[WS:] I've never suggested that it is not rich or did not produce outstanding intellectuals. I argued that it often becomes a cult in that consistency with the original script becomes the ultimate test of validity.
To be sure, this is a general propensity of the academia, as Charles aptly observed, not limited to Marxists. There is a premium attached to be "original" and a "celebrity" - hence the propensity to name empirical observations as if they were geographical features in the era of imperialist expansion - after the name of the "discoverer." The very fact that we talk about "Marxists" or "Marxism" instead of say, "political economy" testifies to this tendency. The stipulation of this mode of thought is that ideas, at least the "worthy" ones are "intellectual property" that has been uniquely created by someone and usually belong to him (usually it is a white male) and noone else - rather than being a form of common good or common human heritage. In fact, the latter ideas are often treated as trivial.
The reality is, however, that similar ideas have been thought by many people, but only some of them "get the credit" for them and consequently the academic celebrity status. If one rejects this intellectual property rights and academic celebrity business (as I do)
then the fact that similar ideas were entertained by many people working in different traditions is a plus, the evidence that the idea is at least worthy consideration. For academic cult builders and sectarians the opposite is true - I suppose. A failure to properly attribute an idea to its "rightful" "creator" and "owner" is a sign of either ignorance or property theft aka "plagiarism."
In this particular instance, the fact that both Marx and, say, Krugman and Arthur used the idea of path dependence (albeit differently formulated) to explain some observed phenomena is a sign of the strength of the idea, not evidence of sectarian battles over attribution of intellectual property rights - at least from my pov.
PS. I have not met that many academics who do not want to be associated with Marxism for some political reasons, as you seem to suggest. Many of them actually did acknowledge Marxist influence on their own work. What you often see though is that academics must establish their own intellectual fiefdom on the pain of losing their tenure, and in so doing they must claim their original contribution to the existing body of knowledge. It typically works by creating a strawman out of an existing writer, be it Marx or any other published author, and then proposing one's own idea to "improve" the strawman. This is just how the game is played. If one does not do it, one is unlikely to have a distinguished academic career.
Those who disagree with Marx on political grounds tend to blast him on all fronts, rather than quietly reformulate his ideas as their own while publicly distancing themselves from them.
As to myself, I publicly acknowledge Marxist influences on my work - I try to quote Marx ,keep a picture of Marx on my desk and sometimes even pass for a "house Marxist". However, this is mostly a form of ceremonial respect, as I typically do not find Marxist analytical categories or modes of thought very useful in what I am doing. Needless to add that I am absolutely turned off by sectarianism often found among leftists, marxist or otherwise.
Wojtek http://wsokol.blogspot.com/