This is an unsatisfactory discussion, because you are attacking straw men.
Samuelson was a genius and a once-in-a-generation thinker. I specifically avoided excluding the existence of such people who can take on the incumbents of the theoretical pantheon.
You at least concede that great thinkers are all more or less held in a certain level of esteem. It's precisely this pious, respectful attitude that makes unsympathetic critiques rare. I'm not saying that an academic world in which such critiques were commonplace would be better, or even possible. The conservatism and conventionality of the framework in which academic work takes place may well be intrinsic to the social function of the activity. The fact is that a vast amount of work is done which rehearses, builds on, applies, or seeks to recover value from the work of the 'masters'. Skepticism is not the word I would use to describe the way the literature is typically approached. Criticality is circumscribed by a sense of decorum — one must not be too critical of a thinker whose work so many others have engaged with. To be too critical would be arrogant, or at the very least it would indicate that one was in the wrong intellectual milieu.
I really am not aware of highly respected "unsympathetic" engagements in today's academia. Yes, there were high-profile disputes in the past between contemporaries — Einstein and Bergson, for example. But today refutations and dismissals don't seem to be considered appropriate. The overwhelming mood is one of appreciation of classic texts within small specialized interest groups. Rigorous refutations (as in Samuelson's work on Marx) really don't seem to happen very often at all. They almost seem like something rude.
That's probably because in no small part, "rigorous refutation" is confused with "vigorous refutation" that is shallow and partisan in nature. Hating on Marx is easy; refuting Marx completely in a rigorous manner is hard; doing it without an obvious axe to grind is even harder.
Even to the extent that Marx was wrong in the particulars, he got a lot of essentials right in new and unique ways. More importantly, it's impossible to have a serious conversation about labor that excludes Marx entirely (unserious conversations are another thing). And we've now had over a century of refutations of various types and degrees, from both right and left. Contributing something actually new and significant to the literature would be even more difficult than developing a thorough and academically rigorous "refutation".
Hence, the nitpicking about details from the left, and the unrigorous blanket rejection from the right. Both are far safer ground than trying to introduce breadth on the left or rigor on the right.
Samuelson was a genius and a once-in-a-generation thinker. I specifically avoided excluding the existence of such people who can take on the incumbents of the theoretical pantheon.
You at least concede that great thinkers are all more or less held in a certain level of esteem. It's precisely this pious, respectful attitude that makes unsympathetic critiques rare. I'm not saying that an academic world in which such critiques were commonplace would be better, or even possible. The conservatism and conventionality of the framework in which academic work takes place may well be intrinsic to the social function of the activity. The fact is that a vast amount of work is done which rehearses, builds on, applies, or seeks to recover value from the work of the 'masters'. Skepticism is not the word I would use to describe the way the literature is typically approached. Criticality is circumscribed by a sense of decorum — one must not be too critical of a thinker whose work so many others have engaged with. To be too critical would be arrogant, or at the very least it would indicate that one was in the wrong intellectual milieu.
I really am not aware of highly respected "unsympathetic" engagements in today's academia. Yes, there were high-profile disputes in the past between contemporaries — Einstein and Bergson, for example. But today refutations and dismissals don't seem to be considered appropriate. The overwhelming mood is one of appreciation of classic texts within small specialized interest groups. Rigorous refutations (as in Samuelson's work on Marx) really don't seem to happen very often at all. They almost seem like something rude.