Author / doctormcgrail

by doctormcgrail

Hoisting the Jolly Roger over Supply and Demand

Why do we teach foundational economics in the way that we do? And who or what is being ‘served’ by the approach and the (presentational-representational) priorities of this existing ‘established’ episteme? I have taught a number of foundation, access, and open-entry (higher education) courses over the last two decades, including a number for the Open University (OU, module codes DD100, DD101, DD102, and DB125) and University of Edinburgh (four interdisciplinary ‘introduction to social science’ courses), which have included an introduction to or the fundamentals of ‘economics’.

In my (admittedly limited opinion), by far the best of these was the OU’s DB125 (Personal Finance), not least because it buried the theory of supply and demand to Chapter 6 – well into the book / course, once other aspects and elements of economics (and finance) had been considered.  Yep, the core of mainstream ‘microeconomics’ (the conceptualisation of the ‘economy’ being made up of households, firms, and government) was still present, but more substantially balanced by mention of so-called ‘macroeconomic’ concerns (the social and political context) as well as having students learn something practical (training in how to manage their own finances, such as cash flow, assets, and liabilities) before then – as ever –  getting into the abstract mathematical universe of ‘graphical representation’ of what is supposed to be happening.

In fact, what I most liked about teaching DB125 was that it had a ‘citizenship education’ element in the Scottish Common Sense tradition.  That is, it is helpful to society, for everyone, if everyone has some understanding of what is going on around them.  To cite Adam Ferguson, the point of moral philosophy (later ‘social science’) is to hold the powerful to account, and ignorance is never good at doing that.  Education in / about economics has to cover more than feeding an industry with ‘professional’ economists whom, typically, end up in a peculiar position within Adam Smith’s division of labour.

The Politics of Economics

But the teaching of ‘economics’ (and how to be ‘economical’) has always had a propaganda element to it.  Making sure everyone ‘knows’ what is going on can inform the public or citizenship of ‘the’ key reasons and justifications for why things are the way they are, and (a corollary of that) why things cannot be changed.  Thus, even the ‘common sense’ approach soon runs into political territory – it can be about calming resistance to the way things are, to the existing inequalities in life, on grounds that such inequalities and stoically putting up with them are simply ‘sensible’.  At the same time, what gets taught in economics (especially in further and higher education, and especially with regards to business studies and administration) needs to address the ‘output’ side of its production process, namely, the creation of economists who are well-equipped and ready to handle ‘the jobs’ they will subsequently be plugged into.  The term ‘employability’ comes into the framework; a term educational institutions are thoroughly embracing with vigour like never before.  We must do something for our students other than giving them an abstract love of learning!  But what are these employability factors and/or what ‘transferable skills’ are to be imparted by teachers to their wards?  Who better to ask, naturally, than those already within the industry.  Professional bodies and employers have a major role to play here in shaping the skill set, knowledge content, and academic standards that graduates should emerge with. 

The flip-side, or downside, of such an approach is that economic education (like any other sector of education) ends up being shaped those outside the academy (extra mural) who don’t have the independence and distance from vested interests in an industry which those inside the academic (intra mural) happen to have.  Even when Adam Smith studied at Glasgow in the late 1730s merchants were welcomed and involved (invited to take part) in university debates, and Smith’s work could be viewed as novel (for the time) in taking ‘philosophy’ into the world of industry.  It is part and parcel of common sense philosophy that such interaction takes place, but it should not be ‘dominated’ by one side or the other.  In summing this section up, there is little point in professional economists telling the academy ‘please produce more people like us’, as nothing might ever move forward.  And it is notable that both Keynesianism and Neo-liberalism both emerged from the academy and not ‘the profession’.

A Time for Questions

Notably our time is one of questioning orthodoxies.  Kate Raworth’s Donghnut Economics has raised the issue of why we persist with bog-standard microeconomics.  And to this I would add why we still feel obliged to begin economical education with ‘the market’ as presented in the form of the supply-demand graph?  From personal experience of teaching interdisciplinary students expected to learn at least something about ‘economics’ it is the way in which this is done (with an immediate ‘mathematical’ focus) which is highly off-putting.

