The following is the
first part of a series of articles, “Class War and the College Crisis.”
By: Andrew Gavin Marshall
Today, we are witnessing an
emerging massive global revolt, led primarily by the educated and unemployed
youth of the world, against the institutionalized and established powers which
seek to deprive them of a future worth living. In Chile over the past year, a
massive student movement and strike has become a powerful force in the country
against the increasingly privatized educational system (serving as a model for
the rest of the world) with the support of the vast majority of the population;
in Quebec, Canada, a student strike has brought hundreds of thousands of youth
into the streets to protest against the doubling of tuition fees; students and
others are on strike in Spain against austerity measures; protests led by or
with heavy participation of the youth in the U.K., Greece, Portugal, France,
and in the United States (such as with the Occupy Movement) are developing and
growing, struggling against austerity measures, overt corruption by the
capitalist class, and government collusion with bankers and corporations.
Students and youth led the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt last year which led
to the overthrow of the dictators which had ruled those nations for decades.
All
around the world, increasingly, the youth are taking to the streets,
protesting, agitating, and striking against the abuses of power, the failures
of government, the excesses of greed, plundering and poverty. The educated
youth in particular are playing an active role, a role which will be increasing
dramatically over the coming year and years. The educated youth are graduating
into a jobless market with immense debt and few opportunities. Now, just as
several decades ago, the youth are turning back to activism. What happened in
the intervening period to derail the activism that had been so widespread in
the 1960s? How did our educational system get to its present state? What do
these implications have for the present and future?
The “Crisis of Democracy”
In
the period between the 1950s and the 1970s, the Western world, and especially
the United States, experienced a massive wave of resistance, rebellion,
protest, activism and direct action by entire sectors of the general population
which had for decades, if not centuries, been largely oppressed and ignored by
the institutional power structure of society. The Civil Rights movement in the
United States, the rise of the New Left – radical and activist – in both Europe
and North America, as elsewhere, anti-war activism, largely spurred against the
Vietnam War, Liberation Theology in Latin America (and the Philippines), the
environmental movement, feminist movement, gay rights movements, and all sorts
of other activist and mobilized movements of youth and large sectors of society
were organizing and actively agitating for change, reform, or even revolution.
The more power resisted their demands, the more the movements became
radicalized. The slower power acted, the faster people reacted. The effect,
essentially, was that these movements sought to, and in many cases did, empower
vast populations who had otherwise been oppressed and ignored, and they
generally awakened the mass of society to such injustices as racism, war, and
repression.
For the general population, these movements were an
enlightening, civilizing, and hopeful phase in our modern history. For elites,
they were terrifying. Thus, in the early 1970s there was a discussion taking
place among the intellectual elite, most especially in the United States, on
what became known as the “Crisis of Democracy.” In 1973, the Trilateral
Commission was formed by banker and global oligarch David Rockefeller, and
intellectual elitist Zbigniew Brzezinski. The Trilateral Commission brings
together elites from North America, Western Europe, and Japan (now including
several states in East Asia), from the realms of politics, finance, economics,
corporations, international organizations, NGOs, academia, military,
intelligence, media, and foreign policy circles. It acts as a major
international think tank, designed to coordinate and establish consensus among
the dominant imperial powers of the world.
In 1975, the Trilateral Commission issued a major report
entitled, “The Crisis of Democracy,” in which the authors lamented against the
“democratic surge” of the 1960s and the “overload” this imposed upon the
institutions of authority. Samuel Huntington, a political scientist and one of
the principal authors of the report, wrote that the 1960s saw a surge in
democracy in America, with an upswing in citizen participation, often “in the
form of marches, demonstrations, protest movements, and ‘cause’ organizations.”
Further, “the 1960s also saw a reassertion of the primacy of equality as a goal
in social, economic, and political life.” Of course, for Huntington and the
Trilateral Commission, which was founded by Huntington’s friend, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, and banker David Rockefeller, the idea of “equality as a goal in
social, economic, and political life” is a terrible and frightening prospect.
