Marksizam i ozbiljna nauka

Iz intervjua sa Robertom Fogelom, jednim od osnivača kliometrije (kvantitativne ekonomske istorije).

"At first, I thought what I was doing was important. But over time, I started to become disillusioned. The Marxists had predicted a depression in 1947-1948. That didn’t happen, so they said, it will happen the next year. But it never came. So by the early 1950s, I began seriously reconsidering my position. I had been drawn to Marxism because I thought of it as a science. But it was pretty clear that its “scientific” predictions were wildly off the mark."

"I began to rethink my views and especially my involvement with Marxism. So I decided that I needed to receive more serious training in economics and the social sciences generally and went to Columbia."

Fogel je, verovatno, najpoznatiji po knjizi u kojoj je pokazao da je robovlasnički sistem na američkom Jugu bio relativno efikasan. U toj knjizi je izneo i neke, u to vreme vrlo kontroverzne stavove - da su robovi manje radili i bolje se hranili nego slobodni radnici na Američkom Severu. To ga nije sprečilo da dobije Nobelovu nagradu 1993. godine.