

I totally feel and understand your frustration. Vijay Prashad is great though, isn’t he? The thing about Marxists is, that they are always pretty harsh with each other, always polemic, but still comrades in the end. So I won’t take sides against any of the people you mentioned in general but still disagree with them on certain points. I’ve read biting polemics critiquing Michael Roberts too. And Harvey’s Answer to Smith isn’t pulling punches either. I guess some stuff might have been taken out of context and he definitely spend decades teaching thousands of students Marx’s labor theory of value. I’m still thankful to Harvey for getting so many people to read Marx, even if I’ve grown beyond lots of stuff and always looked to other teachers for insight on imperialism.
In the end, it’s not purity of theory that counts, but the impact on organizing movements. People who read theory on that level to inform their on the ground organizing efforts can definitely think for themselves anyway and will only take what is useful for their place and time and leave the rest.
This was some years ago. I tried, but couldn’t find it again. Crimethinc is a bit like this though. They were never anarcho-capitalist, but they changed from vaguely apolitical lifestyle individualism in the 90s to actual anti-capitalism around the time they wrote this book called “Work” in 2012.