Huntington analyzed how as part of this “democratic surge,” statistics showed
that throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s, there was a dramatic
increase in the percentage of people who felt the United States was spending
too much on defense (from 18% in 1960 to 52% in 1969, largely due to the
Vietnam War).[1]
Huntington wrote that the “essence of the democratic surge of
the 1960s was a general challenge to existing systems of authority, public and
private,” and further: “People no longer felt the same compulsion to obey those
whom they had previously considered superior to themselves in age, rank,
status, expertise, character, or talents.” He explained that in the 1960s,
“hierarchy, expertise, and wealth” had come “under heavy attack.” The use of
language here is important, in framing power and wealth as “under attack” which
implied that those who were “attacking” were the aggressors, as opposed to the
fact that these populations (such as black Americans) had in fact been under
attack from power and wealth for centuries, and were just then beginning to
fight back. Thus, the self defense of people against power and wealth is
referred to as an “attack.” Huntington stated that the three key issues which
were central to the increased political participation in the 1960s were:
social
issues, such as use of drugs, civil liberties, and the role of women; racial
issues, involving integration, busing, government aid to minority groups, and
urban riots; military issues, involving primarily, of course, the war in
Vietnam but also the draft, military spending, military aid programs, and the
role of the military-industrial complex more generally.[2]
Huntington presented these
issues, essentially, as the “crisis of democracy,” in that they increased
distrust with the government and authority, that they led to social and
ideological polarization, and ultimately, to a “decline in the authority,
status, influence, and effectiveness of the presidency.” Huntington concluded
that many problems of governance in the United States stem from an “excess of
democracy,” and that, “the effective operation of a democratic political system
usually requires some measure of apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some
individuals and groups.” Huntington explained that society has always had
“marginal groups” which do not participate in politics, and while acknowledging
that the existence of “marginality on the part of some groups is inherently
undemocratic,” it has also “enabled democracy to function effectively.”
Huntington identifies “the blacks” as one such group that had become
politically active, posing a “danger of overloading the political system with
demands.” Of course, this implies directly an elitist version of “democracy” in
which the state retains the democratic aesthetic (voting, separation of powers,
rule of law) but remains exclusively in the hands of the wealthy power elite.
Huntington, in his conclusion, stated that the vulnerability of democracy – the
‘crisis of democracy’ – comes “from the internal dynamics of democracy itself
in a highly educated, mobilized, and participant society,” and that what is
needed is “a more balanced existence” in which there are “desirable limits to
the indefinite extension of political democracy.”[3] In other words, what is
needed is less democracy
and more authority.
The
Trilateral Commission later explained its views of the “threat” to democracy
and thus, the way the system ‘should’ function:
In
most of the Trilateral countries [Western Europe, North America, Japan] in the
past decade there has been a decline in the confidence and trust which the
people have in government… Authority has been challenged not only in
government, but in trade unions, business enterprises, schools and
universities, professional associations, churches, and civic groups. In the
past, those institutions
which have played the major role in the indoctrination of the young in their rights and obligations as
members of society have been the family, the church, the school, and the army.
The effectiveness of all these institutions as a means of socialization has
declined severely. (emphasis added) [4]
The
“excess of democracy” which this entailed created a supposed “surge of demands”
upon the government, just at a time when the government’s authority was being
undermined. The Trilateral Commission further sent rampant shivers through the
intellectual elite community by discussing the perceived threat of
“value-oriented intellectuals” who dare to “assert their disgust with the
corruption, materialism, and inefficiency of democracy and with the subservience
of democratic government to ‘monopoly capitalism’.” For the members and
constituents (elites) of the Trilateral Commission, they did not hold back on
the assessment of such a threat, stating that, “this development constitutes a
challenge to democratic government which is, potentially at least, as serious
as those posed in the past by the aristocratic cliques, fascist movements, and
communist parties.”[5] This is a very typical elitist use of rhetoric in which
when identifying any perceived threat to elite interests, they are portrayed in
near-apocalyptic terms. The implication, therefore, is that intellectuals who
challenge authority are presented as much of a threat to democracy as Hitler
and fascism were.
The Trilateral Commission
report explained – through economic reasoning – how increased democracy is
simply unsustainable. The “democratic surge” gave disadvantaged groups new
rights and made them politically active (such as blacks), and this resulted in
increased demands upon the very system whose legitimacy had been weakened. A
terrible scenario for elites! The report explained that as voting decreased
throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, active political participation on
campuses increased, minority groups were demanding rights (how dare they!), and
not only were they demanding basic human rights, but also “opportunities,
positions, rewards, and privileges, which they had not considered themselves
entitled to before.” That is, unlike the rich, who have considered themselves
entitled to everything, always, and forever. Thus, government spending on
social welfare and education increased, explained the report: “By the early
1970s Americans were progressively demanding and receiving more benefits from
their government and yet having less confidence in their government than they
had a decade before.” Most people would refer to that as the achievement of
democracy, but for the Trilateral “intellectuals” it was an “excess of
democracy,” and indeed, a threat.[6]
Samuel
Huntington, naturally, assumed that the decline of confidence in the government
was irrational, and had nothing to do with the Vietnam War, police and state
repression of protest movements, the Watergate Scandal or other obvious crimes.
