now and then: revolutions in higher learning

Available online at http://www.idealibrary.com ondoi:10.1006/cpac.2002.0533Critical Perspectives on Accounting (2002) 13, 575–601

NOW AND THEN: REVOLUTIONS IN HIGHERLEARNING

GORDON BOYCE

Division of Economic and Financial Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney,Australia

Tilling (2002) examines the history of the industrial revolution, seeking to paralleldevelopments during the Industrial Revolution with those in our own time—sometimes referred to as the “information revolution”. He uses history in this contextas a source of understanding of the present times, and the focus of his analysisis the university as a social institution. Taking Tilling’s work as a starting point,this paper considers the role of universities during times of change, consideringespecially the link between wider social, economic and political change, andresistance to change in the university. The ideological hegemony of the prevailingpolitical and economic order, and, in revolutionary times, of the pre-existing order, isseen to be significant in shaping university responses to social and political change.The university as an institution is shown to have been, throughout history, a tool ofthe dominant hegemony and contemporary change in universities is, in this sense,a repeat of history. As the dominant politico-economic capitalist mode of economicrationalism is imposed on and in universities, with business and corporate interestscoming to dominate the agenda both within and without universities, the institutionand its constituents face a choice of falling into line (again) or taking up the strugglefor the ideal university, with a progressive and critical social and political role. Foracademics who organically belong to, and identify with, a range of oppositionalmovements that strive for a better society, informed action in the present cancontribute to the formation of a historical bloc that develops a counterhegemonicposition to challenge the prevailing order.

c© 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

As conscious beings, humans are endowed with creative imagination. This means thatthey find themselves confronted not by brute factuality, sheer material circumstance, butby what can only be described as a human situation. This is a situation that holds creativepossibilities, for humans are able to see it not only in terms of what it is but also in termsof what it can be. They can do something about their situation and, precisely as humanbeings, they are called to do something about it. This, and only this, is the kind of freedomhuman beings enjoy. It is a situated freedom, and embodied freedom—not the freedom torealize absolute, abstract ideals as such, but the freedom to address themselves to theirsituation, seize upon its growing points, and out of the worse to create the better (Crotty,1998, pp. 149–150).

5751045–2354/02/$ - see front matter c© 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Introductory Comments

We live in a time of significant technological change that is said to be global in itsscope and its effects. In such an environment it is appropriate to consider how thecurrent context of social, economic, technological and political change might affectthe university as a social institution, and how, indeed, universities might interactwith this change. Tilling’s (2002) paper is a useful contribution, setting out as itdoes to consider what we might learn from an earlier time of significant changethat (over time) was “global” in its impact—the Industrial Revolution1. Tilling’s paperseeks to parallel developments in the Industrial Revolution with those in our owntimes—often contemporarily called the “information revolution” or the “informationtechnology revolution”. This task is an important one because, as Tilling points out,history is a key source of lessons for the future.

The past is also, importantly, a key source of our understanding of the present.A clearly distilled understanding of the present and how we got “here” is a soundbasis for action in the present. It is such action in the present that creates the future.It might be said that we are living in an uncertain present, and a considered studyof the past can serve both to aid our understanding of the times and situation welive in today, and to guide us as we actively create that future and enter into it. Thefuture is not something that will mechanically or inevitably roll out before us, nor is itsomething we can or will create with a free hand. Nevertheless, we ought not ignorethe role that our responses to the policy alternatives we face today create the future(see, for example, Coyle, 1997). We make future history in the active present, in thecircumstances that the past has bequeathed to us.

In short, as academics and other players with an active role in contributing tofuture creation, we should grasp a historical view of universities with a very definitepurpose: to elicit lessons for the present (including about the present) and forthe future.

Looking Backwards to Look Forward

Brief overview of the approach

Tilling (2002) opens by characterizing the present as a key point of socialchange, upheaval and turmoil. Current pressures on the university, as a socialinstitution, come from many directions and these are seen to be in large measure amanifestation of wider socio-economic structural changes, including developmentsin information technology, which are heavily implicated in this situation.

In seeking to understand both how we got to the present and how the futuremight both unfold and be approached, Tilling draws on the Industrial Revolution asa parallel period of social change, upheaval and turmoil in history. He describes thisprocess as “looking backward to see what’s ahead”. It is the perceived turmoil of thepresent and the source of that turmoil that makes an examination of the IndustrialRevolution particularly relevant to an analysis of the likely effects of change onuniversities. As Tilling’s analysis shows, the role and function of the university as

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a social institution underwent significant changes as a result of the economic andsocial changes wrought by the industrial revolution.

In considering the history of progressive education, Gonzalez (1982, p. 10) notesthat the key links in any analysis of a social formation must be the interactionsbetween economics, politics and ideology. To bring out key issues facing universitiesearly in the 22nd century, Tilling adopts a Marxist historical approach, with thefocus on the roles of social classes and institutions in historical processes, andin particular on structural sources (social and economic) of conflict and forces ofchange. Whilst this approach is not the current intellectual fashion in accountingresearch, it is an approach which can yield considerable results in terms ofunderstanding the role of the university.

Despite the putative defeat of the socialist systems inspired by Marx’s work, withthe fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the transformation of Communismin China, many of the central features of Marxist analysis have been recognizedas increasingly relevant to an analysis of capitalism in the present era (Cassidy,1997). Cassidy discusses how even “business types who would rather be floggedthan labelled as lefties” draw on Marxian analyses—directly or indirectly, implicitlyor explicitly—when they grapple with globalization, inequality, political corruption,monopolizing tendencies and technological developments. When analysis iscentred on the economy, the organization of production, the profit motive, and theway these shape people’s attitudes and beliefs, the approach pioneered by Marxis being adopted. When analysis considers how capitalist economic developmentundermines traditional ways of doing things, exploits child and immigrant labour,and links directly to environmental degradation, Marx’s footsteps are being followed.Importantly, when one considers where power lies within capitalist society, and howsocial and economic organisation interacts with that power, an important theme ofMarx’s work is being drawn upon.

Marxist analysis recognizes the relationship between the economic base ofsociety and the socio-political and ideological superstructure; such analysisconsiders phenomena in their interconnectedness and in relation to the social“totality” (see Gonzalez, 1982, Chapter 1; Lukacs, 1974b). The analytical andpractical utility of this type of Marxist analysis has become clearer as capitalismhas continued to develop (Cassidy, 1997). Marxist analysis is materialist in thesense that it places importance on the material elements of society, with a priorityaccorded to the forces and relations of production as a key to understanding theassociated and interrelated social relations of production and the political andideological structure of society. The driving forces of history are seen not to beindividuals and their acts, but social structures, institutions and forces2.

A key element of the Marxian model elaborated by Tilling is disequilibrium(notwithstanding surface appearances of stability) and an important aspect of anyMarxist analysis is to uncover the contradictions inherent in any social system. In thebase/superstructure model of society, any putative social equilibrium is constantlyunder challenge from destabilizing elements that are inherent in the social structureitself. While there are reinforcing elements, there are essential contradictory anddisruptive forces that are the agents of change, so social structure is characterizedby conflict. Social change and upheaval is indeed a result of the playing out of this

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underlying social conflict, tension and contradiction. Consequently, a consideredexamination of conflict and change can bring us to an understanding of theunderlying structure of society and the forces within it, as drivers of history.

In relation to the educational system, Marxist analysis requires that universitiesbe analysed in relation to the social totality. Furthermore, consideration of theinteraction between universities, as an element of the social superstructure, and theeconomic base and other ideological and political elements of the superstructuremust be significant in any mode of analysis.

The University in Times of Change

Universities are part of society; they are not magically immune from the forces that haveproduced transformations across the globe and within Australia (Coaldrake, 2000, p. 9).

In considering the role of the university, a key lesson from the past relates tothe involvement of the university as a social institution in a period of massivesocial change—the Industrial Revolution—both as an agent of change and as anobject of change. This examination is essentially motivated by a desire to considerhow the university might be implicated in, and affected by, the current period ofsocial change.

