Sure. The Marxism school of thought is one of fantasies, of free lunches from artful arrangement of resources. The problem is that this persistent belief stretches from hard core far-left socialist/communists right up to the centre right of political thought (though I despise the left/right denomination, I use it here to illustrate fashionable thinking).

Eventually, beliefs will have to change - anything that can't go on, won't - but I don't expect it in my lifetime. Human nature is unchanging and economics is simply the study of human choice when it comes to limited resources. At some point understanding must come back to this simple point - you've got to produce something to trade for something - but magical thinking and hoping has a way of persisting for a long, long time.

Edit: you'll see that most of my comments in this topic are being systematically down voted. This is because it is contrary thinking to what gets fed in higher education in the past few decades. I know, because I consumed the same content, and had to continue my own further education to realise why the concepts never sat right with what I observed going on. And that results in a lot of a-ha moments when you start reading pre-Marxian and pre-Keynesian thought. I hold no ill-will or malice to the down voters, perhaps one day they'll come to realise the dry, barren road current macro thinking finds itself.

>The Marxism school of thought is one of fantasies, of free lunches from artful arrangement of resources.

Actually the Marxist school of thought is one of economic self-determination.

That ideal went badly wrong with the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Even so. Economic freedom - specifically the moral right of the working classes to benefit from the economic value of their labour - is the bedrock concept of both Marxism and Socialism.

And the bedrock moral value of American corporate capitalism is the elimination of that right in favour of distribution of value exclusively to a social conceit called "capital".

Now - in fact both are oversimplified and wrong-headed, and both lead to disaster in different ways.

A useful synthesis may be possible, perhaps. But it's going to take a much more insightful analysis than anything that appeared in previous centuries.

The labor theory of value is a valueless theory.

I've never, ever seen a credible argument that saya capitalism is based on the elimination of a persons right to their labour value. That sounds terribly like some undergraduate student publication or occupy chant.

Capitalism is about the freedom to control and own capital - it's not a 'social conceit', capital refers to assets, whether physical in the for,s of factories and farms, or others, such as inventions and savings. The ability to freely allocate capital and follow ones free economic agency is the greatest engine for eliminating poverty the world has ever known, despite its obvious and some,times major flaws.

Where should I begin reading if I wanted to know more?

Well, that depends if you want to reinforce existing beliefs or challenge them with new ones.

After much reading from Smith to Marx to Keynes, it's my personal beliefs that the classical economists had it right and much of the 20th century thinking was wrong. To my mind, the experiences of the 20th century pretty much lay out that case, particularly with the twin a/b test of East/west Germany.

If you want a complete history of economic thought according to he Austrian school, then 'An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought' gives a thorough background from Ancient times to now on the evolution of economic thought and how people came up with the answers to puzzles like why is water essentially valueless as compared to gold when one is life and death and the other essentially useless. Going back deep into the original philosophers and coming forward helps to understand why thinking is the way it is.

The other book I recommend for people is 'The road to serfdom' by F.A. Hayek. This gives a thorough and as-yet unanswered critique as to why socialism in all its forms fails, and why it is an inherently unstable system that always leads to dictatorships and loss of wealth (hint: feature not bug) But these speak to my own beliefs which are decidedly no longer mainstream. Like many I studied this in undergraduate and masters courses but the explanations never really settled with me so I kept on reading. If you want to understand what the mainstream economic thinking is, just pick up a Krugmsn article and keep reading because most mainstream publications are wedded to the idea that governments can plan and manipulate economies into prosperity.