The New York Review of Books just published what is ostensibly a review of Thomas Friedman’s paean to globalization The World is Flat. It’s quite possibly the most bizarre bit of economic journalism I’ve come across, which doesn’t so much review Friedman’s book as use it as an excuse to revisit the ghost of Karl Marx. As far as I can tell, Gray asserts that Friedman was specifically inspired by Marxism but consistently gets most of it wrong, leaving us with statements like this:

The centrally planned economies that were constructed to embody Marx’s vision of communism have nearly all been swept away, and the mass political movements that Marxism once inspired are no more. Yet Marx’s view of globalization lives on, and nowhere more vigorously than in the writings of Thomas Friedman. Like Marx, Friedman believes that globalization is in the end compatible with only one economic system; and like Marx he believes that this system enables humanity to leave war, tyranny, and poverty behind.

followed by statements like this:

It is an irony of history that a view of the world falsified by the Communist collapse should have been adopted, in some of its most misleading aspects, by the victors in the cold war. Neoliberals, such as Friedman, have reproduced the weakest features of Marx’s thought—its consistent underestimation of nationalist and religious movements and its unidirectional view of history. They have failed to absorb Marx’s insights into the anarchic and self-destructive qualities of capitalism.

I’ve more to say about the piece, but frankly I’m dazzled by having to confront so many bizarre notions at once, as well as its many ambiguities and tautologies. We’ll see if some of the other blogging economists pick up the thread. In the meantime, read “The World is Round” for yourself. If nothing else, it will introduce you to the rather fascinating character that is John Gray.