The Industrial Revolution

Drawing on Marx’s famous statement that the consciousness of men is determinedby their social existence (Marx, 1970, p. 21), the importance of real materialconditions of life and the mode of production as a driver of change cannot beoverlooked. The change engendered by the Industrial Revolution was not merelychange in the forces of production, but in the social relations of production and inthe whole structure of society. This impacted heavily on individuals and classeswithin society and on social institutions.

The scientific, technological and material advances of the Industrial Revolutionbrought with them, as essential and integral elements, contradictory forces ofsocial and human exploitation and destruction at an ever-greater level. Wealth wasaccumulated by capitalists who invested in technology and employed labour in orderto obtain a profit. Labour was treated as a mere commodity, the cost of whichwas to be driven down wherever possible so as to maximize surplus accumulation.During the Industrial Revolution, technological development facilitated change inthe social structure and the development of the middle class, but the situation of thepoor hardly changed. As Marx noted, scientific and technical progress provided theopportunity to shorten and fructify human labour, but there was a continued starvingand overworking of labour (Marx in Jordan, 1971a, p. 291). Indeed, despite themassive economic growth and development it engendered, the Industrial Revolutionsaw exploitation of labour move onto a higher plane—from land-based serfdom tocity-based proletarianism.

In brief, technological and industrial development, whilst enabling social change,upheaval and the formation of a new middle class, also enabled a widening disparity


in wealth and material progress that was, in fact, driven by the class-based structureof society. These contradictions, inherent in technology and the social structure inwhich it was situated, meant that social conflict was (and is) inevitable.

The university during the Industrial Revolution

Throughout their history, universities have been closely tied in with the hegemonicorder, and with social control. The university as a social institution has alwaysbeen subject to social, political and religious forces, notwithstanding that it is anintellectual institution subject to educational and pedagogical concerns (Kearney,1970). Universities have fulfilled a variety of roles but their role as an apparatus ofthe state in its function of social stabilization and control in the interests of the socialelite has been ever-present. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the university, as thedomain of the gentry and the church, had for centuries reflected the class structureof society, providing a means to educate a clerical (and state) elite. The social roleof the university was to confirm the status of those elite who were able to enterthe university.

Resulting from the Industrial Revolution, Tilling (2002) argues that the universitywas saved from a descent into obscurity and insignificance by the “forces ofcommercialization”. Initially resistant to the change brought about by the IndustrialRevolution, the university continued to be an agent for the signification of socialstatus. Kearney’s (1970) history of British universities is used by Tilling to show how,over decades and centuries, the conservatism in the universities was overcome.The liberal educational ideal, opposed to any hint of a vocational orientation,was staunchly defended even as the Industrial Revolution was strengthening(Sanderson, 1972, Chapter 1). It was felt that the university was not to be used as aplace for training for the world of commerce. Nevertheless, the Industrial Revolutionand increasing social acceptance of trade and commerce had a profound influence.The leaders of university change were not of the universities; indeed, universitychange occurred in spite of the universities. Education became a social and politicalissue as the need for trained, skilled labour arose, and it came to be expectedthat universities would take on a more practical orientation and “serve the entirenation”. Knowledge came to be seen as something that had to be of practical valueto the realm.

The threat of intense foreign competition and fears of retarded economic growthcontributed to the move away from the staunchly anti-vocational position. The keyfactor driving the move to a more commercial orientation was the expansion ofindustries requiring a steady supply of expert personnel, including both trainedscientists and managers (Sanderson, 1972, Chapter 1; Sanderson, 1975, pp. 10–15)3. Whilst university education was available to greater numbers of people, thiswas not for the sake of an abstract educational ideal or on behalf of the interests ofthe vast social mass (cf. Gonzalez, 1982, p. 138, in relation to the massification ofschool education). The decline in employment in the traditional university-educatedprofessions (especially law and the clergy) also pushed people into education thataccorded with the needs of industry. Further, the need for university funding led toa closer liaison with industry (Sanderson, 1972, pp. 28–29).

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Universities clearly had to adapt to the pressure of the Industrial Revolutionand the social changes it engendered. In particular, the use of new methodsof production required universities to develop a much more practical, utilitarianapproach centred on research and practical (not contemplative) education. Therewas an associated move towards more explicit commercialization, with the universitycoming to be seen as needing to meet the needs of the industry and commerce.New universities were established, their clientele centred on the newly emergedand emerging middle classes (Sanderson, 1972)4.

It might be argued that as the Industrial Revolution brought about changes inthe class basis of society, engendering a new capitalist class and an emergentmiddle class, the inertia and resistance of the university was merely a product ofthe broader resistance to the newly developing social structures on the part of theformer elite. Eventual change in the university simply represented adaptation to theneeds of the new hegemonic situation, thus the university as its core did not changeits fundamental mission to serve the class-based social structure, however it was thestructural context that changed and the university was slow to change in response.

In brief, until the nineteenth century, there was little interaction between industryand universities. This reflected the underlying social situation, where industry wasof little importance or socio-political power. Over time the university adapted totechnological change concomitant with the Industrial Revolution. Despite initialresistance and an attempt to preserve its function as a restrictive and narrow socialsignifier, economic and social forces eventually drew the university into a much widerrole in educating the emergent (and democratizing) middle classes for their role inthe new world of industry and commerce—the new social and political order. In fact,universities survived because they adapted to the new needs of the new ruling elite.

University change during earlier times

Whilst Tilling’s analysis shows how universities (at least initially) resisted changewrought on them during the industrial revolution, the work of Kearney (1970)suggests that resistance to change brought about by economic, social and politicaldynamics had occurred previously. Sluggishness in university change representedboth a delayed response to wider social change and the clinging of the old socialand political powers (represented within universities) to their own interests. AsGonzalez (1982, Chapter 1) notes in reference to the base/superstructure model ofsociety, economic development tends to outpace change in political and ideologicalstructures. Consequently, there is an ensuing struggle at the superstructural leveluntil a new correspondence with the changed economic conditions is reached.The struggle at this level—and this includes the struggle within the university—is an important determinant of the hegemonic outcome, as the superstructuralarena of civil society (private, non-political) is significant in the establishment andmaintenance of hegemony (Gramsci, 1971, p. 12).

Kearney’s (1970, Chapter 1) analysis demonstrates that for two centuries up untilthe early 1500s the universities at Oxford and Cambridge had served the socialfunction of educating the elite of church and state. In the 1530s, the statutesculminating in the Act of Supremacy meant that centuries of canon law, which


had been the focus of higher studies within universities, became irrelevant. Thecontemporaneous dissolution of the monasteries also reflected social changes thatbrought the laity into greater prominence in relation to the clergy. Kearney discusseshow the establishment of the Regius professorships and Royal Colleges weresignificant in enabling the survival of the universities, although these were motivatednot by concerns of education per se, but as a means to dominate the universitiesand to establish a “controlled intellectual and religious environment” within which layor clerical students were educated. The objective of the changes at this time wasto ensure continued control and royal power. “The college reproduced in little thesocial and intellectual assumptions of the Tudor state” (Kearney, 1970, p. 22). Whilstinclusion in university education was extended from clerical ranks to include the laity,it was the lay elite who gained admission to the universities. The universities werean important instrument in and reflection of the wider shift of state administrativepower from the clergy to the laity.

Interestingly, despite some move towards the “gentlemanly” professions such aslaw, the clergy continued to dominate teaching, and theology continued to occupya key place in education. The universities continued to educate the clergy, andthe interests of the church remained intact, but the backing of government wassignificant in the retention of this position. The church and the clergy were seen toprovide support for the secular power of the state, and the universities were seenas a source of “loyal and sound clergy” (Kearney, 1970, p. 30) in serving theseends. Kearney summarizes the situation thus: “social changes reinforced the clericalelement in English society” during this period (1970, p. 32), but in addition to theircontinuing clerical role was a new role in confirming the division of society into theeducated elite and “the rest”. By 1600, the key function of universities was one ofsocial control and the creation of a single community of gentry across England andWales. Expansion in the universities was of principal benefit to the elite. However,by the 1700s the social influence of the clergy and gentry was declining. The risingrole of commerce was resisted at Oxford and Cambridge, but such resistance wouldbe expected as Oxford and Cambridge still represented the privilege and interestsof the former elite.

