The University and Anarcho-Capitalism

Or rather the Technological University…What has become increasingly apparent is that the TU is formulated to be a subsidiary of the anarcho-capitalist dream, a trojan horse designed to undermine, and ultimately destroy, ideas of collegiality, community and democracy. The motivation, the function, of the TU is profit, hence the layers of administration to control academia, the imposition of monolithic “command structures”, the pseudo-‘business’ job titles – all designed to displace and replace competing concepts of rationality with one: univocal, over-arching apparently impervious to challenge. Part of the design is to colonise the notion of ‘progress’, as business-speak has colonised language per se in the past two decades: terms such as ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ are now taken to mean the discovery of new ways to exploit others, and ‘transparency’ is simply a method of concealing power, information and responsibility. ‘Progress’ in the shiny new world of the TU is concerned with ‘value’, yet ‘value’ istelf can only be calculated in terms of financial profit – the value of the Arts, of community, of democracy is subsumed in this colonisation.

The TU becomes a frontline in the anarcho-capitalist fantasy of “the zone” – an area where relationships are purely financial, there are no guarantees of continuing employment, no commitment to anything other than “what business wants”…and certainly no commitment to knoweldge for its own sake or for the ‘improvement’ of the human condition; the human condition is seen as one of a perpetual competition between individuals, the contract defines what is now called social capital. In short, as Margaret Thatcher claimed, “There is no such thing as society; there are only collections of individuals.”

The “traditional university” (as we might call it) is/was a site for the advancement of knoweldge, for the analysis of perspectives on human society and how these might be advanced to increase the sum of human happiness. In terms of the Arts, what are the various branches, other than perspectives, ways of seeing? What does a novel, poem, play, painting or film do, but posit an alternative to what exists? In the brave new world of the TU, this multiplicity is rejected (in a similar way to the marginalisation of the Artist in the nineteenth century, that apparently great age of “industrial capitalism”). Students, or as we are now told we must call them, ‘learners’, must be instructed in the ‘principles’ of business as the foundation of all things. In Heideggerian terms, calculative thinking becomes the foundation of the TU; meditative thinking is consigned to the dustbin of history. ‘Progress’ and “financial success” merge, becoming one and the same, which in turn connects to the nostrum of “the individual” as the basic unit of society (although this nostrum is incompatible with the idea of society). Egocentric individualism, the neoliberal’s building block, is deliberately promoted as the only ‘adult’ attitude, anything else is dismissed as ‘unrealistic’, ‘puerile’.

By focusing on for-profit research, the TU deliberately marginalises the Arts – ultimately, they are to disappear or become the preserve of the wealthy – and becomes a function of busines, engaged only in those activities which business ‘wants’. Put another way, “the market” dictates the terms…but this is the problem: the market is being allowed (encouraged?) to control the discourse. The market becomes the ultimate arbiter. In the same way as the market has destroyed the NHS and the role(s) of the university in the UK, the TU is being positioned (by successive right-wing governments) to colonise education in Ireland.

Which means we need to discuss concepts of value…

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