Now, the theory of supply and demand has many, many criticisms – it is an abstract representation of an ideal and not a reflection of what happens in reality or practice.  It thereby, in philosophy of science, uses a deductive-verificationist approach.  It is expected that consumers will make pain-reducing, pleasure enhancing decisions and choices (they are mini-maximisers) and then the ‘model’ aims to demonstrate this presumption via ‘verifiable’ examples.  So, when ‘you’ are in the desert, you will not deny yourself water no matter how much the salesman, who arrives on a camel, is demanding in payment (the joke being – presuming the consumer is ‘male’ – that he will demand your mother and wife in exchange).  Water becomes more expensive than diamonds in this ‘marginal’ situation.

I remember my PhD supervisor (Derek Kerr, probably in 1990-91) referring to a quotation about supply-demand microeconomics which described it as “nonsense on stilts”: “Everyone knows its nonsense, but no-one can touch it – reach up to get it”.  As noted by Elder-Vass (2019) – who references many critical pieces of work – the theory, overall, presents impossible people in an unreal world (the flattened, very white landscape of graph paper), since no actual consumer / producer has sufficient knowledge to make the necessary effective choices for the market to work in the manner it ‘should’.  Indeed, such people are a product of habit (their own habits, plus socialisation), who rely on their feelings and emotions (such as trust in those they already know; culturally-constructed ‘personal’ desires; or socially-imposed or structured necessities) more than the supposed ‘rationality’ and ‘autonomy’ they are meant to be using to make key ‘choices’ – about what to consume or produce; or what to pay – within a subjective ‘willingness to pay’ account (see the ‘desert’ example above).  But even as I sit and drink my morning coffee (caffeine boost) in a cafe, is it true to say I was willing to pay more than yesterday because of how I am ‘feeling’ today?  Does the price of coffee really change depending on work rotas (too little rest) or celebratory contexts (a wedding attended the day before)?

Elder-Vass’s chapter does not cover every possible criticism of supply and demand, and my two favourites happen to include: (a) it is incredibly boring (it certainly puts many students to sleep, though others show ‘intrigue’ – a feeling of a need to know how this works as it is so culturally important), and (b) as a ‘social theory’ it is inadequate because it doesn’t tell us anything about the society (social formation or world) we happen to live in.  It is, to that end, completely uninformative!  But, perhaps, these are the main points of the theory – to bore, snore, and keep the lights out.

In Chapter 1 of Capital, Marx tells us that he fails to understand the fascination of political-economists with the law of supply and demand.  He makes the criticism that as soon as equilibrium price is ‘reached’ (achieved) – which is the explanatory goal of the graph, after all, to indicate how the price of a commodity is arrived at – then the law of supply and demand ceases to work – it is no longer applicable since price has been reached.  However, the commodity still has a ‘price’, and at this point we need to realise that the law of supply and demand has not explained what ‘price’ is.  We are still left with the requirement to explain what price, in and of itself, is.  Why must this thing have a price?  What is it that the owner is charging the purchaser for?

Of course, Marx is feigning his incomprehension.  Section 4 of Chapter 1 on commodity fetish makes it clear that a linen coat does not walk into a shop and exchange itself for a bag of coal.  Rather, it is the tailor who is exchanging their effort for that of the miner.  Marx’s study of commodity fetish is precisely about how and why classical political economy (of the early 19th century) had lost its ability for insight – to see what is socially significant to the form of society (mode of production) we inhabit.

