cohenite,

I share your views.

I also read the Bolt piece, and don't believe that he was attacking the study of Marx.

Bolt more concerned with number of Marxists in universities.

Andrew Bolt objects to the diversion/misappropriation/misuse of public money and students' hard-earned cash (fees) to promote and market Cultural Marxism to young minds: "Students, regurgitate this in a 10,000 word essay or fail to thrive in this Department".

Bolt puts the individual first and foremost.

Chewing the fat about 'economic Marxism' just muddies the water. It is a diversion.

Academics are not always relevant to the real world. Not where the humanities are concerned anyhow. Which brings me to a question, 'What is sociology doing in universities?'. Maybe a soft certificate level course somewhere, nothing more. Feminism and gender studies? They are just wasting university facilities there as well.

Once you get that sort of language from the types as coehnite, you know you are just feeding f_k'n fools and rednecks.

No matter what debased filth these individuals wallow in, they still roll about in the gutter demonstrating once and for all:

You can lead a redneck to facts but you can't make them think.

Anyone with an ounce of economic knowledge will know that wages are purchasing power. But not coehnite.

Anyone with an ounce of economic knowledge will know that the premium for risk is paid out of either the increment of extra wages the risk taker receives or income from marginal producers who loose income due to the risk-takers successful innovation. But not the imbecile cohenite.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense will know that Western Marxism has nothing - nothing - to do with cohenites cartoon view of commandeering the means of production. What a laugh.

And just to see how dishonest this Bourke bound fool is: let it provide any evidence for any Western Marxist proposing in twit-cohenite's weird words: "violent insurrection".

Utter stupidity - and there is no way it could even find its way to Bourke.

Wouldn't a real Leftie be feeling that s/he would be short-changing cohenite with 'red-neck'?

Doesn't the political correctness of cultural Marxism decree that the PC labelling for anyone who raises even the mildest criticism is 'Nazi'+'Brevik'+'Redneck', ie all three barrels discharged at once? Take 3/10 for that tutorial presentation and be aware you have two warnings left, then it is out of this department and you will be finding another course to take next semester.

Oh dear, poor old zygote is in a tizzy. Don't worry zygote you don't have any facts; you're just an old commie.

The dear old commie says this:

"Marxism argues that this can be solved, and must be solved, only by;

"...a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large"

Marxism suggests that where there are appropriate democratic institutions, this process will be entirely peaceful,"

"Appropriate democratic institutions". Oh yes; like all parasitic ideologies, Islam is another, the Marxist hive-mind will utilise the dynamic virtue of the Western model to gain ascendency and then, as example after example has shown, terminate the wonderful model and enter the true Marxist state, oppression."

Orwell prevails in the Marxist hell and dear old zygote's nonsense shows that; he says:

"Marxist theory is merely the continuation of political economy from Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Malthus and others, taken to its logical conclusion, once countervailing tendencies are exhausted."

Apart from being gibberish, the idea that exponents of capitalism such as Smith are really extolling Marxism is classic Orwellian double-speech.

Finally the old commie says:

"Anyone with an ounce of economic knowledge will know that the premium for risk is paid out of either the increment of extra wages the risk taker receives or income from marginal producers who loose income due to the risk-takers successful innovation."

This is stasis; it ignores growth whereby the fallacy of a shrinking or static pie being given over to economic squattocracy is defeated by innovation, especially technological, and entire social expansion.

Commies like dear old zygote are Luddites, misonewists and sufferers of Toffler's syndrome. They wish to constrain the rest of us to their own personal limitations. They are at best a pest. If Marxism is to be studied it should be in the medical faculty as an example of mass delusion

onthebeach - what are you talking about re: 'two warnings left'??

Yours seems to be an anti-intellectual, anti-pluralist conservatism where(despite rhetoric about the achievements of Western civilisation) - the Western Tradition is reduced to an authoritarian neo-liberal/Conservative technocracy, and critical/liberal arts thoroughly uprooted... An utterly barren public sphere...

Andrew: The Austro-Marxists fought for a multi-cultural Austria-Hungary before WWI. They fought for equal rights, cultural self-determination and democracy for all of Austria-Hungary's citizens/minorities. After Austria-Hungary collapsed they were responsible for the democratic/republican revolution. They maintained a regime of 'dual power' because of the threat of far right-wing counter-revolution. Their plan was only to use force were it necessary to defend 'the democratic path' against Fascism. Perhaps because they lost their nerve at the crucial conjuncture they were overwhelmed by fascism after a brief civil war. But see my article on some of their achievements in the interim....

Also I guess you're aware that 'utopian' has a very specific meaning in Marxism. Anyway Marxists sought a socialist transition they believed to be 'inevitable' because of underlying socio-economic dynamics... (this sense of 'inevitability' was a flaw in Marxism - but it DID give them great confidence and motivation at the time)

Again see my article for the paragraph which details the Austro-Marxists' real-world achievements through Provincial govt in Vienna alone...

And if you want to continue equating Marxism with totalitarianism you may like to check out critical theorists like Habermas, Marcuse, Fromm, Adorno, or the Eurocommunists from as recently as the 1970s and 1980s. (eg: Santiago Carrillo)

As a Marxist-inspired writer I personally prefer what I call a 'democratic mixed economy'. My vision is a mix of natural public monopolies and strategic socialisation; alongside consumer and producer co-operatives, democratic collective capital mobilisation, self-employment, and co-determination. But also a domestic economy engaging with the global economy - open to the best innovations it has to offer. Democratising the large multinationals is a hard ask though, and developing different (non-capitalist) models for innovation and quality is also difficult - and socialists should be careful and modest in their efforts here for now.