No, for Huntington, the decline in confidence is tied magically to the
“increased expectations” of the population, or, as Jay Peterzell explained in
his critique of the report, “the root cause of public disillusionment is
consistently traced to unrealistic expectations encouraged by government
spending.” Huntington justified this absurd myth on his skewed analysis of the
“defense shift” and “welfare shift.” The “defense shift,” which took place in
the 1950s, described a period in which 36% of the increase in government
spending went to defense (i.e., the military-industrial complex), whereas
welfare declined as a proportion of the budget. Then came the “welfare shift”
of the 1960s, in which between 1960 and 1971, only a paltry 15% of the increase
in spending went to the military-industrial complex, while 84% of the increase
went to domestic programs. Thus, for Huntington, the “welfare shift” basically
destroyed America and ruined democracy.[7]
In reality, however, Jay
Peterzell broke down the numbers to explain the “shifts” in a larger and more
rational context. While it was true that the percentages increased and
decreased as Huntington displayed them, they were, after all, a percentage of
the “increase” in spending, not the overall percentage of spending itself. So,
when one looks at the overall government spending in 1950, 1960, and
1972, the percentage on “defense” was 44, to 53, to 37. In those same years,
spending on welfare amounted to 4%, 3% and 6%. Thus, between 1960 and 1972, the
amount of spending on defense decreased from 53-37% of the total spending of
government. In the same years, spending on welfare increased from 3-6% of the total government expenditure. When viewing it as
a percentage of the overall, it can hardly be legitimate to claim that the
meager increase to 6% of government expenditures for welfare was anywhere near
as “threatening” to democracy as was the 37% spent on the military-industrial
complex.[8]
So naturally, as a result of such terrifying statistics,
the intellectual elite and their financial overlords had to impose more
authority and less democracy. It was not simply the Trilateral Commission
advocating for such “restraints” upon democracy, but this was a major
discussion in elite academic circles in the 1970s. In Britain, this discussion
emerged on the “governability thesis” – or the “overload” thesis – of
democracy. Samuel Brittan’s “The Economic Contradictions of Democracy” in 1975,
explained that, “The temptation to encourage fake expectations among the
electorate becomes overwhelming to politicians. The opposition parties are
bound to promise to do better and the government party must join in the
auction.” Essentially, it was a repetition of the Trilateral thesis that too
many promises create too many demands, which then create too much stress for
the system, and it would inevitably collapse. Anthony King echoed this in his
piece, “Overload: Problems of Governing in the 1970s,” and King explained that
governing was becoming “harder” because “at one and the same time, the range of
problems that government is expected to deal with has vastly increased and its
capacity to deal with problems, even many of the ones it had before, has
decreased.” The Italian political scientist Giovanni Sartori asked the
question, “Will Democracy Kill Democracy?”
We are pursuing targets which
are out of proportion, unduly isolated and pursued blindly, and that are,
therefore, in the process of creating… a wholly unmanageable and ominous
overload… We are beginning to realize in the prosperous democracies that we are
living above our means. But we are equally and more grievously living above and
beyond our intelligence, above the understanding of what we are doing.[9]
King explained that, “Political scientists have traditionally
been concerned to improve the performance of government.” An obvious mistake,
concluded King, who suggested that, “Perhaps over the next few years they
should be concerned more with how the number of tasks that government has come
to be expected to perform can be reduced.” The “remedy” for all this “overload”
of democratic societies was to, first, bring “an end to the politics of
‘promising’,” and second, “attempt to reduce the expectations of voters and
consumers” on the political process.[10]
The “threat” of educated youth was especially pronounced. In
1978, the Management Development Institute (a major business school in India)
released a report in which it stated:
perhaps
the most pernicious trend over the next decade is the growing gap between an
increasingly well educated labor force and the number of job openings which can
utilize its skills and qualifications… The potential for frustration,
alienation and disruption resulting from the disparity between educational
attainment and the appropriate job content cannot be overemphasized.[11]
In these commentaries, we are dealing with two diametrically
opposed definitions of democracy: popular and elitist. Popular democracy is
government of, by, and for the people; elitist democracy is government of, by,
and for the rich (but with the outward aesthetic of democracies), channeling
popular participation into voting instead of decision-making or active
participation. Popular democracy implies the people participating directly in
the decisions and functions and maintenance of the ‘nation’ (though not
necessarily the State); whereas elitist democracy implies passive participation
of the population so much as to allow them to feel as if they play an important
role in the direction of society, while the elites control all the important
levers and institutions of power which direct and benefit from the actions of
the state. These differing definitions are important because when reading
reports written and issued by elite interests (such as the Trilateral Commission
report), it changes the substance and meaning of the report itself. For
example, take the case of Samuel Huntington lamenting at the threat posed to
democracy by popular participation: from the logic of popular democracy, this
is an absurd statement that doesn’t make sense; from the logic of elitist
democracy, the statement is accurate and profoundly important. Elites
understand this differentiation, so too must the public.