Throughout the various periods of change considered by Kearney (1970), it seemsclear that universities were institutions that reflected the dominant values of theruling elite. By design, they inculcated these dominant political and social values,confined education to a minority of the population, and inculcated values thatconfirmed and reinforced the extant status quo. As such, they were a key elementin the establishment and maintenance of the hegemonic order of the day. From thisit flows that turmoil and change in the university were reflective of either divisions ofin the elite of more radical changes in broader social organization.

Change and resistance

In any historical excursion such as this, it is important to capture the inherentcontradictions within history itself. For example, initial resistance to change in theIndustrial Revolution might be seen as a key factor that ensured change wouldultimately be thrust upon the university by new forces of social power. The quest

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for stability in fact sowed the very seeds of changes, as it was the university’s role inthe old social order that guaranteed it would have to change in order to survive thenew social order.

It is clear from Tilling’s (2002) analysis that social change brought forth resistancein the university, but the nature of this resistance requires amplification. Tillingcharacterizes it as reflecting the conservative nature of the institution, but it seemsclear that the source of this conservatism was a deeper desire to defend the(pre-)existing order and the interests of those who held power therein. Whileeconomic and social change represented and reflected transition to a new order,the natural response of the old elite was to protect their own (existing) interests—aconservative response. Over time, the power of the new order had influence insidethe university, which essentially transformed to a defender of the new hegemony(but still a defender of hegemony). Initial resistance, in this sense, was a product ofchange, and change inside the university was ultimately (at least partially) a productof that resistance.

In a Marxist mode of analysis, the principal impetus for change and developmentin the social system comes from the contradictions within capitalism that giverise to challenges to the capitalist system itself. Whilst capitalism can repressits contradictions through processes of integration and subsumption (Aronowitz,1978), the dialectical process continues as new crises and contradictions emerge.Capitalism as a social system in its expansionary mode is able to overcome itsown contradictions, but this happens at the cost of “worsening the violence withwhich they will be experienced by succeeding generations” (Amin, 1998, p. 11)5.The contradiction this represents must ultimately bring forth resistance, and a newsource of crisis.

This type of resistance springs not from the conservatism outlined above, butfrom a radical desire for emancipatory change—a different type of change from anexisting hegemonic order. At the present time we witness, both within universitiesand without a range of forms of resistance to changes wrought on society inthe name of “globalization” and “growth”. Such resistance seems based less onconservative desire for the status quo, but abhorrence both of that status quoitself and of the deepening of it in ways that magnify inequity and inequality(see, for example, Cohen, 1998; Amaladoss, 1999; Byrne, 1999; Hurrell & Woods,1999; Shiva, 2000; Klein, 2001b; New Internationalist, 2001). The generation ofresistance on the part of subaltern classes—the losers and downtrodden in thesocial structure—requires the hegemony of the ideas of the ruling classes to betranscended (Schaffer, 1995).

In some senses, the idea of globalization is a product of capitalism’s presentexpansion, but globalization itself brings forth contradictions that lead to thequestioning of the nature of the global itself and of its effects. It also brings forth, incontradiction, the development of the global as a site of resistance.

The global

Much of the present economic and social change and its public policy constituents,as discussed by Tilling (2002), is often proffered on the basis of “necessity” in the


face of globalization. Yet it seems that the notion of global change or a globalinformation technology revolution, which underpins discussions of change in thecurrent era brings with it notions of inevitability and determinism. In this sense,the notion of globalization is a key ideological form through which the capitalisthegemony over society is maintained. Giddens (1979) outlines how structures ofsignification are used to legitimate the sectional interests of hegemonic groups. Heoutlines three key ideological forms through which sectional interests that dominatesociety are concealed (as domination):

1. Sectional interests are represented as universal interests.

2. Contradictions are denied or transmuted, the links between economics andpolitics are denied, and conflict is thus suppressed.

3. Reification: the present is presented as a natural state of affairs, recognition ofthe mutable, contingent and historic character of present society is inhibited,and the status quo is thus supported (Giddens, 1979, pp. 193–196).

As Eagleton notes, successful ideologies often render their beliefs natural andself-evident, and are so closely related to the common sense of society thatnobody could imagine how things might ever be different (Eagleton, 1991, p. 58).It is through these processes that the consent of the governed is attained to themaintenance and reproduction of the existing economic and political order, eventhough this outcome is not in their interests, and it is the link between ideology andhegemony that brings a “political cutting edge” (Eagleton, 1991, p. 115).

It is dangerous to attribute too much to globalization, but it is equally dangerousto deny its existence and importance. However, the notion of the global cannotbe unproblematically or uncritically accepted, for five principal reasons. Firstly, thenotion of globalization itself implies that the scale of change is such that it touchesevery corner of the planet. While two-thirds of the world’s people are untouched bythe information technology revolution, any notion of global change and globalizationis problematic. Secondly, as noted above, the term can be used in such a way as toimply a sense of inevitably; it also implies a sense of progress and universal benefit.There is ample evidence that the benefits of globalization are not so widely or evenlydistributed, and that it represents regression for some (e.g. Hutchings, 1996; Amin,1998; Bauman, 1998; Amaladoss, 1999; Hurrell & Woods, 1999; Burawoy et al.,2000; Shiva, 2000)6. Thirdly, there is insufficient critical attention to the exclusionarybasis of globalization, which allows global communities of interest that obviate localcommunities. This can give the capitalist an interest in the global market ratherthan the local, and can be used to further rationalize labour and nature. Fourthly,alternatives are obliterated in the totalizing discourse of globalization. In relation toeach of these concerns, the notion of globalization can be seen to be an ideologicalform supporting the interests and position of global powers, as much as it is a“description” of a reality7. Fifthly, and related to the second point, to the extent thatglobalization is happening, it brings forth inherent contradictions and possibilitiesto serve the needs of capital or to act as a site of resistance. We witness globaleconomic domination, but we also witness global resistance movements. Thesetensions and this resistance are inherent in the system itself. For all of these

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reasons, an adequate critique must put the inherent and inevitable tensions withinglobalization at the forefront of our thinking.

Corporate hegemony

Another feature of ideology is Gramsci’s concept of bourgeois hegemony, which is definedas the process by which capital secures the “spontaneous consent” of the masses toits “general direction of social life” . . . capital wins their consent by persuading them thatintellectual life is free of the rule of society, much less capital (Aronowitz, 1978, p. 145).

The present state of capitalist globalization has been characterized as a situationwhere “corporations rule the world” (Korten, 1995). The new social ruling eliteare multinational corporations and their management (Saul, 1997, p. 15), andgovernment is a mere tool of corporations, the holders of real power. Saul terms ourpresent society as an “unconscious civilization”, because knowledge has not madecitizens conscious of the increasingly conformist and corporatist nature of rule.Individuals under this system have tended to passive acceptance of the inevitabilityof whatever changes are wrought upon them.

But capitalist hegemony can never be complete, nor is it stable, because thereare always contradictions between the consent obtained (or coerced) and the realinterests of the governed; correspondingly, there are always competing hegemonicprinciples. For a particular class to be in a position to establish a hegemony, itsinterests and consciousness of those interests must be such that they are able toorganize the whole of society in accordance with those interests (Lukacs, 1974b,p. 52). According to Gramsci, such hegemony may break down because the consentof either intellectuals or the broad masses cannot be won under circumstanceswhich arise from the contradictions of capitalism (Aronowitz, 1978, p. 145). Classconsciousness arises when they become aware of the true situation, and wheneconomics and politics, and struggles and conflicts therein, come to be seen to beintegrally intertwined (Marx in Jordan, 1971a, pp. 27–29; Lukacs, 1974b, pp. 70, 71).

The University of the Present

. . . There is a link between the state and the interests of capitalists . . . the state, especiallyin organizing and directing the educational system, trains bureaucrats, technicians,executives and workers for the economy. Most importantly, the state’s educational systemdoes not merely train personnel in the skills required in production. The ideologicalstructure necessary to maintain the hierarchy and absolutism of factories, businesses andbanks, etc. is a part of the state’s educational curriculum . . . the state steadily socializesthe population into an ideology that makes the existing class structure, the distribution ofwealth and political power, wholly legitimate. Thus, the state is not a neutral agency, but abulwark in the defence of capitalism (Gonzalez, 1982, p. 13).

