Early in his academic career, Schervish was a committed Democratic Socialist. But around 1990, he began interviewing wealthy people and decided that his Marxist

Early in his academic career, Schervish was a committed Democratic Socialist. But around 1990, he began interviewing wealthy people and decided that his Marxist instinct to criticize the rich was misguided. If Schervish had felt this way, it’s because he didn’t read Marx carefully enough. The whole point of Marxism is not “rich people are bad”—the Communist Manifesto is brutally critical of those who think that capitalism could be reformed by making rich people nicer. The point is that capitalism as a social structure is bad, because even well-meaning members of the bourgeoisie have incentives to oppress the working class, and those who do not follow those incentives will eventually find themselves at the bottom of the heap. (I am not a Marxist myself, but this misreading is one of my pet peeves.)