The Powell Memo: Protecting the Plutocracy
While
elites were lamenting over the surge in democracy, particularly in the 1960s,
they were not simply complaining about an “excess of democracy” but were
actively planning on reducing it. Four years prior to the Trilateral Commission
report, in 1971, the infamous and secret ‘Powell Memo’ was issued, written by a
corporate lawyer and tobacco company board member, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (whom
President Nixon nominated to the Supreme Court two months later), which was
addressed to the Chairman of the Education Committee of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, representing American business interests.
Powell stipulated that “the American economic system is under
broad attack,” and that, “the assault on the enterprise system is broadly based
and consistently pursued… gaining momentum and converts.” While the ‘sources’
of the ‘attack’ were identified as broad, they included the usual crowd of
critics, Communists, the New Left, and “other revolutionaries who would destroy
the entire system, both political and economic.” Adding to this was that these
“extremists” were increasingly “more welcomed and encouraged by other elements
of society, than ever before in our history.” The real “threat,” however, was
the “voices joining the chorus of criticism [which] come from perfectly
respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the
media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from
politicians.” While acknowledging that in these very sectors, those who speak
out against the ‘system’ are still a minority, Powell noted, “these are often
the most articulate, the most vocal, the most prolific in their writing and
speaking.”[12]
Powell discussed the “paradox” of how the business leaders
appear to be participating – or simply tolerating – the attacks on the “free
enterprise system,” whether by providing a voice through the media which they
own, or through universities, despite the fact that “[t]he boards of trustees
of our universities overwhelmingly are composed of men and women who are
leaders in the system.” Powell lamented the conclusions of reports indicating
that colleges were graduating students who “despise the American political and
economic system,” and thus, who would be inclined to move into power and create
change, or outright challenge the system head on. This marked an “intellectual
warfare” being waged against the system, according to Powell, who then quoted
economist Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago (and the ‘father’ of
neoliberalism), who stated:
It
[is] crystal clear that the foundations of our free society are under
wide-ranging and powerful attack – not by Communists or any other conspiracy
but by misguided individuals parroting one another and unwittingly serving ends
they would never intentionally promote.[13]
Powell even specifically identified Ralph Nader as a “threat”
to American business. Powell further deplored the changes and “attack” being
made through the courts and legal system, which began targeting corporate tax
breaks and loop holes, with the media supporting such initiatives since they
help “the poor.” Powell of course referred to the notion of helping “the poor”
at the expense of the rich, and the framing of the debate as such, as
“political demagoguery or economic illiteracy,” and that the identification of
class politics – the rich versus the poor – “is the cheapest and most dangerous
kind of politics.” The response from the business world to this “broad attack,”
Powell sadly reported, was “appeasement, ineptitude and ignoring the problem.”
Powell did, however, explain in sympathy to the ‘ineptitude’ of the corporate
and financial elites that, “it must be recognized that businessmen have not
been trained or equipped to conduct guerilla warfare with those who
propagandize against the system.”[14]
While the “tradition role” of business leaders has been to
make profits, “create jobs,” to “improve the standard of living,” and of
course, “generally to be good citizens,” they have unfortunately shown “little
skill in effective intellectual and philosophical debate.” Thus, stated Powell,
businessmen must first “recognize that the ultimate issue may be survival –
survival of what we call the free enterprise system, and all that this means
for the strength and prosperity of America and the freedom of our people.” As
such, “top [corporate] management must be equally concerned with protecting and
preserving the system itself,” instead of just focused on profits.
Corporations, Powell acknowledged, were long involved in “public relations” and
“governmental affairs” (read: propaganda and public policy), however, the
‘counter-attack’ must be more wide-ranging:
But
independent and uncoordinated activity by individual corporations, as important
as this is, will not be sufficient. Strength lies in organization, in careful
long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an
indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through
joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action
and national organizations.[15]
While the ‘assault’ against the system developed over several
decades, Powell elaborated, “there is reason to believe that the campus
[university/education] is the single most dynamic source,” as “social science
faculties usually include members who are unsympathetic to the enterprise
system.” These academics, explained Powell, “need not be in the majority,” as
they “are often personally attractive and magnetic; they are stimulating
teachers, and their controversy attracts student following; they are prolific
writers and lecturers; they author many of the textbooks, and they exert
enormous influence – far out of proportion to their numbers – on their
colleagues and in the academic world.” Such a situation is, naturally, horrific
and deplorable! Imagine that, having magnetic, stimulating and prolific
teachers, what horror and despair for the world that would surely bring!
