How Did Marxism Affect Australian Universities

Karl Marx was one of the most celebrated, yet misconstrued philosophers of our time. His ideology was adopted by many systems throughout history, for models on economic and political structure. At the heart of Marxism exists a central relation between class and power within institutions of society. Universities are institutions which embody much of Marx's ideology on co-operation, wealth, consciousness and political rights. In particular, the purpose of this essay is to examine how Australian universities essentially reflect Marx's ideas on the importance of economic development and structure. The structure of Australian universities will support my argument that we as university students reflect the Marxist ideal that we are all contributors
The object of individual attitudes is the individual himself – his experiences, his perception of other people, including his perception of their perception of him. The above quote illustrates that the individual cannot thrive in a capitalist nation, locally and globally, unless we continue to innovate the means of production. In this sense, universities are a structure put in place by the capitalist society in order to create ‘workers' which will continue to create new technology that increases production as a result of their conditioning inside the university. Marxist theory is sociological, Freud is psychological. The Marxist ideology conceptualises the factual and normative beliefs about society, where human beings have individual and collective material needs. Individual thought and social processes are not enough for one to interact successfully with the world after university. In order to satisfy their needs, human beings must labour together on the world, yet in doing so they evolve evermore complex forms of production and social interaction. The Marxist ideology speaks often in terms of ‘locally' and ‘globally'. I think in terms of how ideology plays a role in universities in Australia locally, we buy and sell ourselves to our local economy, and this creates the opportunity for global trading. Marx
For the student in an Australian university setting, and as a future worker in the economy, Marx spoke of a distinction between political and human emancipation (Wolff, 2002). Political emancipation consisted of the ‘right of man and the citizen'. For a political ideology to be successful, it must be inherent in terms of the general interest. Marx argued that this success could still be thwarted by religious differences of a conflict of interest between groups. Before the modern age, political ideology still painted a picture of the natural rights, duties, and obligations of the different social classes. The universalistic political ideology they created turned out to have consequences beyond what they had intended. There is now law any society can provide that protects every citizen for all the necessary human rights one should have. Marxist ideology acknowledges that there are loopholes in the law which allow people to employ people of their own social class, religion or race (Wolff, 2002). It is the nature of Australian universities today to promote harmony and multi-cultural attitudes towards the student body and faculty. This is seen to promote the well-being of all potential workers and allows them to thrive. The role of the Marxist economic structure is a sub-conscious objective of all universities'