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Class War and the College Crisis: The "Crisis of Democracy" and the Attack on Education

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The Powell Memo and the general "crisis of democracy" set out a political, social, and economic circumstance in which neoliberalism emerged to manage the "excess of democracy." Instead of a broader focus on neoliberalism and globalization in general, I will focus on their influences upon education in particular. The era of neoliberal globalization marked a rapid decline of the liberal welfare states that had emerged in the previous several decades, and as such, directly affected education.

As part of this process, knowledge was transformed into "capital' -- into "knowledge capitalism' or a "knowledge economy.' Reports from the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the 1990s transformed these ideas into a "policy template." This was to establish "a new coalition between education and industry," in which "education if reconfigured as a massively undervalued form of knowledge capital that will determine the future of work, the organization of knowledge institutions and the shape of society in the years to come."[29]

Knowledge was thus defined as an "economic resource" which would give growth to the economy. As such, in the neoliberal era, where all aspects of economic productivity and growth are privatized (purportedly to increase their efficiency and productive capacity as only the "free market" can do), education -- or the "knowledge economy" -- itself, was destined to be privatized.[30]

In the revised neoliberal model of education, "economic productivity was seen to come not from government investment in education, but from transforming education into a product that could be bought and sold like anything else -- and in a globalised market, Western education can be sold as a valuable commodity in developing countries." Thus, within the university itself, "the meaning of "productivity' was shifted away from a generalized social and economic good towards a notional dollar value for particular government-designated products and practices." Davies et. al. elaborated:

Where these products are graduating students, or research published, government could be construed as funding academic work as usual. When the "products' to be funded are research grant dollars, with mechanisms in place to encourage collaboration with industry, this can be seen as straightforward manipulation of academics to become self-funding and to service the interests of business and industry.[31]

The new "management' of universities entailed decreased state funding while simultaneously increasing "heavy (and costly) demands on accounting for how that funding was used," and thus, "trust in professional values and practices was no longer the basis of the relationship" between universities and government. It was argued that governments were no longer able to afford the costs of university education, and that the "efficiency" of the university system -- defined as "doing more with less" -- was to require a change in the leadership and management system internal to the university structure to "a form of managerialism modeled on that of the private sector." The "primary aim" of this neoliberal program, suggests Davies:

was not simply to do more with less, since the surveillance and auditing systems are extraordinarily costly and ineffective, but to make universities more governable and to harness their energies in support of programmatic ambitions of neo-liberal government and big business. A shift towards economics as the sole measure of value served to erode the status and work of those academics who located value in social and moral domains. Conversely, the technocratic policy-oriented academics, who would serve the ends of global corporate capital, were encouraged and rewarded.[32]

As the 1960s saw a surge in democracy and popular participation, to a significant degree emanating from the universities, dissident intellectuals and students, the 1970s saw the articulation and actualization of the elite attack upon popular democracy and the educational system itself. From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Trilateral Commission, both of which represent elite financial and corporate interests, the key problem was identified as active and popular participation of the public in the direction of society. This was the "crisis of democracy." The solution for elites was simple: less democracy, more authority. In the educational realm, this meant more elite control over universities, less freedom and activism for intellectuals and students. Universities and the educational system more broadly was to become increasingly privatized, corporatized, and globalized. The age of activism was at an end, and universities were to be mere assembly plants for economically productive units which support the system, not challenge it. One of the key methods for ensuring this took place was through debt, which acts as a disciplinary mechanism in which students are shackled with the burden of debt bondage, and thus, their education itself must be geared toward a specific career and income expectation. Knowledge is sought for personal and economic benefit more than for the sake of knowledge itself. Graduating with extensive debt then implies a need to immediately enter the job market, if not already having entered the job market part time while studying. Debt thus disciplines the student toward a different purpose in their education: toward a job and financial benefits rather than toward knowledge and understanding. Activism then, is more of an impediment to, rather than a supporter of knowledge and education.

In the next part of this series, I will analyze the purpose and role of education and intellectuals in a historical context, differentiating between the "social good' and "social control' purposes of education, as well as between the policy-oriented (elite) and value-oriented (dissident) intellectuals. Through a critical look at the purpose of education and intellectuals, we can understand the present crisis in education and intellectual dissent, and thus, understand positive methods and directions for change.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People's Book Project. He also hosts a weekly podcast show, "Empire, Power, and People," on BoilingFrogsPost.com.

Notes

[1]   Michel J. Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington and Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy, (Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission, New York University Press, 1975), pages 61-62, 71.

[2]   Ibid, pages 74-77.

[3]   Ibid, pages 93, 113-115.

[4]   Ibid, page 162.

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I am a 24-year old independent researcher and writer, having written dozens of articles on a wide variety of social, economic, political, and historical issues, always from a radical and critical perspective. I am Project Manager of The People's (more...)
 
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