Universities can play an important role in developing the capacity for criticaldemocratic thought in citizens (Saul, 1997; Aronowitz, 2000), and as such, theresponse of the university to the present hegemonic order—whether one ofresistance or acquiescence—is important.

In the last 20 years, universities have significantly changed from educators of asmall segment of society, who might be described as the elite, to systems of mass


education. There has been an associated trend away from liberal education towardsvocationally based training. In more recent times, the emphasis has shifted from thedevelopment of the specific skills of a discipline to more generic skills and a notionthat all must be flexible lifelong learners.

Significant upheaval in the university sector might be interpreted as adaptation towider social change, but all of these changes can be regarded as adaptation thatremains true to the role of the university in serving the ruling system and the rulingclass. Educational policies that favour, and serve the needs of, social elites areonly the logical outcome of a social structure whereby these elites yield hegemonicpower over the state (see Gonzalez, 1982, Chapter 2).

The shift to mass education and a vocational orientation has meant thatuniversities have become places where labour is trained to meet the needs ofcapital, paralleling an earlier shift to mass education in secondary schooling (seeGonzalez, 1982)8. “The purpose of vocational education and its incorporation intoeducation was not so much to train for a specific job, but to provide generalpsychological preparation for the world of manual labour” (Gonzalez, 1982, p. 145).University teaching trains students in occupational skills, socializes them into thevalues of the present social arrangements and hegemonic order, and prepares aready supply of future labour whilst delaying entry into an uncertain employmentmarket (Aronowitz, 2000). Exploration, critical knowledge and preparation formeaningful and active social participation seem long-distant goals.

The development of the corporate university

Present trends suggest that the content and organisation of university curriculaare being progressively arranged in ways that do little more than meet the needsof business for compliant labour (Aronowitz, 2000)9. Beyond the curriculum, theorganization and management of the university institution itself is also increasinglyand more directly a tool wielded in defence of the present hegemonic order.

The economic rationalist era has seen a continuing decline in public (government,state) commitment to, and funding of, universities and higher education (Allport,2000; Marginson, 2000). Central governments across the world are facing along-term funding crisis which is said to have cause them to retreat fromformer commitments to university funding (Latham, 2001). With the dominant andoverriding discourse of wealth creation as the primary criterion for acceptableargumentation, policy and action, the process of policy setting is exclusionary.National and common interests are identified with private interests and publicaccountability is reduced to what is acceptable for powerful corporate players(Rappert, 1995, p. 388).

Of course, the “fiscal crisis of the state” thesis (which is used by Latham, 2001, forexample) presents a paradox in an era where Western societies are economicallyricher than they have ever been. The crisis arises partly because governments getless and less tax revenue from large corporations “who, in a global marketplace,play one country off against another” (Saul, 1997, p. 111), and from wealthy privateindividuals who organize their financial arrangements so as to minimize personaltaxation. In addition, Right-wing rhetoric about smaller government and cutting

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personal taxes means that the so-called fiscal crisis is, at least in part, a deliberatepolicy outcome brought about in the interests of the elite, rather than somethingexternally imposed on the state by uncontrollable forces.

In universities the results have included increasing commodification of curriculaand the passing of control over course content from lecturers to text bookpublishers, increased influence of professional and commercial interests, provisionof tailored courses to special interest purchasers, the rationalization of labourcosts, intensified exploitation of teachers and internationalization of Western culturalpatterns of thinking and behaving with no reference to contextual appropriatenessin other country settings (see Lewis, 1998). “Edu-biz” has become a globalizingphenomenon (Alexander, 1996). As Parker (2002, citing Ackroyd & Ackroyd 1999)notes, universities have arguably been transformed into “highly entrepreneurial,customer focused and revenue seeking enterprises”. Much of this is done in thename of globalization and a claimed need to comply with market forces.

There are moves to establish a “global university”, with the classically sourcedname “Universitas 21”, through a consortium of influential universities from severalWestern nations and key corporate partners (Flew, 1998; Booth, 2000; Wells,2001). It is planned that Universitas 21 will use information and communicationstechnologies to offer fee-paying courses around the globe. The influence ofmultinational textbook publishers is significant in this venture. Thompson Learning,a North American based media and publishing company is a key partner in theUniversitas 21 consortium10.

Even where corporations are not directly involved in the running of universitiesor determining course content, such as in the Universitas 21 venture, there isan increasing tendency for learning institutions and activities to bear corporate“branding” (Klein, 2001a, especially Chapter 4). Educational institutions, havingto find sources of funding to make up for declining government commitment,gladly accept corporate sponsorship. If this means corporate products are usedas “educational tools”, corporate advertizing comes to the classroom, a rangeof corporate promotional activities occur on campuses, and on-campus critics ofincreasing corporatism are silenced, so be it. It seems that universities do now existvery much in “the age of business” (Marginson, 2000, p. 29).

The emerging “global market in education” can potentially bring openness, anda new porousness at the boundary of universities, with more communicationsinterconnections between academics and citizens around the globe (Marginson,2000). However, the evidence to date suggests that Parker’s (2002) concerns aboutthe homogenizing tendency of the increasingly ubiquitous North American modelseem unlikely to be ameliorated, and these potentials will remain nothing morethan theoretical. In one sense, it may already be too late, since the core valuesuniversities have adopted are now business values—financial, vocational, industrylinks, market share, public profile and (ostensible) customer responsiveness(Parker, 2002, p. 18).

Universities have gone far beyond mere recognition of the importance ofcommerce in the extant social and political order (see Kearney, 1970). Marginsonsuggests that being useful to business have been interpreted by universities asbeing like business, but “by becoming a corporation the Australian university is


ceasing to be a university” (Marginson, 2000, pp. 31, 32). Scholarship underthe current model seems to be nothing more than something to be exploited foreconomic profit. Research increasingly has to be seen to be of commercial—and especially corporate—benefit, with private “wealth creation” as the primarygoal of reform initiatives (Rappert, 1995). History suggests that these changes inuniversities would interact with wider social, economic and political change, and it ispossible to discern the key interests that drive the present circumstances.

Drivers of university change

“Culture and ideology are, as a rule, in correspondence with the social relations ofproduction” (Gonzalez, 1982, p. 13). It is important to consider the sources of thepresent pressures on universities: what are drivers of the present responses of theuniversity in the environment of change, and whose interests are these pressuresand responses consistent with?

Coaldrake (2000) notes that the pressures on universities in Australia are notunique, affecting, as they do, institutions around the world. He suggests thatuniversities in recent times have had little choice but to respond to “externalpressures”, but his analysis is somewhat limited. It is undoubtedly the casethat pressures in “the environment” have been significant in forcing change onuniversities, but such analysis that uses “the environment” as a generalizing termomits consideration of the specifics of these environmental impacts. Parker (2002)falls into a similar pattern in characterizing universities as “. . . react(ing) to theseexternal disturbances” (p. 5). Whilst he recognizes that universities have had roles in“. . . adapting to and enacting these changes over the last twenty years” (emphasisadded), the pervasive characterization is one of “environmental shocks impactingon universities” (p. 5).

The specific importance of the deliberate policy settings established by govern-ment must not be ignored in considering what drives university change. Kent (2001)describes universities as having been pressured into the types of changes they haveundertaken—“‘starved into responsiveness”. The “funding crunch” Parker (2002)has been a particularly blunt instrument of government. Wider public policy settings,adopted as part of an economic rationalist agenda in the public sphere in the latetwentieth century, with the overall aim to “remake” society (Emy, 1993), have beena key “environmental” factor impacting on universities. Indeed, economic rationalistpolicy prescriptions may be seen as the key driver of change in the university sector.A closer critical focus on the public policy settings of government, the larger agen-das within which these are set, and the dominant interests thereby served, providesmuch more focus for an analysis of university change than mere portrayal of univer-sities as reacting to nefarious “environmental shocks”. The motivations and affectsof governmental policy settings are important because, as Gonzalez (1982, p. 147)outlines, the economically dominant class of society uses the state as a mediumthrough which it attains and reinforces political dominance.

