File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-01-25.033, message 38


Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 16:38:30 -0500
From: Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu (Yoshie Furuhashi)
Subject: RE: M-I: Re: Academic Marxism?


In response to Scott, Wes, and Will:

I agree with you in that the academicization of Marxism is a big concern.
(As Lou's comments on Subcomandante Marcos, etc. indicate, probably this is
not much of a problem in the Third World.) But I think that the continuing
depression of the academic job market and casualization of academic labor
will bring Marx out of seminars and libraries. The ruling class have and
will squeeze not only Marxist academics but also all kinds of academics out
of the comfort zones of the middle class wages and benefits; many of us
will be kicked out of the universities altogether. Many leftists of the 60s
went to factories "out of choice" in search of the "real" working class.
The 90s Marxists won't have this choice; people who might have become
"Professors of Marxism," had they undergone their graduate education a
couple of decades ago, are more likely to find themselves in some other
kinds of service sector, and some of them will become "organic
intellectuals" of the non-industrial working class.

Admittedly, what I just wrote is rather too optimistic. But the current
period of capitalist crisis looks to me like one full of dangers as well as
opportunities. We just have to seize those opportunities and work toward
the unity of marxist theory and practice.

yoshie




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