Trump Versus Harvard: Capitalist Dogfight

May 2024— Harvard students walk out of commencement after pro-Palestinian activists denied degrees

Trump Versus Harvard: Capitalist Dogfight

USA, April 18— If wealthy and powerful institutions like Harvard “do not or cannot resist the arbitrary application of government power, who else can?” asked former Harvard president Larry Summers. “Without acts of resistance, what protects the rule of law?!” Summers is a former US Treasury Secretary.

Trump demanded that his government be allowed to monitor the content of every course. And to replace professors with “diverse viewpoints” handpicked by MAGA.   “It is fascism, Harvard must know that,” an alumna concluded.

When Harvard refused Trump’s demands, he froze $2.2 billion, mostly for medical research. He asked IRS to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status. He threatens to exclude all international students.

Harvard knows a lot about government power, the rule of law, and fascism.  It held Henry Kissinger’s faculty position open for him from 1967-1971 so he could shape pro-fascist US foreign policy in Indochina, Chile, Pakistan, Indonesia, and more.

Let’s understand that we live in capitalist society. “Government power” and “the rule of law” exist to protect capitalists’ profits. To protect them from rival capitalists in other countries. To mediate their disputes. But mainly to protect their private property from the masses of workers they exploit and oppress.  From us.

In this historical period, that state power and those laws are inevitably fascist.   It’s not just Trump. It’s the global crisis of capitalism hurtling into another world war.

Our task isn’t to protect the capitalist “rule of law.”  It’s to overthrow it with armed communist revolution. To abolish their system of private property.

Communism will transform the factories, the farms, the hospitals, and everything we have built and made. Everything will be collectively managed and used by and for the working masses.

Harvard Defends Zionism

“Recall the Trump-fawning letter President Garber wrote a few weeks ago, focused on Harvard’s wish to work with the Federal government to combat antisemitism on campus,” a Jewish alumnus wrote in a group chat.

Harvard defines any pro-Palestine or anti-Zionist speech as “antisemitic.” It forced out the faculty leads of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies.  Its Divinity School suspended a program considered “too critical” of Israel.

Harvard’s School of Public Health ended a partnership with Birzeit University on the West Bank. Now it’s about to lose 46% of its funding anyway.

“It was only after faculty and alumni mobilized, and after Trump has been weakened by the tariff fiasco and the rebellion on the part of his money supporters,” that Garber developed a spine, wrote another alumnus.  “The money Harvard depends on is really worried about Trump, and of course they will quietly support efforts that may rein him in.”

That is: this is a dogfight among capitalists. Harvard, with its $53.2 billion endowment, has long been a pillar of US imperialism.

Thousands signed an alumni/ae letter asking Garber to “Please publicly defend Harvard’s commitment to its core values of seeking truth by fostering freedom of inquiry.”  This is an illusion. Harvard professor Steven Pinker admitted as much when he asked ironically, “Will this government force the economics department to hire Marxists?”

Communists reject the mythic ideal of an “ivory tower” where professors and students deserve special privileges and workers are invisible.

 We envision a society in which we learn and advance knowledge without hierarchy in the context of practice.  That is, in the process of making decisions collectively, producing sustainably, and sharing on the basis of need.

The working class can’t rely on “wealthy and powerful institutions” to fight fascism. Our only way forward is to mobilize anti-fascist masses for communist revolution.

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