Public policy in Australia in the late twentieth century, and into the early yearsof the twenty-first century, has been significant in shaping university change.Kenway and Langmead (1998) characterize the government as having pursued

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three principal strategies to govern the conduct of universities. The strategy ofrationalization has seen funding cuts, university “downsizing”, staff casualizationand an overall intensification of work. Corporatization sees the application ofbusiness management principles and practices in the operation of universities,which has seen “collegiality and trust . . . increasingly being replaced by culturescharacterised by distrust and anxiety”. Building on corporatization, marketizationincludes privatization, commercialization, commodification and residualization,with the increasing adoption of user-pays principles, rising tuition fees and anever-present search for international fee-paying students and “export dollars”.Marketization also includes intimate ties to the business sector as a source ofboth revenue and definitions of “relevance” for university activities. Universities“increasingly define themselves according to the preferences and needs ofbusiness and industry” and the total transformation of universities has seen them“restructured and recultured” (Kenway & Langmead, 1998, p. 28).

Australian government policy has established the higher education system as a“national competition” in which universities, in the quest for mere survival, mustraise significantly higher proportions of their own revenue, mostly through fee-payingcourses (as opposed to the government-supported Higher Education ContributionScheme HECS). They are also required to accede to centralized indicators ofperformance, especially in research, and must establish and strengthen links withindustry (Marginson, 1997; Marginson & Ramsden, 2000). These changes have hadthe effect of “driving them harder in the corporate and market direction, at some costto quality” (Marginson & Ramsden, 2000, p. 5). There seems minimal recognition,beyond the rhetorical, of the importance of knowledge as global public good, andthe need for government to play an active role in the production of knowledge(Stiglitz, 1999). Parker (2002) sees universities as having reacted morphostaticallyin the first instance (rebutting change or reorienting themselves to some degree),but he also identifies morphogenic change in universities, where the interpretiveschemes of the organization are themselves changed. Morphogenic change can beevolutionary or may be the result of colonization of the organization and its values.Indeed “. . . universities have dramatically adjusted their activities and profiles. . . ”(Parker, 2002, p. 11).

“Global capitalism renders the ideas of pursuing truth and preserving or promotingcultural enrichment problematic. Contemporary universities function as performanceoriented, heavily bureaucratic, entrepreneurial organisations committed to a narrowconception of excellence generated by the imperative of international competitive-ness” (Peters & Roberts, 1999, p. 47). The overproduction of graduates in manydisciplines (including accounting) seems likely to act to keep the supply of (appro-priately trained) labour high and the price (relatively) low. Notions of flexibility andlifelong learning which have become so central to higher education seem to fit wellwith the needs of capital for a “flexible” labour force (Williams et al., 1992; Boynton& Milazzo, 1993; Armstrong, 2000) and with current social notions that one’s classposition is a product of one’s own making (see Byrne, 1999, especially Chapter 1).

The results of government-induced changes, especially the dramatic fall infunding, are becoming evident: degradation of university assets, poor infrastructure,increasingly casualized labour, outsourcing of services, significantly larger class


sizes, increased use of contract teaching, denuding of library collections and cutsto student and staff support (Parker, 2002). In the classroom, we see an emergentsituation of intolerance of critical and challenging perspectives and the nurturing of“cultural illiteracy”, where there is an absence of knowledge of the range of social,cultural, political, economic, environmental and scientific perspectives on issues(Clarke et al., 1999).

Beyond the active role of government, changes initiated within universities them-selves have also been significant (Marginson & Ramsden, 2000). Universities have,with varying degrees of enthusiasm, transformed their academic, management andadministrative aspects. Parker (2002) describes universities as having respondedmanagerially, ostensibly to achieve faster and more flexible decision-making. Henotes the structural appearance of decentralization but actual increasing central-ization within university managements, associated reduction in academic autonomywithin academic departments and for individual academics, and an increasing dis-connection from the academic community. In these managerial actions, universitieshave gone much further than merely reacting to changes “in the environment”. Theyhave, in fact, played a key role in both creating and enacting those very changes.In this sense, universities, at least at the managerial level, have provided minimalresistance to the economically rational agenda and have thus relatively smoothlyadapted to the changing hegemonic structure of multinational corporatism. This isin contrast with the types of resistance (Tilling, 2002) identified in universities duringthe industrial revolution11.

Falling into line again?

As the history of universities shows, they are much more than reactive supportersof dominant social interests. Universities have also served a historic role as agentsof social control, actively producing (as graduates) the types of citizens neededby the particular social system in place (see Kearney, 1970, especially ChaptersI, X and XI). Thus, universities have historically served a role in the productionand reproduction of social systems, not just as reactive (or, indeed, unreactive andresistant) elements in such systems.

Whilst there is some truth in the idea that “the university sector has no optionbut to rework itself in order to function properly given the changed circumstances”(Coaldrake, 2000, p. 9), acceptance of this notion accepts as legitimate the currentnature of such reworking and of the “proper” functions of universities as conceivedby economic rationalism. It is undoubted that governments in several countriesof the Western world have adopted and developed a marketized and contractualview of the relationship between government and citizens12. However, universityacquiescence to the governmental flavour of the day and acting as agents ofsocial control in serving dominant interests is not self-evidently consistent with theostensible social (rather than economic) role of universities.

Tilling (2002) suggests that the tensions evident as the university emerged fromthe Industrial Revolution have still not been entirely resolved, with the universityexhibiting a degree of insecurity about its social role. A degree of tension betweenmeeting the needs of industrial society and the less utilitarian traditional organization

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and values of universities continues. “A real tension has been created betweenthe need for universities to strategically position themselves for survival in a highlycompetitive environment, and the need for them to preserve space for inquiry andcritique. . . ” (Parker, 2002, p. 13). This is largely because the economic rationalistagenda privatizes and commercializes higher education to such an extent thatthe total concentration on responding to market trends means the capacity forcritical, long-term thinking is lost. “In this sense, the recovery of universities aspart of a democratic and popular project is one of the prerequisites for the 1990s”(Gorostiaga, 1999, pp. 97, 98). The maintenance (or, where it no longer exists, therestoration) of substantive academic control over teaching and learning is “crucial tothe long-term health of universities” (Aronowitz, 2000, p. 34). In seeking to “recover”the university, some advocate a mission that harks back to a seemingly bygoneera when education was regarded as worthy in its own right, quite apart from anyeconomic utility13, while others see a need for more radical change both within theuniversity and without.

(Still) Striving for an Ideal: the Recovery of the University

There is obviously a sense in which universities have been communities of scholarsworking within a general European tradition, and this perhaps is the “ideal” university, whichhas survived over the centuries . . . To discuss political and social factors in the history ofuniversities is, in effect, to draw attention to the ways in which universities have divergedfrom the ideal, perhaps inevitably so (Kearney, 1970, p. 167).

Tilling (2002) outlines how the more recent context of the “information revolution”and the phenomena associated with globalization mean that developments in theforces of production are once again centrally associated with major social change.Once again, he suggests, the university as a social institution must adapt. Hesuggests that within the university, academics must adapt in a measured wayto ensure relevance and, even, survival. How the appropriateness of academicadaptation might be determined is not explored in detail. Parker (2002) identifiesa need for academics to “reengage the discourse”, but this implies that they havebeen disengaged. The key issue is not engagement per se, but the nature ofthat engagement.

Tilling’s key message, that academics cannot sit on their hands and let the worldchange around them, assuming that they are somehow insulated from a changingcontext, and Parker’s urge for engagement, are important. But the lessons ofhistory here are not simply of the need to adapt to change and engage it. Thecontradictions within capitalist society mean that any development in the system willbring forth tensions and crises, and at issue in this context is whether universitiesact as agents of change and the continuing social control of the present hegemonicforces, or whether universities have the potential to contribute to enlightenment andunderstanding of the present social system, the development of consciousness,resistance to the prevailing order, and creation of a new hegemony. Presentindividual and collective action within the university will help create a future thatis more or less in accord with existing capitalist hegemony or contributes to acounterhegemonic position.