If you are adverse to this point because it is Marx who is making it – his name makes you come out in a rash – then you need to be aware that Marx was able to root this point in the work of Adam Smith.  Smith’s Wealth of Nations does not ‘open’ with the law of supply and demand but with the inside of a workshop – the pin factory – where productivity is rapidly rising due to a reorganisation of the labour process (a re-division of labour to make it more ‘expedient’ – a key term from Smith’s earlier Theory of Moral Sentiments – that is, the re-division makes production more efficient such that the human animal gets more output for similar or less input).  Consequently, when Smith moves on to talk about ‘markets’ (in Chapter 3 of his work) it ‘should be’ clear that commercial society is one giant labour exchange.  Human ‘individuals’ (and Smith does, if wrongly, focuses on individual effort) are evaluating and exchanging their efforts or labours.

This point, in Smith, even though Smith is making it, is anathema to modern mainstream economics (and especially the Adam Smith Institute).  Even an expert introduction to Smith’s own work (Skinner’s introduction to the 1999 penguin edition of Wealth of Nations) want to deny or expunge Smith’s labour theory of value.  Skinner argues that Smith got his starting point wrong (the labour theory of value) and, hence, ‘later’ in the book Smith corrected his error by introducing an alternative ‘theory of production costs’ (which in Skinner’s view is the ‘correct’ approach).  Yet, Skinner was coming out of (and probably socialised within) a long tradition within mainstream economics of criticising and denying the labour theory of value.  By the 20th century, the political implications of following a labour theory of value were well-known – it leads to a land (or ocean, since I will be talking about the Jolly Roger) of exploitation.

By comparison, the theory of supply and demand is politically ‘safe’ because it is tells us nothing about what price actually is.  We get to learn that something in ‘short supply’ will rise in price, as will something in ‘high demand’.  By comparison, something in abundant supply or something in low demand will fall in price.  Wow!  That’s like saying the leaves will fall off the trees in autumn.  This event happened in ancient Rome, under mediaeval feudalism, when absolute monarchs tried to control early modernism (emerging capitalism), with industrialisation (though global warming may well witness some trees retain their leaves for longer, as the anthropocene era records human impact on nature!), and even in our own times with post-modern consumerism.  The point of natural science has not been to observe that the leaves fall in autumn – our Neolithic ancestors were able to observe this – but explain the processes which lead to leaves falling, and even why autumn leaves will be more or less colourful depending on weather conditions each summer.

The law of supply and demand is a theory which remains at a very superficial level – it states the obvious and, therein, lacks any precision about the fundamentals of ‘our’ society (commercial or capitalist society which merged as pre-dominant in the late 18th century).  But the same goes for concepts of ‘scarcity’, the law of diminishing returns, the definition of opportunity cost, resource allocation, and the notion of trading production ‘possibilities’.  Another narrative often taught in the early stages of ‘economics’ is the tale of Herman Goering aiming to convince the German public that they had a limited choice between producing butter or guns.  ‘Given’ they could not have both outputs, Goering claimed that Germany should choose guns, since these would make the nation powerful, whereas butter would merely make them ‘fat’.  But from a labour theory of value perspective, and drawing on Marx’s concept of commodity fetish, Goering was not comparing guns with butter, he was comparing the efforts of armourers (gun-makers) with those of milkmaids.  Essentially, Goering desired to impoverish milkmaids to make more room for gun-makers.  The ‘market’ is not a mystery; it is made up of humans who make socially and culturally-constructed choices.

Thus, Smith was right to contextualise the ‘market’ he observed (and analysed going beyond simple observation) as a labour exchange, and then to note (by his 6th chapter) that ‘profits of stock’ were not a result of labour or effort, but of the stockholder (owner) ‘sharing’ in the efforts of their workers (who created the ‘value’ of the goods).  The ugly face of exploitation raises itself, though this is often inconceivable by those with a vested interest in benefitting from the system – whether that is those already ‘with money’ or those who firmly believe they will ‘make money’.