In purporting that political scientists, economists,
sociologists and many historians “tend to be liberally oriented,” Powell
suggested that “the need for liberal thought is essential to a balanced
viewpoint,” but that the ‘balance’ does not exist, with “few [faculty] members
being conservatives or [of] moderate persuasion… and being less articulate and
aggressive than their crusading colleagues.” Terrified of the prospects of
these potentially revolutionary youths entering into positions of power, Powell
stated that when they do, “for the most part they quickly discover the
fallacies of what they have been taught,” which is, in other words, to say that
they quickly become socialized to the structures, hierarchies and institutions
of power which demand conformity and subservience to elite interests. However,
there were still many who could emerge in “positions of influence where they
mold public opinion and often shape governmental action.” Thus, recommended
Powell, the Chamber of Commerce should make the “priority task of business” and
its related organizations “to address the campus origin of this hostility.” As
academic freedom was held as sacrosanct in American society, “It would be fatal
to attack this as a principle,” which of course implies that it is to be
attacked indirectly. Instead, it would be more effective to use the rhetoric of
“academic freedom” itself against the principle of academic freedom, using
terms like “openness,” “fairness,” and “balance” as points of critique which
would yield “a great opportunity for constructive action.”[16]
Thus, an organization such as the Chamber of Commerce should,
recommended Powell, “consider establishing a staff of highly qualified scholars
in the social sciences who do believe in the system… [including] several of
national reputation whose authorship would be widely respected – even when
disagreed with.” The Chamber should also create “a staff of speakers of the
highest competency” which “might include the scholars,” and establish a
‘Speaker’s Bureau’ which would “include the ablest and most effective advocates
form the top echelons of American business.” This staff of scholars, which Powell
emphasized, should be referred to as “independent scholars,” should then engage
in a continuing program of evaluating “social science textbooks, especially in
economics, political science and sociology.” The objective of this would “be
oriented toward restoring the balance essential to genuine academic freedom,”
meaning, of course, implanting ideological indoctrination and propaganda from
the business world, which Powell described as the “assurance of fair and
factual treatment of our system of government and our enterprise system, its
accomplishments, its basic relationship to individual rights and freedoms, and
comparisons with the systems of socialism, fascism and communism.” Powell
lamented that the “civil rights movement insist[ed] on re-writing many of the
textbooks in our universities and schools,” and “labor unions likewise
insist[ed] that textbooks be fair to the viewpoints of organized labor.” Thus,
Powell contended, in the business world attempting to re-write textbooks and
education, this process “should be regarded as an aid to genuine academic
freedom and not as an intrusion upon it.”[17]
Further, Powell suggested that the business community promote
speakers on campuses and lecture tours “who appeared in support of the American
system of government and business.” While explaining that student groups and
faculty would not likely be willing to give the podium over to the Chamber of
Commerce or business leaders to espouse their ideology, the Chamber must
“aggressively insist” on being heard, demanding “equal time,” as this would be
an effective strategy because “university administrators and the great majority
of student groups and committees would not welcome being put in the position
publicly of refusing a forum to diverse views.” The two main ingredients for
this program, Powell explained, was first, “to have attractive, articulate and
well-informed speakers,” and second, “to exert whatever degree of pressure –
publicly and privately – may be necessary to assure opportunities to speak.”
The objective, Powell wrote, “always must be to inform and enlighten, and not
merely to propagandize.”[18]
The biggest problem on campuses, however, was the need to
“balance” faculties, meaning simply that the business world must work to
implant spokespeople and apologists for the economic and financial elite into
the faculties. The need to “correct” this imbalance, wrote Powell, “is indeed a
long-range and difficult project,” which “should be undertaken as a part of an
overall program,” including the application of pressure “for faculty balance
upon university administrators and boards of trustees.” Powell acknowledged
that such an effort is a delicate and potentially dangerous process, requiring
“careful thought,” as “improper pressure would be counterproductive.” Focusing
on the rhetoric of balance, fairness, and ‘truth’ would create a method
“difficult to resist, if properly presented to the board of trustees.” Of
course, the whole counter-attack of the business world should not simply be
addressed to university education, but, as Powell suggested, also “tailored to
the high schools.”[19]
As Powell had addressed the “attack” from – and proposed the
“counterattack” on – the educational system by the corporate and financial
elite, he then suggested that while this was a more long-term strategy, in the
short term it would be necessary to address the public in the short-term. To do
so:
The
first essential is to establish the staffs of eminent scholars, writers and
speakers, who will do the thinking, the analysis, the writing and the speaking.
