In a new piece at the Northwestern Chronicle, writer Alex Entz recounts an experience he recently had in Europe with a communist student group, spoofing it in the process. This is great stuff.

Watered-Down Marxism

While in Europe, I had the good fortune to attend a student rally advocating for the taxation of the rich to pay for free education. One of the major organizers and supporters of the rally was a group known as “Communist Students,” and they handed me a pamphlet about their groups and their seven objectives.

What I saw shocked me. Communist Students, one of the foremost promoters of communism on campus, has gone soft! Their seven proposals were all fluff. To atone for their lack of true communist principles, I will here list their demands—practically anarcho-capitalist though they may be!—and modify them to fit a truly collectivist agenda.

1. Abolish student fees. Everyone should be encouraged to develop themselves and their intellectual and critical abilities to the fullest degree.

The Communist Students group start off their list of demands with a simple and well-reasoned one, though, personally, I would prefer “encouraged” be replaced by “required”. What are central planners for if they cannot overcome the classic information asymmetries in education by dictating who goes to school and for how long?

Alex Entz (right) encounters “watered-down marxism” in Europe.

2. For academic freedom in teaching and research.

Here, Communist Students got it half right. Academic freedom is a must, except for those subjects that use mathematics and logic and economics. These subjects rely on the types of reasoning that are deleterious to Our Cause. Namely, objective reasoning, and basic economic principles.

3. Students over the age of 16 should receive grants set at the level of the minimum wage—at least 300 pounds/week under today’s conditions.

Three hundred pounds per week? What is left of communism if all are not receiving living wages? 800 pounds per week, minimum. If we can let everyone be rich, why shouldn’t we?

Read it all at the link below.