To conclude, the supply-demand graph presents itself as if it is a boat on placid lake without a sail.  It is, literally, going nowhere and presents itself as a politically neutral ‘account’ of how a ‘market’ works.  But it is, in effect, a fetishized representation of the forced sale (exchange) of human labour power, as if this is a perfectly ‘natural’ state of affairs.  The boat is, in fact, the ship of Black Beard and should, to become an honest account of itself, hoist the Jolly Roger as the standard of privateers.

by doctormcgrail

Greta Thunberg on the Failure of Capitalism

Amol Rajan, Media Editor at the BBC, interviewed Greta Thunberg (Tuesday 18th October 2022) about her future – though really her “future in politics”, because without her ‘politics’ would Rajan or the BBC have been that interested in this 19 year old?   Thunberg is a political celebrity, famous for being a teenage climate activist who convinced her generation to go on ‘school strike’, and thereby have attention paid to them.

Thunberg (to use the ‘academic’ surname convention since I don’t know her personally) has done an amazing job in foregrounding not simply issues of climate change and climate justice but in asserting the highly moral standpoint that mistakes made today (including failure to adapt social processes quick enough) will be paid for by future generations (obviously her own generation and younger).  But what I like most about Thunberg is her (often) straight forward expressions regarding the human condition.  Despite her age, or perhaps because of it – just as a 3-year-old child does not understand the principle of ‘private property’ when picking things up in a shop – Thunberg sees what her elders, socialised through decades of ‘reasonable’ discourse and ideological ‘underpinnings’, cannot.

The BBC eventually advertised the interview (on their catch-up service and News websites) by quoting Thunberg’s response to Rajan’s query about her going into politics (or, what would have been a more accurate phrasing, her staying in politics)?  What Rajan meant, of course, is the possibility of Thunberg becoming an elected politician (she has never been elected and is thus defined as an ‘activist’) and, by inference, Rajan meant her becoming a ‘professional’ politician.

Thunberg’s immediate reply was unequivocal – “I don’t want to go into politics … [because] … it’s toxic”.  She did qualify this with an “at the moment”.   However, what Thunberg meant by the toxicity of politics was not that clear from my position as part of the audience.

Did she mean the typically cited ‘polar’ oppositions of ‘party’, identity, or ideological politics at the moment, with their highly divisive characters, postures, and positions (radical / conservative; left-wing / right-wing; liberal / authoritarian) as compared to a more ‘consensual’ form that ‘politics’ could take?  Or was Thunberg referring to the wider issue of politicians’ insularity (in the ‘swamp’) from the mass of people (from whom they claim a mandate) with their propensity to fail, spin, and U-turn until they serve established interests?

What I disliked about Rajan’s question, and what I would reject in the way it was posed, is the implication that Thunberg, somehow, is not already ‘in’ (involved with) politics?  The question itself – a highly leading one – presumes that ‘politics’ must take a (or one) rather peculiar form (one which Rajan is used to) which essentially refers to electoral and ‘representative’ politics as ‘politics’ in a universal sense. 

It should be obvious to any neutral observer that Thunberg is already a ‘politician’ – she is involved in politics as an active citizen, indeed, in ideality, as everyone ‘should be’!  Why then would she need to ‘go into’ that peculiar form of politics – the very activity Thunberg describes as ‘toxic’?  So far, Thunberg seems to have managed quite capably, admirably, and better than most elected / professional politicians in not being ‘a representative’ of anyone other than herself as a quintessential human being.

In this context, Thunberg’s point that even ‘she’ (in spite of all that has happened, including the way she has been thrust into the public eye) wouldn’t consider a move ‘into’ that politics (because of its toxicity) is a damning criticism of what is notionally and nominally referred to as our ‘democratic political system’.

The Failure of Capitalism (Round 1)

There was, however, an even more interesting question pitched by Rajan, drawn rapidly from his journalistic scabbard, in response to one of Thunberg’s expressional pronouncements.  Thunberg referred to “the failure of capitalism”!

