration – are uniformly missing. Not so much dismissed or ill regarded as never recognized as a significant part of the scientific process to begin with. The entire endeavor is perceived, therefore, as an example of what Feynman referred to as ‘Cargo Cult Science’ in his 1974 Cal Tech commencement speech. It is perceived as the veneer of mathematics and science, without the discipline or essence or either.

This impression is not improved by increasing the number of decimal places carried forward in the analysis; in fact, the impression is reinforced. It is perceived as a process similar to someone stumbling into a math or science lecture, seeing the form of presentation, the charts, the tables, the graphs—the white labcoats even, and then running off to an unrelated subject and borrowing just some of what was briefly glimpsed, mimicking the form but not the essence, and attempting to borrow the veneer of actual science to make what is in essence a political argument. Pretty much what a Paul Krugman does 24/7/365. This tactic works well in impressing the majority of folks who have never actually labored in the math and science lecture halls, but not nearly as well with the minority who have. And so, it persists as a political tactic, because as politics, it is an entirely effective tactic.

Another reason that Marx’s naked assertions tend not to sit well with other than technical illiterates is the shallow and incomplete reasoning at the very foundation of his assertions: “Capitalism is inherently exploitive because it pays workers less than their added value.”

This is a naked assertion purposefully blind to the following facts:

1] Risk is unavoidable in the universe. Do we fish the deep or the shallows today? The answer is not always the same. We intelligently assess risk, but we never eliminate it. It is always with us.

2] Wage workers are paid a guaranteed rate of return for their efforts, win or lose. That guarantee is the reason they are paid wages at a discount. The value of that guarantee must be included in the assessment of their compensation. Who guarantees that rate of return? Ultimately, others who participate in the economies with ROI totally at risk, with no guarantees. They expose themselves to unlimited downside in return for the chance of unlimited upside. Marx’s foundational assertions are totally ignorant of the value of such guarantees. Marx and his acolytes want their cake(guaranteed wages)and eat it, too(at the same levels of compensation as those who risk all returns.)

3] In the American model, workers have the choice to participate in the risk/reward model in a self-modulated way; they can choose to hold no stock in companies, a little stock in companies, or a lot of stock in companies, and all of that is at risk, as is, their total exposure.

Marx’s gibberish is totally blind to any of that.

One of the first things a scientist or mathematician would do in any argument is define terms, and so, “Politics: the art and science of getting what we want from other people, using any means short of actual violence.” It is crucial to understand what we are about when we are toiling in the field of politics.

It is also insightful to realize that, in many political arguments, the last thing in the world that those making the arguments want for you or I to understand is the meaning of the word ‘politics,’ which is why, guaranteed, when you ask your basic 4^th year PolitSci major to define the word ‘politics’ that they will stare at you like you have C4 strapped to your chest.