Whether or not The Idea of a University (Newman, 1996) is recoverable, entirelydesirable, or whether such an ideal university ever existed, the social role ofthe university as expressed by Newman undoubtedly remains. Whilst it seemsundoubted that a return to a purely liberal educational paradigm, as envisagedby Newman, is impossible (see Sanderson, 1972), there remains considerablescope (and space) to consider how university education should be oriented, andwhat social functions and needs it should fulfil, and to act in accordance withthese conclusions. Universities remain key social institutions that, whatever theirorientation, instil values in those who attend. The “chilling vision of the corporateuniversity” (Craig et al., 1999), designed to instill values consistent with the currentlydominant global capitalist hegemony of multinational business, is neither inevitablenor immutable.

In considering what university education could be, Preston’s (1992) outlineof three views of how education and curricula should be oriented is useful.Preston considers how education may be oriented towards vocational, liberalor socially critical ends. The vocational approach is characterised as viewingeducation extrinsically—a preparation for work, or some variation on this theme.Such education accommodates and adopts technocratic values and uncriticallyaccepts extant social hierarchies and structures. In so doing, vocational educationperpetuates injustice, elitism and social inequalities. Liberal education is centredon the notion that the individual person ought to be the focus of attention ineducation, and that the overriding aim of education should be to foster individualpotential. Liberal education rejects instrumentalism as the central aim of education,focusing on preparation of the whole person for life (not just work). The sociallycritical orientation to education accepts that education cannot be ideologicallyneutral, and that, indeed education ought to be positively committed to socialjustice. Socially critical education conceives of a reciprocal relationship betweeneducational institutions and society, with formal education being shaped by andresponsive to social demands, in turn, contributing to the shaping of society,in a dialectical fashion. Vocational and liberal aspects of education are notrejected under the socially critical orientation, but the overriding aim of educationis related to goals of emancipation, social justice and equality (Preston, 1992,pp. 50, 51).

Both vocational and traditional liberal ideals for education have been consistentwith the interests of the ruling elite at various times throughout history. Indeed, whilstthe shift from liberalism to vocationalism is clearly in accord with the present socialorder, the harked-back-to liberalism of Newman (1996) was part of the conservativeresistance to the changes of the Industrial Revolution (see Sanderson, 1975,pp. 115–122), and was therefore in accord with that hegemonic order. Liberalism’scentral adherence to individualism is also substantially in accord with the bourgeoisideals that underpin the present order. Commenting on the role of liberal schooleducation in the capitalist system, Gonzalez (1982) says:

The school acts as a gigantic inculcator of capitalism’s ideological core: individualismand acceptance of the naturalness of inequality. Individualism is an ideological conceptwhich at the level of consciousness tends to cement the various classes together. On theone hand, the emphasis placed upon the primacy of the individual consecrates private

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property and its concentration in the hands of a few. On the other, individualism places theresponsibility for high or low socioeconomic status upon the individual (Gonzalez, 1982,p. 143).

Gonzalez contends that liberal education, consistent with the interests of capital,inculcates in workers “a high degree of individualism and a low degree ofindividuality” (Gonzalez, 1982, p. 143). Individualism is fostered through devicesthat place responsibility for an individual’s place in society at their own feet, yetindividuality—individual abilities, desires, and preferences—is destroyed, and aconsciousness of inequality (as a necessary and inevitable outcome) is constantlystrengthened (ibid).

However, there may be room within liberalism to build a platform for a more criticalposition. Craig et al. (1999) put forward the view that the adoption of a challengingand critical perspective to the role and content of university education is consistentwith the liberal ideals expressed by Newman14. Inspired by Newman’s ideals, theysee an important role for education to reflect on and problematize the pervasiveideas of the times, specifically those of “global corporate libertarianism”. Indeed, theimportant socially critical role of universities is shown by Craig, Clarke and Amernicto be inconsistent with the corporate university. The present time of rethinkingand reworking the university can be “invasive, disruptive, and also enormouslystimulating” (Marginson, 2000, p. 26).

Implications: Action in the Present

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is theruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force . . . (Marx &Engels, 1970, p. 64, original emphasis).

It has been suggested that “. . . the establishment of a new language of the universityhas been accomplished and while we might distance ourselves from the ideologyof managerialism or even attempt to subvert it in various ways, we cannot helpbut be effectively reshaped by it” (Peters & Roberts, 1999, p. 47). This is at leastpartly because pressures of commercialization and corporatization represent a full-frontal attack on academic freedom insofar as they mean curtailment of “the rightsof academic staff to freely discuss, teach, assess, develop curricula, public andresearch and engage in community service” (Allport, 2000, p. 43). It cannot bequestioned that we are all products of our environment and of our history, but wenevertheless remain active agents in our own lives and our own future. Whetheruniversities and their constituents are reshaped like putty in the hands of the rulinghegemony, or whether they resist this reshaping where they can, and contribute tothe creation of an alternative vision (and reality) remains an open question that canonly be determined by action (or lack thereof) in the present. There can be littledoubt that, in any conceivable university future, the historical relationship betweenuniversities and the structure of society will continue. It is impossible, therefore, toconsider change in universities outside of change in the social totality, including itseconomic, cultural and political aspects.


The subordination of academic workers to the exigencies of probability andproductivity, both within universities and the corporate sector, is becoming moreevident as academic pressures and workloads intensify, casualization becomespervasive, work conditions deteriorate and massive new investment in informationtechnology is undertaken (see Allport, 2000; Aronowitz, 2000; Marginson, 2000).These changes signal the subsumption of academic labour, and the academygenerally (Tinker & Koutsoumadi, 1997, 1998; Lamont & Lucas, 1999), reducingthe autonomy of university labour to mere “moments” of capital (Aronowitz, 1978,p. 127). Increasing requirements that academic staff not act contrary to theperceived commercial interests of the university and its corporate backers—ademand for private sector style “corporate loyalty” (Allport, 2000)—makes thesubsumption more explicit and represents deepening integration of the universitywithin the capitalist order.

Current pressures on the university—flexible teaching and learning, corporatiza-tion, commercialism, privatization, multinational “education” provision, and the with-drawal of the state—are so fundamental that an important consideration is whetherthe survival of the university is dependent on continuing adaptation to the chang-ing needs of capital. History suggests that mere adaptation to change will simplyfurther the cause of extant dominant interests and as recent history shows, deepenpresent social inequalities. An alternative consideration is whether the lessons ofthe past can be put to use in confronting these interests. This would involve concep-tualizing and practising the possibilities for a progressive role for the university as asite of social struggle and truly emancipatory change and the building of an alter-native future. Academic staff retain position and power as active agents within theuniversity system, which carries a not inconsiderable ability to influence the shapeof change.

It is in this arena that the lessons of the past become a potent force for actionin the present. We need to make sure that we are cognisant of the process ofchange as one that arises from contradictions within the present social system.We need to be aware how change is driven by the structure of the social systemand how the effects of change are spread differentially across society. We need tobe cognisant of the ideological structure that mask the contradictions inherent inthe current social system. Above all, we need to be aware of the dual potentiality(dialectical possibilities) of and for change.

The dual role of the university as an object of change and an agent of change,and the tensions within this role, are central to the debate. So long as the universityadapts and survives merely as an agent of capital, the tensions inherent in thesystem will continue to impinge on the university, and will ultimately “boil over”.

Building a counterhegemonic position

Organic intellectuals.Gramsci identified the importance of intellectuals in society. The function ofintellectuals is to give a class homogeneity and an awareness of its own functionin economic, social and political fields (Gramsci, 1971, pp. 5–13). The generalcategory of intellectuals is not confined to a distinct social class, since all people are

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intellectuals in the sense that they possess and use their intellect, and their actionsin daily life involve an implicit philosophy of the world. Thus, while it is possibleto elaborate the characteristics of certain types of intellectuals in respect of theirfunctions in relation to class, it is not possible to speak of “non-intellectuals” as such(Gramsci, 1971, pp. 8, 9).