It will also be essential to have staff personnel who are thoroughly familiar
with the media, and how most effectively to communicate with the public.[20]
The means of communicating with the public include using
television. Powell recommended monitoring television in the same way that they
monitor textbooks, with an aim to keep the media under “constant surveillance”
for criticism of the enterprise system, which, Powell assumed, was derived from
one of two sources: “hostility or economic ignorance.” It is simply assumed
that the critiques of business and the ‘system’ are unjustified, derived from a
misplaced hatred of society or from ignorance. This point of view is
consistently regurgitated throughout the entire memo. To more properly
“correct” the media, Powell suggested that surveillance would then prompt
complaints to both the media and the Federal Communications Commission, and
just as in university speaking tours, “equal time [for business spokespeople]
should be demanded,” especially on “forum-type programs” like Meet the Press or
the Today Show. Of course, the radio and print press were also to be monitored
and “corrected.”[21]
The “faculty of scholars” established by the Chamber of
Commerce or other business groups must publish, especially scholarly articles,
as such tactics have been effective in the “attack” on the enterprise system.
Thus, these “independent scholars” must publish in popular magazines (such as
Life, Reader’s Digest, etc.), intellectual magazines (such as the Atlantic,
Harper’s, etc.) and the professional journals. Furthermore, they must publish
books, paperbacks and pamphlets promoting “our side” to “educate the public.”
Paid advertising must also increasingly be used to “support the system.”[22]
Powell then turned his attention to the political arena,
beginning with the base assumption that the idea of big business controlling Western
governments is mere “Marxist doctrine” and “leftist propaganda,” which, Powell
sadly reports, “has a wide public following among Americans.” He immediately
thereafter asserted that, “every business executive knows… few elements of
American society today have as little influence in government as the American
businessman, the corporation, or even the millions of corporate stockholders.”
Powell amazingly claimed that in terms of government influence, the poor
unfortunate American businessman and corporate executive is “the forgotten
man.”[23]
Forget the poor, black, and disenfranchised segments of
society; forget the disabled, the labeled, and the imprisoned; forget those on
welfare, food stamps, dependent upon social services or local charity; forget the
entire population of the United States, who can only incite government
recognition and support after years of struggle, constant protests, police
repression, assault, curtailment of basic human rights and dignity; those
struggles which seek only the attainment of a genuine status of human being, to
be treated equal and fair… no, forget those people! The true “forgotten” and
“oppressed” are the executives at Union Carbide, Exxon, General Electric, GM,
Ford, DuPont, Dow, Chase Manhattan, Bank of America, and Monsanto. They, truly,
are the disenfranchised… At least, according to Lewis Powell.
For Powell, education and public propaganda campaigns are
necessary, but the poor disenfranchised American corporate executive must
realize that “political power is necessary,” and that such power must be “used
aggressively and with determination – without embarrassment and without the
reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business.” Further, it
is not merely in the legislative and executive branches of government where
business leaders must seize power “aggressively,” but also in the judicial
branch – the courts – which “may be the most important instrument for social,
economic and political change.” Charging that both “liberals” and the “far
left” have been “exploiters of the judicial system” – such as the American
Civil Liberties Union, labor unions and civil rights organizations – business
groups such as the Chamber of Commerce would need to establish “a highly
competent staff of lawyers” to exploit the judiciary for their own benefit.[24]
Powell went on to play a very important role in this process as he was
appointed to the Supreme Court almost immediately after having authored this
memo, where he made many important decisions regarding “corporate rights.”
In advocating aggression in pushing their own interests,
Powell encouraged the business community “to attack the [Ralph] Naders, the
[Herbert] Marcuses and other who openly seek destruction of the system,” as
well as “to penalize politically those who oppose it.” The “threat to the
enterprise system” must not be merely presented as an economic issue, but
should be portrayed as “a threat to individual freedom,” which Powell described
as a “great truth” which “must be re-affirmed if this program is to be
meaningful.” Thus, the “only alternatives to free enterprise” are to be
presented as “varying degrees of bureaucratic regulation of individual freedom
– ranging from that under moderate socialism to the iron heel of the leftist or
rightist dictatorship.” The aim was to tie the average American’s own
individual conception of their personal freedom and rights to that of
corporations and business leaders. Thus, contended Powell, “the contraction and
denial of economic freedom is followed inevitably by governmental restrictions
on other cherished rights.” This is the precise message, Powell explained,
“above all others, that must be carried home to the American people.”[25] So,
by this logic, if today Monsanto and Dow are regulated, tomorrow, your Mom and
Dad will be in a dictatorship.
