How Marxism went from philosophy to cudgel

The podcast episode, "Economics Terms Corrupted by Politics," discusses the term "Marxism," which Republican politicians have recently used. Hosts Adrian Ma and Patty Hirsch, along with political science professor Jennifer Nicol Victor, explain that Marxism refers to Karl Marx's theories, primarily critiquing capitalism and advocating for workers to own the means of production to prevent exploitation. They trace the term's historical use during the Cold War to denote a foreign threat and its current use by politicians like Speaker Johnson and President Trump to evoke fear and define internal political opponents as enemies, equating it with government overreach or socialism. The episode concludes that "Marxism" is now used as a vague, emotional slur rather than its original economic meaning.