There are nevertheless two broad groups of people who are intellectuals by virtueof their social function: traditional intellectuals and organic intellectuals. Traditionalintellectuals consider themselves to be independent of social life and interests andoperate under a rhetoric of autonomy. They are an important legitimating institutionin maintaining hegemony, for if they can be captured by a particular ruling grouptheir rhetoric of independence serves to legitimate the world view supported bythat group (Richardson, 1987, p. 350). In contrast, organic intellectuals developfrom within a particular social group and retain primary allegiance to that group.Organic intellectuals are the product of an emergent social class; their role is tobring that class to self-consciousness in the cultural, political and economic fields.Consciousness in this realm is not mere understanding and reflection of mate-rial reality and its total relations, but is integrally tied to reflection upon that real-ity and active intervention therein (see Crotty, 1998; Freire, 1996; Jordan, 1971b,pp. 21–30; Lukacs, 1974a). Action springs from the inevitable contradictions un-der capitalism between the social relations of production, the state of society andconsciousness (Marx in Jordan, 1971b, pp. 97–99). A key aspect of organic in-tellectualism is active participation in the social and economic processes of prac-tical life and the relation of intellectual ideas to the lived experiences of ordinarypeople15.

Gramsci’s argument was that the lack of observed resistance on the part ofsubaltern classes was due to the ideological hegemony of the ruling classes (citedin Schaffer, 1995, p. 32). The ideological structures and reifying tendencies of theruling class lead many to accept as natural and inevitable a social order that isalien and oppressive. It was (and is) to transcend this hegemony that the subalternclasses need(ed) to develop their own organic intellectuals. For those who areoppressed, silenced and disadvantaged by the present social system, their abilityto become critically aware of their oppression—and to act on that awareness—isin the first instance obviated by their lack of class consciousness and the related“culture of silence” (see Crotty, 1998, pp. 153–155; Freire, 1996; Lukacs, 1974c).This means that the oppressed and disadvantaged are currently excluded fromprocesses of social and political change and are fully subject to the interests ofthe ruling hegemony. The critical articulation and explication of the lived experienceof subaltern classes is a key political role in consciousness-raising. It can open thepossibility of a “critical understanding of self” which takes place “through a struggleof opposing hegemonies” (Schaffer, 1995, p. 34).

The formation of a counterhegemony that is more truly indicative of the realeconomic, social and political conditions of existence, and can therefore beginto fundamentally change this existence through praxis, depends on simultaneouschanges in both the conditions of existence in the direction of equity andemancipation and the construction of a class consciousness and practices thatwould allow for this possibility (Schaffer, 1995, p. 29).


Mediation.Organic intellectuals play a critical role in the mediation of consciousness andlived experience. Lukacs (1974b) stresses the necessity of mediation—theoreticalconstruction—to develop consciousness of capitalist social relations and self-knowledge of the “true” social situation. Through processes of mediation peoplecome to an understanding of the social situation and their place in it. Mediation isnot one-sided: it can be reifying or emancipatory (Lukacs, 1974b; Aronowitz, 1981).Mediation in the emancipatory and enlightening sense requires transformation ofthe immediately given into a truly understood reality. This requires considerationof the totality of the social situation, including its class and power structures, notjust individual phenomena. Mediation, as theoretical construction, is needed totranscend immediate cognition. It is not an attempt to abandon or deny immanentsocial reality, but to understand objects of the empirical world as aspects of a totality(Lukacs, 1974b, p. 150).

The function of organic intellectuals is to develop and amplify links betweentheory, ideology and the lived experience of people. This results in the unificationof theory and practice by bringing a practical understanding of the conditionsof social life. The practical understanding of the conditions of the oppressedgives rise to potentially creative principles articulated in the form of a coherentphilosophy. Therefore organic intellectuals are not just intellectuals in the sense ofthe contemplative thinkers who comprise an intelligentsia, but are political activists,industrial technicians, political economists, legal specialists and others. Their roleis less contemplative than it is organizational, constructive and persuasive. Theactive participation of organic intellectuals in social life helps bring to theoreticalarticulation those positive political currents already contained within it. As part ofthis process, the hegemony of the ruling class comes into conflict with the ideaswhich are organic to the lived experiences, practices and actions of the subalternclasses (Schaffer, 1995, p. 34).

Contradiction, conflict and social change.For Gramsci the failure of organic intellectuals to critically articulate the contradic-tions of capitalism inhibits the practical realization of revolutionary class conscious-ness (cited in Schaffer, 1995, p. 35). The requirement that university academics,and university communities generally, be committed “disturbers of the peace” (Craiget al., 1999), seems a minimum commitment for any liberatory vision of the role ofuniversities. Emancipatory and enlightening practice can only be a fulfilment and acriterion of theory when it is based on what is held to be a correct reflection of re-ality (Lukacs, 1974b, p. xxv). This requires academics to look beyond the specificsof their disciplinary areas to the social totality and the interactions between disci-plinary areas and the totality. In this sense, beyond disturbing the peace per se, itis important to articulate the structures, sources and consequences of the extantsocial order. This leads to a notion of consciousness raising as “practical criticalactivity” with the task of “changing the world” (Marx cited in Lukacs, 1974b, p. 78),recognizing that “theory becomes a material force when it grips the masses” (seealso Aronowitz, 1978, p. 145; Marx, cited in Lukacs, 1974b). Lehman & Tinker’s(1987, p. 518) argument that mediation (in the theoretical construction of interests)

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requires that commonalities be argued and not just assumed, and that fundamentaloppositions and antagonisms be elucidated, seems apposite.

The power of the ruling class is both spiritual and material, so any potentialcounterhegemony must “carry its political campaign into this hitherto neglectedrealm of values and customs, speech habits and ritual practices” (Eagleton, 1991,p. 114). Aronowitz (1981) identifies a range of autonomous social movements towhich the concept of “working class” is not immediately relevant, including thoseconcerned with the environment, feminism, anti-racism, liberation theology, newnationalism and anti-colonial liberation16. These groups have in common genuineopposition to the present social and political order and the quest for radicalemancipatory change in the social system. Aronowitz suggests that a masterdiscourse of change is no longer possible17, but that these oppositional groupsmust be bound together in a new “historic bloc” (of equals) which seeks humanemancipation but recognizes the value and the permanence of difference (pp. 127–128). The quest for a “new society” requires organic intellectuals to articulate thesocial and cultural contradictions of the prevailing order and to harness the creativeimpulses of the range of oppositional movements noted here.

Concluding thoughts on practical academic engagement.Gramsci insists that the “doing human” cannot be separated from the “thinking hu-man” (Schaffer, 1995, p. 32). Praxis becomes active mediation between conscious-ness and its object and thereby links understanding and action (Aronowitz, 1981).Crotty notes that action and reflection must go together even in the temporal sense,for “praxis cannot be divided into a prior stage of reflection and a subsequent stageof action. Action and reflection take place at the same time” (Crotty, 1998, p. 151). Inthis way, action and reflection “constantly and mutually illuminate each other” (ibid.).

Protagonists of social change must recognise that there is nothing inevitableabout a revolution against capitalism, despite its continuing crises and contradic-tions (Aronowitz, 1978, 1981). The strength of capitalism’s present ideological andhegemonic position, and the system’s ongoing ability to repress its contradictionsthrough integration and subsumption, ensure this18. Underlying practical eman-cipatory engagement must be a definite will to construct a different social order,and this must commence with a radical critique of the present social order (Amin,1998, pp. 113–114). It must be recognized that the interests of academics andstudents may be both harmonious and dissonant at various levels—what benefitsthem in one arena may do the opposite in another (Lehman & Tinker, 1987, p. 518).Rehabilitation of the political factor in social life requires consideration beyondthe economic and narrow concern with “value” to incorporate matters relatingto culture, environmental, gender, and race (Amin, 1998; Aronowitz, 1981). “Itasks us to imagine a new civilization, not based on the constraints of value or onthose stemming from the concepts of political power associated with it” (Amin,1998, p. 68), and the organization, manner and content of university teaching andresearch must reflect this.

Kearney’s (1970) history shows that radical changes in universities has not comewithout social and political change. Ultimately, educational change is only possible inconjunction with wider social and political change (e.g. see Gonzalez, 1982, p. 39).


In the classroom and in the life of universities generally, attention must be focusedboth on the micro activities of daily life engaged in by academics and students, andhow these relate to the social totality, which includes the existing order, and to theinterests of various classes and sectors within society.