The New Right: Neoliberalism and Education
The
Powell Memo is largely credited with being a type of ‘Constitution’ or
‘founding document’ for the emergence of the right-wing think tanks in the
1970s and 1980s, as per its recommendations for establishing “a staff of highly
qualified scholars in the social sciences who do believe in the system.” In
1973, a mere two years after the memo was written, the Heritage Foundation was
founded as an “aggressive and openly ideological expert organization,” which
became highly influential in the Reagan administration.[26]
The Heritage Foundation’s website explains that the think
tank’s mission “is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based
on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom,
traditional American values, and a strong national defense.” Upon its founding
in 1973, the Heritage Foundation began to “deliver compelling and persuasive
research to Congress providing facts, data, and sound arguments on behalf of
conservative principles.” In 1977, Ed Feulner became President of the
foundation and established “a new senior management staff” and a ‘resource
bank’ in order “to take on the liberal establishment and forge a national
network of conservative policy groups and experts,” ultimately totaling more
than 2,200 “policy experts” and 475 “policy groups” in the U.S. and elsewhere.
In 1980, Heritage published a “public policy blueprint” entitled, “Mandate for
Leadership,” which became “the policy bible of the newly elected Reagan
administration on everything from taxes and regulation to crime and national
defense.” In 1987, Heritage published another policy plan, “Out of the Poverty
Trap: A Conservative Strategy for Welfare Reform,” which, as their website
boastfully claimed, “changed the entitlement mentality in America, moving
thousands off the dole [welfare] and toward personal responsibility,” or, in
other words, deeper poverty.[27]
The model of the Heritage Foundation led to the rapid
proliferation of conservative think tanks, from 70 to over 300 in over 30
years, which “often work together to create multi-issue networks on the local,
state, and federal level and use mainstream and alternative media to promote
conservative agendas.” The ultimate objective, like with all think tanks and
foundations, is “spreading ideology.”[28]
The Cato Institute is another
conservative – or “libertarian” – think tank, as it describes itself. Founded
in 1974 as the Charles Koch Foundation by Charles Koch (one of America’s
richest billionaires and major financier of the Tea Party movement), as well as
Ed Crane and Murray Rothbard. By 1977, it had changed its name to the Cato
Institute, after “Cato’s Letters,” a series of essays by two British writers in
the 18th century under the pseudonym of Cato,
who was a Roman Senator strongly opposed to democracy, and had fought against
the slave uprising led by Spartacus. He was idolized in the Enlightenment
period as a progenitor and protector of liberty (for the few), which was reflected
in the ideology of the Founding Fathers of the United States, particularly
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, for which the Cato Institute credits as the
reasoning for the re-naming. While Enlightenment thought and thinkers are
idolized – most especially in the formation of the U.S. Constitution – as
advocates of liberty, freedom and individual rights, it was the ‘right’ of
‘private property’ and those who owned property (which, at the time, included
slave owners) as the ultimate sacrosanct form of “liberty.” Again, a distinctly
elitist conception of democracy referred to as ‘Republicanism.’
These
right-wing think tanks helped bring in the era of neo-liberalism, bringing
together “scholars” who support the so-called “free market” system (itself, a
mythical fallacy), and who deride and oppose all forms of social welfare and
social support. The think tanks produced the research and work which supported
the dominance of the banks and corporations over society, and the members of
the think tanks had their voices heard through the media, in government, and in
the universities. They facilitated the ideological shift in power and policy
circles toward neoliberalism.
The Powell Memo and the general “crisis of democracy” set out
a political, social, and economic circumstance in which neoliberalism emerged
to manage the “excess of democracy.” Instead of a broader focus on
neoliberalism and globalization in general, I will focus on their influences
upon education in particular. The era of neoliberal globalization marked a
rapid decline of the liberal welfare states that had emerged in the previous
several decades, and as such, directly affected education.
