I would recommend the book Intellectuals by Paul Johnson. He does a chapter on many prominent lefty "intellectuals" in the last 150 years...Bertrand Russell, Marx, Brecht, Sartre, Hemingway, Rousseau...

What did they all have in common? For one, they all were completely devoid of principles, even the ones they clamed to support in print. Marx even had an illegitimate daughter who he never claimed and was his household slave his whole life. Marx also never sat foot inside of a factory, and managed his finances so poorly that at times he was only person in his home who had clothes to wear in public.

Don't listen to intellectuals, social theorists, technocrats, and professors. The world is complex once you get out of the British Museum reading rooms.