Neoliberalism Privatization
Impact on Professors and We the People
By
Rodolfo F. Acuña
Stanley
Fish, “Neoliberalism and Higher Education”, wrote that few of his
colleagues had ever come across the term “neoliberalism” or knew what it
meant.
According to Fish, neoliberal principles are embedded
“in culture’s way of thinking [and its] institutions.” While the term
neoliberal is not frequently used, its supporters “mime and extend
neoliberal principles on every opportunity.”
On
university campuses in a relatively brief time this ideology has
changed the mission of academy from an institution searching for the
truth to a marketplace.
Privatization
is the cornerstone of neoliberalism. Privatization is touted as the
silver bullet that will solve the funding woes of “social security,
health care, and K-12 education, the maintenance of toll–roads,
railways, airlines, energy production, and communication systems.”
According to them, the private sector can run them cheaper and more
efficiently.
Americans, puzzled as to why
Europeans tolerate being taxed so heavily, ask why do Europeans support
such an expensive welfare state? The answer is that much of Europe is
based on communitarianism, a philosophy that emphasizes the connection
between the individual and the community rather than like the U.S. where
individualism is taken to an extreme.
Critics of neoliberalism such as Noam
Chomsky argue that neoliberalism benefits the rich and increases
inequalities “both within and between states.”
Cash strapped public universities,
after years of resistance, have succumbed to the failed philosophy of
the Reagan Revolution and reproduced a new narrative that claims that
the “withdrawal of the percentage of a state’s contribution to a
college’s operating expenses” actually increases demand for the
“product” of higher education which will lower the cost of delivering it
without the need to raise taxes.
Meanwhile, in order to offset the lack of public funding, administrators have
raised tuition with students becoming the primary consumers and
debt-holders. Iinstitutions have entered into research partnerships with
industry shifting the pursuit of truth to the pursuit of profits. To
accelerate this “molting,” they have “hired a larger and larger number of short-term, part-time adjuncts.”
This has created large armies of transient and disposable workers who
“are in no position to challenge the university’s practices or agitate
for “democratic rather than monetary goals.”
The problem is aggravated by the fact
that most administrators do not know what neoliberalism is. Many come
out of the humanities and the arts and those coming out of the social
sciences have a rudimentary knowledge of economics.
Neoliberalism in order to grow must
build a justification. Take the case of Shirley V. Svorny, a Professor
of Economics and former chair of the department. In a Los Angeles Times
Op-Ed piece titled, “Make College Cost More” (November 22, 2010),
Svorny argued that “Artificially low fees attract some students to
higher education who simply aren’t suited to the academic rigors of a
university.” Svorny blamed unqualified students for tuition increases.
As insulting as her premise is the
controversy was ignored by the administration and the faculty who
increasingly retire to their “professional enclaves…” concentrating on
their specialties that lack “a clear connection to the public interest.”
Most public colleges and universities
are nonprofit institutions in name only. They are marketplaces pursuing
neoliberal agendas. “Forty years of
privatization, stagnant wages, a weak economy, a lack of jobs, and
budget cuts have forced college administrators to find alternative forms of funding.”
The market logic is omnipotent. It
guides faculty, academic managers and managerial professionals seeking
commercial gain related to academic and nonacademic products. Faculty
and students are rewarded, and programs are developed whose purpose it
is to generate revenue with little attention paid to “pedagogical or
knowledge-related outcomes.”
Few studies are available on the
effects of neoliberal discourse on the behavior of students. Research on
the motivation, scope, and how they shift institutional priorities are
rare. Even Alexander W. Astin’s (1998) study fails “to connect [the
theme] to the rise of academic capitalism or the power of neoliberalism.”
Essential to understanding students’
motivations is knowing the pressures of conformity. The Italian
intellectual Antonio Gramsci called it the hegemonic project, i.e., the
process where the ruling class’s ideas and beliefs become the common
sense values of society. Through this process, neoliberalism becomes
internalized and unequivocally accepted.
From my experience, the hegemonic
process has had a profound impact on administrators, professors and
students in making their choices. Students select majors and research
topics in terms of marketability.
In my opinion, this mindset spells
doom for students at the lower margins as well as ethnic studies
programs. Since the 1990s, this has become very noticeable with many new
faculty lacking communitarian values common to those in the 1970s.
The importance of the common good has
given way to what is good for me, which overemphasizes personal
autonomy and individual rights. Asking what promotes the common good is
less common.
Neoliberalism also interferes with
understanding or dealing with community needs. This is very noticeable
among recently hired faculty members. They participate less in student
events and faculty governance.
According to Gramsci, the bourgeoisie
establishes and maintains its control through a cultural hegemony,
Therefore, it is natural that new professors who have spent most of
their lives in the academy adopt the culture of the university. For
them, bourgeois values represent the "natural" or "normal" values of
society.
Forty years ago, these bourgeois ideas were countered by a few ideological members who sought
to construct an academic community. These dissidents heavily influenced
intellectual discourse. This potential for political or ideological
resistance has weakened, however.
In today’s academy, ideology is
passé. There is noticeably less concern for the common good and more
with the individual product. New faculty spends less time in the
department and more time visiting colleagues in their discipline than meeting with students or Chicana/os studies faculty.
The first thing some new faculty
complain about is the size of their offices. When it is explained that
we have small offices by choice – the students have a reception area in
exchange for a reduction in the size of our faculty offices – they ask
who made this decision? The conversation is about their product and its
value.
Other faculty members spend more time
in departments of their discipline, although many of these departments
have refused to accept them as permanent members. It is the product that
is important and they believe it is enhanced by associating with scholars outside the Chicana/o community.
Part timers often do not want to do
anything to damage their product. Take the UNAM (National University of
Mexico) controversy: they ignored the political ramifications of
neoliberalism. It did not matter to them. Neither did the human rights
atrocities in Mexico, i.e., the disappearance of the 43 normalistas.
They are not sellouts in the popular
sense of the word. They care about the issues as long as they do not
affect the value of their product. Economics for them is an ideology and
supply and demand are the only important factors in their decisions,
Ultimately what is important is sustaining the value of the product they
are selling.