As part of this process, knowledge was transformed into
‘capital’ – into ‘knowledge capitalism’ or a ‘knowledge economy.’ Reports from
the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) in the 1990s transformed these ideas into a “policy template.” This was
to establish “a new coalition between education and industry,” in which “education
if reconfigured as a massively undervalued form of knowledge capital that will
determine the future of work, the organization of knowledge institutions and
the shape of society in the years to come.”[29]
Knowledge was thus defined as an “economic resource” which
would give growth to the economy. As such, in the neoliberal era, where all
aspects of economic productivity and growth are privatized (purportedly to
increase their efficiency and productive capacity as only the “free market” can
do), education – or the “knowledge economy” – itself, was destined to be
privatized.[30]
In the revised neoliberal model of education, “economic
productivity was seen to come not from government investment in education, but
from transforming education into a product that could be bought and sold like
anything else – and in a globalised market, Western education can be sold as a
valuable commodity in developing countries.” Thus, within the university
itself, “the meaning of ‘productivity’ was shifted away from a generalized
social and economic good towards a notional dollar value for particular
government-designated products and practices.” Davies et. al. elaborated:
Where
these products are graduating students, or research published, government could
be construed as funding academic work as usual. When the ‘products’ to be
funded are research grant dollars, with mechanisms in place to encourage
collaboration with industry, this can be seen as straightforward manipulation
of academics to become self-funding and to service the interests of business
and industry.[31]
The new ‘management’ of universities entailed decreased state
funding while simultaneously increasing “heavy (and costly) demands on
accounting for how that funding was used,” and thus, “trust in professional
values and practices was no longer the basis of the relationship” between
universities and government. It was argued that governments were no longer able
to afford the costs of university education, and that the “efficiency” of the
university system – defined as “doing more with less” – was to require a change
in the leadership and management system internal to the university structure to
“a form of managerialism modeled on that of the private sector.” The “primary
aim” of this neoliberal program, suggests Davies:
was
not simply to do more with less, since the surveillance and auditing systems
are extraordinarily costly and ineffective, but to make universities more
governable and to harness their energies in support of programmatic ambitions
of neo-liberal government and big business. A shift towards economics as the
sole measure of value served to erode the status and work of those academics
who located value in social and moral domains. Conversely, the technocratic
policy-oriented academics, who would serve the ends of global corporate
capital, were encouraged and rewarded.[32]
As the 1960s saw a surge in democracy and popular
participation, to a significant degree emanating from the universities,
dissident intellectuals and students, the 1970s saw the articulation and
actualization of the elite attack upon popular democracy and the educational
system itself. From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Trilateral Commission,
both of which represent elite financial and corporate interests, the key
problem was identified as active and popular participation of the public in the
direction of society. This was the “crisis of democracy.” The solution for
elites was simple: less democracy, more authority. In the educational realm,
this meant more elite control over universities, less freedom and activism for
intellectuals and students. Universities and the educational system more
broadly was to become increasingly privatized, corporatized, and globalized.
The age of activism was at an end, and universities were to be mere assembly
plants for economically productive units which support the system, not
challenge it. One of the key methods for ensuring this took place was through
debt, which acts as a disciplinary mechanism in which students are shackled
with the burden of debt bondage, and thus, their education itself must be
geared toward a specific career and income expectation. Knowledge is sought for
personal and economic benefit more than for the sake of knowledge itself.
Graduating with extensive debt then implies a need to immediately enter the job
market, if not already having entered the job market part time while studying.
Debt thus disciplines the student toward a different purpose in their
education: toward a job and financial benefits rather than toward knowledge and
understanding. Activism then, is more of an impediment to, rather than a
supporter of knowledge and education.
In the next part of this series, I will analyze the purpose
and role of education and intellectuals in a historical context,
differentiating between the ‘social good’ and ‘social control’ purposes of
education, as well as between the policy-oriented (elite) and value-oriented
(dissident) intellectuals. Through a critical look at the purpose of education
and intellectuals, we can understand the present crisis in education and
intellectual dissent, and thus, understand positive methods and directions for
change.
Notes
[1] Michel J. Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington and Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of
Democracy, (Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral
Commission, New York University Press, 1975), pages 61-62, 71.
[2] Ibid, pages 74-77.
[3] Ibid, pages 93, 113-115.
[4] Ibid, page 162.
[5] Jay Peterzell, “The Trilateral Commission and the Carter Administration,” Economic and Political Weekly (Vol. 12, No. 51, 17 December 1977),
page 2102.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Wayne Parsons, “Politics Without Promises: The Crisis of ‘Overload’ and
Governability,” Parliamentary Affairs (Vol. 35, No. 4, 1982), pages 421-422.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Val Burris, “The Social and Political Consequences of Overeducation,” American Sociological Review (Vol. 48, No. 4, August 1983), pages
455-456.
[12] Lewis F. Powell, Jr., “Confidential Memorandum: Attack of American Free
Enterprise System,” Addressed to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 23 August 1971:
[13-25] Ibid.
[26] Julie E. Miller-Cribbs, et. al., “Thinking About Think Tanks: Strategies for
Progressive Social Work,” Journal of Policy Practice(Vol. 9,
No. 3-4, 2010), page 293.
[27] The Heritage Foundation, “The Heritage Foundation’s 35th Anniversary: A History
of Achievements,” About: http://www.heritage.org/about/our-history/35th-anniversary
[28] Julie E. Miller-Cribbs, et. al., “Thinking About Think Tanks: Strategies for
Progressive Social Work,” Journal of Policy Practice(Vol. 9,
No. 3-4, 2010), pages 293-294.
[29] Mark Olssen and Michael A. Peters, “Neoliberalism, Higher Education and the
Knowledge Economy: From the Free Market to Knowledge Capitalism,” Journal of Education Policy (Vol. 20, No. 3, May 2005), page 331.
[30] Ibid, pages 338-339.
[31] Bronwyn Davies, et. al., “The Rise and Fall of the Neo-liberal University,” European Journal of Education (Vol. 41, No. 2, 2006), pages 311-312.
[32] Ibid, page 312.
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