Because it argues for meritocratic rewards in society? Because it pointed out that capital is a gatekeeper? What makes it seem "Marxist" to you?
> Why not build more “Ivy+” and attempt to lift others up rather than flip the table?
I think the argument against subsidizing anti-meritocratic institutions such as Harvard is exactly this. The money is better spent on lifting up people regardless of their ability to get into Harvard.
I find the ending ambiguous, less "Harvard should be burned to the ground" and more "Harvard shouldn't get subsidies."
I think Harvard would survive just fine without subsidies. It's Harvard.
States that were far closer to Marxism, like the PRC during the Cultural Revolution, decimated their universities and dispersed their faculties over the countryside, or to labor camps.
This article is not on the same planet as that madness.
I’m not super interested in whether or not their Marxism was “authentic”, and neither is anyone who goes around, as OP did, randomly labeling things they don’t like as Marxist.
A Marxist tone would be more focused on getting rid of the elite class doing the owning things part. (which has proved difficult...)
Meritocracy is actually nearly as awful as aristocracy in practice. A better society would just be more equal across the whole population regardless of birth, merit or whatever. i.e. CEO pay is now 300 times average employee pay, something more like 5 times would be a very different society and still have room for some merit element And having wealth above a reasonable level shrink exponentially rather than grow exponentially through some kind of share ownership tax
Then Harvard just wouldn't matter that much