Thread by @gauravsabnis

There is no bigger sign of a lack of intellectual curiosity than thinking Marxist is a standalone objective insult.

Not all Marxism is communism, and vice versa.

Such a default disdain usually comes from a lack of proper social sciences education.

I too, in my engineering & MBA days used to think Marxism = Stalinism = North Korea, so everything in Marxism is a road to gulags.

Then I actually read Marx. With an open mind.

You can very much be in favor of private business and free enterprise and all that and still have a Marxist lens of looking at a lot of things about humanity, society, economics, politics.

Life isn't binary. The world isn't binary.

So yeah, when that zoho CEO type touchy bhakts say a university like Columbia is degrading itself by having some Marxist researchers, dude, you're degrading yourself. And your Princeton education. Marx is a key element in any serious social sciences research.

Anytime someone throws "Marxist" at me as an insult, I'm deleting them in my mind as someone worthy of even engaging with. Because they're just looking to peddle hate and close minds.

I find the Marxist lens very useful in teaching as well as researching a discipline as outright commercial and capitalistic as Marketing.

There is much more to Marxism than the Soviet Union or North Korea.

If you don't get that, you're a closed mind. Who just wants to hate.

Marx Baba is not some infallible deity who was right on everything.

Marx Baba wasn't some daft Stalinist monster whose one book created the cold war.

Marx Baba is just a generally wise insightful guy with a very incisive take on the contemporary industrialized world.

A decade ago, when I considered myself a free markets libertarian, I wrote an #unpopularopinion abt how I think auto drivers SHOULD be able to demand a premium, and customers can pay or negotiate or walk away and just cos there's a license rule doesn't make it right to force em.

The idea being that pretty much everyone else gets to set their own price according to demand and supply and prevailing economic conditions and we get nice bonuses and raises and we let Uber surge & all, so why treat auto drivers naming their price like robber barons?

In response, a friend called my analysis "Marxist".

I was a libertarian who hadn't really read much Marx beyond a few excerpts.

I got randomly offended and said no no, I'm not a Marxist! I'm a free markets guy! 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️

Follies of arrogant late 20s.

He was right!

My proposal was both free markets AND with a Marxist reasoning.