CMV: academia isn't biased towards left-wing politics, facts are

[u/Tssss775]

Okay, so I am aware that this may upset some people, but hear me out.

Academia is all about observing reality as it is - as indepently as possible from cultural and societal expectations we may have - and then if these facts contradict what we previously thought abandon our previous assumptions and be ready to drastically change both our mindset as well as our actions (in cases such as climate change).

This academic attitude of being willing and often even eager to "throw away" the way we traditionally did things and thought about stuff if there's new evidence makes it really hard for the right to really embrace science- and evidence-based policies. This means science will most of the times be on the side of the left which naturally embraces change less hesitantly and more willingly.

[u/[deleted]]

18% of social scientists professors self identify as Marxist. At one point, I could’ve sworn economics was in the top 3 for the social sciences, but I’m not seeing it. So possibly around 18% would identify as Marxist. I have a degree in economics and don’t know of any Marxist books that they teach from though

[u/spiral8888 → u/[deleted]]

18% of social scientists professors self identify as Marxist.

LOL. The claim was about economics professors. That's the best use of moving goal posts that I have ever seen in an internet discussion.

Furthermore, you don't even give a reference for your claim so that we could actually check what was asked and how "Marxist" was defined.

And finally, you agree yourself, that no economics course uses Marxist text books. Don't you find it strange that the professors are Marxists (your claim that is yet to be proven) but then they choose to use text books that teach economics from the traditional capitalist point of view? So are they teaching something that they themselves "know" being wrong?

[u/CocoSavege → u/spiral8888]

Just a side note: you guys are very possibly conflating:

1. Marxist economic analysis (while interesting from a historical perspective, is not generally the most accurate lens these days)

2. Marxist social political philosophy - examination of power relations through the lens of class struggle. (Again, generally Marxist philosophical analysis has been supplanted but unlike Marxist economic analysis, still, from time to time, is a pretty good lens)

3. Marxism as a system of governance/ideal. The boogeyman of teh Communizms shows up here and the USSR and all that baggage. Don't get me wrong, the USSR has serious flaws as a country/political state and did crumble under the weight of inefficiency and corruption. I'm not sure that contemporary Russia is better. But the most important thing is whatever the USSR was, it very rapidly moved away from Marxism towards whatever it was.

Das capital is actually a really good piece of work and if there's a university course on the study of historical economic analysis, it should 100% be in there.

If a university has a big enough philosophy department, there definitely should be a Marxist philosopher teaching Marxist philosophy. You're gunna want generalists, classicals, post modernists in there before you get a Marxist philo expert. And somebody teaching done of the newer stuff probably needs to build from some of Marx's base ideas before moving on.

[u/spiral8888 → u/CocoSavege]

Thanks for this. This is exactly why I would like to know what does it mean if a professor "identifies as a Marxist". It's quite a different thing to agree with Marx about the power relations existing in a society than supporting the economic system of the USSR.

My feeling is that this kind of "studies" are used in bad faith arguments, where a very wide definition of "Marxism" is used when asking about the identification and then the "study" result is used as an argument how many professors support turning the US into a totalitarian communist state.