Harry Targ
One of the most thorough, analytical, and historical analyses of the relationship between the capitalist economy, the state, and higher education was provided by political scientist, Clyde W. Barrow (Universities and the Capitalist State: Corporate Liberalism and the Reconstruction of American Higher Education 1894-1928, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990). Although his focus was on the rise of the modern university in the “age of reform” (from the 1890s until the 1920s), many of his insights are relevant today, another era of educational “reform.”
Higher education, once dominated by theological pursuits, was refashioned to serve the needs of modern capitalist society. The need for scientific and technical skills coupled with a trained work force stimulated the establishment of educational institutions that could produce credentialed graduates who would serve the capitalist system. Also theoretical work and classroom education was required to educate the young to celebrate the blessings of the economic system and the conduct of the government. Young people learned about the desirability of market economies, the country’s long tradition of democratic institutions, and the manifest destiny of the United States.
Barrow provides data to show that members of university Boards of Trustees, the key decision makers in these institutions, came largely from big corporations, huge banks, and law firms which served big business.. There were never representatives of broader citizens groups such as labor unions on these boards.
During the early twentieth century, Trustees worked to establish an administrative class that could carry out the day-to-day operations of the university and manage the faculty who were the producers of the mental products the university was assigned to produce. Managerial procedures were adopted to control mental labor in the classroom and the laboratory. Metrics were institutionalized to evaluate the rates of productivity of the faculty; from measuring enrollments, publications, and the rankings of the university. Federal and state governments and foundations funded the construction of a national university system that would serve the interests of twentieth century capitalism.
During periods when domestic crises or war occurred which often stimulated critical analyses from universities, faculty were disciplined or fired for expressing critical views. The educational mission was to serve the interests of the economic elites and the state, not to provide a venue for critical thinking and debate about issues important to society.
Barrow summarized his findings about higher education:
Individual institutions were developing into centralized corporate bureaucracies administered according to nationally standardized measurements of productivity and rates of return on investment. The entire educational enterprise was being restructured within these standards as a production process that was increasingly integrated into local or regional markets for labor, information, research and professional expertise. The process was more and more a planned undertaking...(123)
This description of the emergence of the modern university system about one hundred years ago bears resemblance to the wrenching changes that are occurring in higher education in the twenty-first century. First, further economic elites still dominate educational institutions as members of Board of Trustees.
Second, when economic or political crises occur Boards of Trustees, and their advisers in think tanks and political organizations, demand increasing efficiencies in the production and teaching of knowledge. Programs that could not be justified as good “investments” became vulnerable. The humanities disciplines had to be justified by their use value to the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines.
Third, metrics have become omnipresent. Colleges and universities are using quantitative instruments to measure “creativity,” “critical thinking,” “personal satisfaction,” “teacher effectiveness,” and faculty “productivity.” University administrators strongly imply that if the activities at their institutions are not measurable in the narrow numerical sense, they should not be supported.
Fourth, the nature of debate in the university is circumscribed. University policies, in response to organizations of professors and students, have expanded rights to “academic freedom” and have provided some job security through tenure. But, as recent legislative action and administrative decisions suggest, attacks on tenure (which is a right to job security that all workers should enjoy if they perform their duties) and faculty and students who raise criticisms of public policy proceeds. are creating an intellectual environment which stifles honest discussion and creativity.
There are two
additional features that have emerged in the twenty-first century. First, the
modern university has become a research and personnel recruitment arm of the Department
of Defense and core military contractors. A recent article in the Association
of American Universities (AAU) describes
this trend vividly.
Second, the modern university has been thoroughly privatized. Services that used to be part of the university system, from food service, to janitorial, to a multiplicity of tasks that are vital to the university community, have been contracted out to corporations, often with links to members of Boards of Trustees. In addition, universities which are major employers in communities, levy undo pressure on local governments to secure tax incentives and patterns of deregulation that advance the interests of private investors.
To forestall these
trends, faculty and students, as Barrows suggests, need to understand that
“education has been and remains a contested terrain.” Most educators
believe that the primary purpose of the university is or should be to stimulate a discussion of ideas in an environment of intellectual diversity and a multiplicity of disciplines.
