The long and rocky road to self-extermination: The inevitable decline, fall and demise of Academic Marxism

The core objective of this paper is to show why academic Marxism, the intellectual arm of Marxism and Marxist thought has hit an intellectual road block, and is staring at a dead end. Our prognosis is that it is barely likely to survive in its present form for another decade or two. We begin this paper by defining what Marxism is and tracing its thought over the past one and a half centuries or so including varieties and regional variants of Marxism and its common criticisms. The success and failures of Marxism and communism are also likewise probed and investigated. The sphere of influence of Marxism is also probed on fields such as art, architecture, archeology, historiography, religious studies, and cultural studies. We also go on to show why Marxist thought is greatly fossilized and steeped in a mid?nineteenth century mindset, and is unlikely to work in different contexts and situations as it has limited validity and applicability. Many of the failures of mainstream Marxism and Marxist thought also overflow and cascade into academic Marxism too, and it is time to reassess all facets and aspects of Marxism from their bootstraps. We also propose and examine alternative approaches to replace various concepts and components of academic Marxism, and link all our concepts with our previously published papers in a seamless, integrated chain. As such we expect this paper to be an integral component of our globalization movement, and it would not be difficult to understand or figure out why.

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Publication Details

Published
2025-08-22
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/drtcg_v1
Primary Topic
Political Economy and Marxism
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

The long and rocky road to self-extermination: The inevitable decline, fall and demise of Academic Marxism

Sujay Rao Mandavilli
Political Economy and Marxism
article

The long and rocky road to self-extermination: The inevitable decline, fall and demise of Academic Marxism

Sujay Rao Mandavilli
article en

Abstract

The core objective of this paper is to show why academic Marxism, the intellectual arm of Marxism and Marxist thought has hit an intellectual road block, and is staring at a dead end. Our prognosis is that it is barely likely to survive in its present form for another decade or two. We begin this paper by defining what Marxism is and tracing its thought over the past one and a half centuries or so including varieties and regional variants of Marxism and its common criticisms. The success and failures of Marxism and communism are also likewise probed and investigated. The sphere of influence of Marxism is also probed on fields such as art, architecture, archeology, historiography, religious studies, and cultural studies. We also go on to show why Marxist thought is greatly fossilized and steeped in a mid?nineteenth century mindset, and is unlikely to work in different contexts and situations as it has limited validity and applicability. Many of the failures of mainstream Marxism and Marxist thought also overflow and cascade into academic Marxism too, and it is time to reassess all facets and aspects of Marxism from their bootstraps. We also propose and examine alternative approaches to replace various concepts and components of academic Marxism, and link all our concepts with our previously published papers in a seamless, integrated chain. As such we expect this paper to be an integral component of our globalization movement, and it would not be difficult to understand or figure out why.

Openalex Percentile: Top 71%
Political Economy and Marxism
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