This man used to be a Marxist, but not any longer. His Amazon reviews are numerous and quite a fun read. This is from a recent review of Vernon Smith's autobiography:
Update: In another review, Gintis says about Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom:
I don't want to suggest that Gintis is now a free market economist -- he seems closer to the center to me -- but he is very far from where he used to be.
Further Update: Tom questions how centrist Gintis is. My sense is that he is critical of what he regards as the ideological left and right. Here is an excerpt to give one the flavor of his analysis:
The main problem [with this analysis] is that the social democratic vision has not been turned back, but rather has been largely realized in the form of (a) the end of legalized discrimination against African-Americans; (b) the huge increase in the rights of women against the claims of patriarchy; (c) the rise of a culture that asserts racial tolerance and affirms gender equality; (d) a wide-spread system of social safety nets in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance; and (e) a vigorous system of laws and social institutions protecting the rights of children against sexual and physical violence. I would argue that there are several new social priorities that have arisen given the basic resolution of the aforementioned social problems, but that social democracy has not shown itself popular among voters in solving these problems. Moreover, some of the old social democratic institutions, such a support for labor unions, were merely a means of forging a political united front of a labor aristocracy and the political social democrats that worked to the detriment of the majority of voters, including most workers.
Recognizing that most of the social democratic vision has been achieved and that unions are generally a force for bad takes one a long way towards the center.
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