Phil Magness: Why Failed Ideas Keep Coming Back

00:10 Intro: Host, Guest, and Post-Soviet Setting
02:30 Why Marx Is “Back” Despite 20th-Century Failures
05:12 Keynes on Capital + The Marginal Revolution vs. Labor Value
10:09 Refutations & Everyday Logic: From Wicksteed/Marshall to Subjective Value
16:00 Inside Capital: The “Transformation Problem” and Lenin’s Canonization
20:29 Exporting Marxism: Soviet Publishing, Propaganda, and Academia
25:31 After 1991: Amnesia, Exchange over “Exploitation,” and UBI-style Promises
33:33 Scarcity, Incentives, and the Robot/Leisure Debate
39:16 $3k/Month Thought Experiment: Work, Innovation, and Utopian Pitfalls
46:18 Fake Stats, Nutter’s Audit, Elite Privilege, and Closing on Opportunity

“When Karl Marx died, twelve people came to his funeral. Not even the police were interested,” says economist and historian Phil Magness, Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute in California, who recently visited Lithuania and LFMI.

In conversation with Elena Leontieva, they explore how Marx went from an obscure thinker to an ideological icon—not because his ideas proved right, but because the Soviet Union turned him into a symbol. “The entire modern academic culture around Marxism is a product of Soviet propaganda—whether we like it or not,” Magness explains.

The conversation goes beyond history. If Marxist economics failed over a century ago, why is socialism making a comeback—this time in the form of universal basic income and promises of a life without work?

“Because utopias sell,” Magness warns. “If someone gave me $3,000 a month for free, I’d drink better wine and write fewer books. Multiply that by a million people, and you kill productivity, innovation—and the meaning of work itself.”

This episode looks at why old ideas return in new forms, and why freedom and voluntary exchange remain essential—not just for prosperity, but for human dignity.

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