Struggle for democracy within the schools, offices, and factories is an important tacticalpart of the process for fundamental social change, but making the schools, offices, orthe factories themselves the principal objective can never bring power and fundamentalchange. The solution to oppression and exploitation (to antidemocracy in general) has asits strategic objective the taking of political power away from the economically dominantclass (Gonzalez, 1982, p. 149)

Academics with a commitment to social change and to a more equitable andjust society must recognize that the “traditional intellectual” role is at best neutraland is subject to cooption by the prevailing hegemonic order. To contribute tomeaningful change, the role of “organic intellectuals” must be adopted, relatingacademic intellectual work to the values and aspirations of the new historic bloc forsocial change, including environmental, gender, race, religious and cultural interests(Aronowitz, 1981). The history of (conservative) resistance within universities tochange reflects the existence of both traditional intellectuals and intellectualsorganic to one ruling elite or another. This is resistance that must be overcome if theinterests of “humanization” (Freire, 1996), emancipation and an end to dominationand exploitation are to come to the fore.

Action in the present, for academics as organic intellectuals, does not necessarilyrequire them to be marching in protest on the streets, rushing the barricades, orproselytizing from soap boxes on street corners (although none of these thingsis necessarily precluded) but it does require them to bring the role of organicintellectual to their teaching, research, administration and service activities. Theintellectual isolation of the traditional intellectual must be actively contrasted withthe active, conscious and reflexive participation of the organic intellectual. Concrete,practical intellectual activity must involve a relation between teaching and researchand society as a whole, bringing historical, social and political understanding, notjust narrow disciplinary technical and economic understanding. This is necessarybecause “only when this relation is established does the consciousness of theirexistence that men have at any given time emerge in all its essential characteristics”(Lukacs, 1974b, p. 50).

Notes

1. Whilst many countries of the South cannot be said to have been directly impacted upon by theIndustrial Revolution—in terms of themselves industrializing—it cannot be denied that most havebeen at least indirectly affected, even if only as the victims of colonialism and exploitation as suppliersof labour and raw materials to industrial(ising) countries (see, for example, Adams, 1993; Hoogvelt,1997; Hoogvelt & Tinker, 1978). In this sense both the Industrial Revolution of the past and the“information revolution” of the present might be said to share the characteristic of being global inreach, but not global in terms of distribution, equity, or justice.

2. The Marxian view of history is contrasted to the “great men” view of history that focuses on the“greats” (individual men) as the agents of historical change, and the “events” in which they wereinvolved as constituting history.

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3. Sanderson notes that the requirement of metals, mining, utilities, paper, printing, food, chemicaland other industries in the late nineteenth century, and the simultaneous contraction in textiles andclothing contributed, given that the former had a far greater need for trained personnel.

4. In one sense the “new universities,” and especially those in Scotland and Wales, became “enginesof social mobility”, and entrance was not confined to a privileged few. However, change at Oxfordand Cambridge was slow, and they continued to cater principally for the elite (see Sanderson, 1975,pp. 17–20). In one sense, there is an element of contradiction here, in that in catering for the needs ofindustry, universities brought education to some in the lower classes—such contradiction would notbe unexpected in any Marxist analysis. But notwithstanding the education provided to some of thelower classes, it remains the case that the education provided was entirely consistent with the needsof industry—overall, the consistency of the content of education with the ideals of the elite, and thesocialization of students into the dominant values of the ruling class, was essentially untouched.

5. Saul (1997) discusses how it was not the Industrial Revolution that delivered prosperity to society.Indeed, the Industrial Revolution and subsequent capitalist development, brought unstable but long-term poverty. Prosperity was brought through response to capitalist crises. “Quite simply, as thenineteenth century advanced into the twentieth, a growing number of citizens publicly opposed theconditions created by the Industrial Revolution. They exercized the power of their legitimacy . . . . Mostof the reforms that brought prosperity were the result not of self-interested action but of disinterestedaction—citizens committing themselves beyond their personal interest in order to widen the publicgood . . . ” (Saul, 1997, p. 120). In part, it is the capacity of capitalism to capture and integrate essentialopposing elements that has ensured its survival.

6. For example:

The vaunted globalization remains curtailed to the detriment of labour markets and, to anever-increasing extent, by strengthened restrictions against immigration; rhetoric aboutthe virtues of competition barely hides how in practice monopolies are systematicallydefended (as is visible in the dealings of the new World Trade Organization, orWTO); and insistence on discounting the future reduces to zero the significance ofenvironmentalist discourse (Amin, 1998, p. 44).

7. It should be noted that it is simplistic to focus on globalization solely as an economic phenomenon,for this ignores the social totality. Public order globalization and popular (or civil society) globalizationneed also to be considered (see Suter, 2000).

8. Gonzalez makes an argument that mass primary education was primarily about keeping former butnow unneeded child labour out of the workforce (Gonzalez, 1982). There was a dual role: creatinga consciousness of the organic society, and keeping children off the streets whilst ideologicallypreparing them for future roles in capitalist production.

9. This trend is not yet totalizing throughout university systems, with some arts and humanitiesdepartments such as sociology, criminology and women’s studies still providing for vigorous socialcritique. Nevertheless, the tendency is evident even in some areas of the arts and humanities, where,if courses are not being shut down, they are being refocused with a vocational orientation, such associal work, public relations, or police studies, and many universities provide tailored courses forspecial interest commercial purchasers in these areas.

10. The Universitas 21 development suggests that the relationships between universities and corpora-tions are dramatically changing, and that corporations may use universities more directly in servingtheir interests. They could even decide that they do not need universities any more other than as atool to legitimize developing mass market sausage-machine corporate universities.

11. The smoothness here refers to the adaptation at the managerial level. As noted earlier, the upheavalhas had significant negative consequences for both the nature of academic work, and for the natureof universities themselves (these are nicely articulated and summarized in Aronowitz, 2000). Therehas been resistance on the part of academic and general staff unions, but at the level of the institutionitself, compliance (sometimes enthusiastic) with the reform agenda has been the norm.

12. Allport (2000, p. 37) identifies the Australian governments as “so representative of the dominantneoliberal position”. Such a position has been adopted by governments in a number of Westerncountries, but is also increasingly adopted by a range of developing countries. However, the“pervasive influence” of the institutions dominated by Western developed nations, such as theInternational Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, means that changesin developing countries are largely inspired by the interests of the West, and co-incident interestsof ruling elites within such countries. US$481 million in tertiary education funding provided to 70


countries by the World Bank is conditional on the application of deregulatory policies to nationaleducation systems (Allport, 2000, p. 38).

13. The bygone era is a myth; it never really existed. As the earlier discussion in this paper shows, liberaluniversity education had its own utility for those who had the right, or the means, to attend university.

14. Or, at least, that the liberal ideals expressed by Newman are not inconsistent with a criticalperspective.

15. This is not the “organic intellectualism” of banner-waving, slogan-chanting, label-wearing activistswho might see a role for themselves in “running” the class struggle under the name of this or that“ism”. It is an intellectualism that sees academic isolation within assumed disciplinary boundariesas unrealistic and untenable. The work of the organic intellectual recognizes the interrelatedness ofideas and action and of ideas and power and explicates the wider social causes and ramifications ofwhat happens inside the academic disciplines.

16. Today, we might add anti-globalist to this list.17. As Aronowitz notes, “economic struggles no longer retain their subversive content” (p. 128) both

because the “historic-left parties have become parties of order, instruments of rule” (p. 126) andthe integrative and subsuming logic of capital permanently (that is, repeatedly) suppresses them.He also notes that the programme of Marxist economics “is surfeited with the achievements of latecapitalism” (p. 131), (see also Cassidy, 1997).

18. An additional factor is the current status of the political parties of the left. On the one hand, thecontemporary fall of Communism assists in the (ideological and hegemonic) perception of capitalismas a natural social order rather than a contingent one, but on the other, it clears the way forrevolutionary aspiration and practice based on a broader historic bloc (see, for example Aronowitz,1981).

Acknowledgement

I am very grateful to Cindy Davids for her comments.

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now and then: revolutions in higher learning

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