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Comment by ralusek | Hacker News Reader

It is literally the exact opposite. The ratio of leftist to right professors in university is 12:1, even more pronounced among faculty. 1 out of 5 professors in America identify as Marxist.

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Marxist, so even more in favor of a ruling class above all.

I know you're just trying to be snarky, but how does that make any sense?

I guess it's a reference to George Orwell's "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

Probably the idea that instead of class divide by wealth it would be class divide on political hierarchy (which would undoubtly divide on wealth as well)

In command economies, someone needs to do the commanding. Unsurprisingly, the revolutionaries that install such systems often choose themselves for that role.

Yes, the Left is the ruling class. Or the establishment if you like.

Maybe a reference to collectivization in Soviet Russia.

The peasants did not go willingly.

This sounds pithy, but is inaccurate. Marxists (in particular Leninists, because Marxism is a broad church) think that there is a ruling class, that in capitalist societies the ruling class is the minority of owners of capital, and that, in order to transition to a classless society, the capitalist ruling class needs to be replaced temporarily by a ruling class composed of people with the interests of the working class in mind.

The purpose of this period of working class rule is to eradicate the capitalist class and its ideology (not necessarily through violence, although in practice what ruling class yields to another without compulsion?), and develop the productive forces of the society in order to enable communism.

This last point is one of the big things that distinguishes Lenin's theories from Marx's, because Marx thought that revolution would naturally arise in the most advanced technological societies once the industrial base necessary for a transition to communism was already pretty much in place. As we know, the revolutions occurred in places with a lower level of development, thus requiring this theoretical modification and extending the period of rule by the working class beyond the brief duration that Marx envisaged.

The USSR, while it existed, always said they were "building socialism" and never said they had arrived at the destination, which is a classless society. The PRC says that it is "building socialism" and that the process might take a hundred generations. The purpose of their rule, according to their own theoretical framework, is to eventually give it up.

So no, Marxists are not "even more in favour of a ruling class above all."

>1 out of 5 professors in America identify as Marxist.

I wonder how they're distributed among the various disciplines.

Here is a helpful chart that gives this data:

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/03/the_prevalence_1...

Whoa! I used ti lean left and professors tilted left, I hadn’t noticed it was so pronounced.

I gotta think they are more idealists than bona fide marxists though; I mean, if they read enough, they must know the drill (they wouldn’t have influence and any countertevolutionary ideas and they are sent off).

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