Now, it may have appeared that this point or ‘claim’ came out of the blue – a shock not only to the BBC producers, but presumably to their attendant, prospective audience.  The phrase “failure of capitalism” isn’t just a question of ‘political bias’ – it goes way beyond that – since the presumption, the doxa, of British culture is that capitalism is just part of nature (not least since this is what standard, establishment ‘economics’ teaches from high school onwards – a position grounded out of socially-constructed education systems since the early 19th century).  Surely, Thunberg was trying, now, despite past successes, to defy gravity with mention of such an idea?

However, the claimants of returns on capital could rest easy, since Rajan was ‘on the ball’, and managed to demonstrate he was prepared for his quarry.  Perhaps from watching previous coverage of Thunberg, Rajan knew or guessed that this kind of craziness may well come up.  Even though Thunberg slipped the phrase “the failure of capitalism” into a longer answer – as if, for her, it was as clear as day that capitalism has failed – it was the point within Thunberg’s response that Rajan quickly returned to (and had to return to).  Consequently, he asked, in reference to the failure of capitalism, “hasn’t capitalism lifted 850 million Chinese out of poverty?”

In my own opinion, this question led to the weakest response from Thunberg, who merely reiterated the point that ‘we’ (as a human collective) still must do something to prevent future catastrophe.  Yep, I get the underlying point – this is no time to be talking about capitalism versus socialism versus ‘utopianism’ versus whatever.  Even if Chinese capitalism has lifted the poor out of their poverty (let’s accept the premise), ‘we’ are still left with foreboding and impending doom!

The step Thunberg did not take was to question Rajan’s claim or assertion directly.  If Rajan doubts she is not already ‘into politics’ he just needs to take note of her ability to avoid a journalist’s question (a question possibly intended to distract, mislead and unbalance) and to plough on in getting her key point across (in a media interview).  If Thunberg hasn’t received media training, then she has learnt from the school of trial, error, and hard knocks.  Her approach was superior to anything I would have done in the situation, in being pulled sideways to counter the attack.

Rajan’s clever assessment of what he needed to ask (in reply to Thungerg’s claim) highlights the ‘political balance’ approach of the BBC built into their interview technique.  This is not something you would get on Fox, GB News, or any politically-biased media outlet.  If someone, anyone, states ‘on telly’ that capitalism has failed, such an assertion needs to be countered and questioned, immediately, and with evidence to the contrary.

Thunberg let Rajan’s re-assertion of the advantages, achievements, or greatness of ‘capitalism’ go – she side-stepped the implied point.  It was possibly not worth fighting – not in this interview – when a more positive message about impending doom is going to achieve more from her perspective.  Of course, that does not mean ‘we’ should let Rajan’s claim stand!

Businesses Don’t Make Great Coffee – People Do

Having sought refuge in the United States, as early as 1941 Raya Dunevskaya developed and published her analysis of the Soviet Union as an example of ‘state capitalism’.  In doing so, Dunevskaya referred to a discussion by Marx on what would happen if national capital was reduced to the control of a single capitalist (a monopoly system – so no competition, nor internal struggle within the class of capitalists).  He was asking the question in relation to his own analysis – that is, would it still apply?  And the answer was ‘yes’ – the nature of capitalist exploitation, in the social form of the purchase of waged labour (at the cost of its reproduction) and this labour’s expenditure in the production of ‘surplus’ product, would not change one jot.

Of course, on this reckoning, both the Soviet Union and Communist China were similar state capitalist regimes, though with national, cultural, and historical variations.  It is not, however, wrong to call them socialist regimes, in so far as they focused on furthering ‘national’ capital (or ‘commonwealth’) at the expense of individual capitalists and ‘individuals’ per se.

In short, mainland China was ‘capitalist’ long before the ‘economic’ (but not ‘political’) reforms of the 1980s.  Mao’s China (and Mao continues to be a revered figure within China) expunged ‘peasant’ China – the ‘old order’; firstly through forced industrialisation (the Great Leap Forward of the 1950s) and then through forced socialisation (the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s).  Some of these policies were disastrous, leading to mass famine through agricultural failure – but, there again, the Irish Famine of the 1840s never did that much damage to the British Empire.  But like all ruling classes attempting to hang on to power, the Communist Party of China found itself having to reform or adapt itself to new conditions.  This began with a ‘falling out’ amongst ‘communists’ (with the Soviet Union), followed by Nixon’s visit to Mao’s China in 1972 (a ‘defrosting’ of relationships), before the ‘economic’ reforms under Deng Xiaopeng from 1982.

This produces a first counter point to Rajan: you might as well congratulate the Chinese Communist Party for lifting 850 million people out of poverty!  Indeed, any Chinese government official would make this point.  Just like everyone else, such officials are prone to see the world as of their own making.  Furthermore, Rajan made this point to Thunberg when the ‘West’ is growing distrustful of China – there is fear about the progress China has made, that it isn’t playing by the ‘rulebook’ (as understood by the Western establishment), and hasn’t been doing so for a long time, or forever – and ‘now’ it dawns on Western ‘analysts’ that the Chinese have their own agenda!  Thence, if the Chinese are not, and have never been, playing by the capitalist ‘rulebook’, what do you put the economic transformation of China down to?

Next, what Rajan means by ‘capitalism’ needs to be considered?  I don’t think he is referring, in ‘capitalism’, to the accumulation of ‘capital’ as money, consumer goods, industrial goods, nor even wage relations – the requirement for capital to purchase wage labour to expand itself (the final one being the definition Marx uses in Capital: A Critique of Political Economy).  What Rajan means is the ‘freedom’ to trade outwith the bounds of government controls and regulations, with the implication that producers and purchasers are ‘free’ to make their own ‘rational’ decisions, since the latter is the kind of populist and spurious definition given in bog-standard Western education.

But capitalism is, ultimately, about capital, a concept defined dualistically by Adam Smith to mean: (a) all the material goods in society produced by previous labour (effort), from houses, to bridges, fridges to cars, computers to forks … ad infinitum; and (b) an amount of money which provides a return (or income) to its owner.  The problem for Rajan is that Smith doesn’t bother to define ‘capital’ and its accumulation until Book 2 of The Wealth of Nations.  So, what is Book 1 about?  I think the order of presentation is important – Smith is putting the most significant elements of the new commercial system, emerging in the 18th century, first.  Smith is giving something else priority over a need to discuss the emerging (new) commercial society in terms of ‘capital’.  What can that be?

Famously, Smith opens his opus with the ‘Outline and Plan of the Work’ where he clearly states that “labour” is the annual fund which provides for all the necessaries and conveniences of life!  In Chapter 1, Smith then emphasises how it is the “division of labour” which gives rise to increasing wealth (whether of material goods or services).  In Chapter 4, Smith challenges the claim that profit on stock is a payment for the labour of direction and management – no it isn’t, he notes, because there are many profiteers of stock (capitalists) who never see, never mind manage, the businesses they benefit from.  And in Chapter 6, Smith starts by making the point that owners of stock “share” in the wealth produced by waged labourers – that the wealth is produced by the workers is obvious to Smith.  That Smith does not then ‘do more’ with this analysis, in a political sense, is what ‘shocks’ Marx – the key point is in black and white, but Smith seems to overlook what is he is stating.  Labour is the source of wealth creation, and the direction of labour (its division) is nothing but another division of ‘labour’.

If someone is going to direct things (and be lauded and rewarded for it) then another person will have to be ‘directed’.  And whilst meritocrats attempt to come up with justifiable reasons why one person should fall into the director camp, and another into the directed one, these justifications are often specious, baseless, and intellectually weak (e.g. Marx highlights their ‘childishness’ in Chapter 26 of Capital).  However, the point stands – labour is the source of wealth, and Chinese labour, not ‘capitalism’ has lifted 850 million Chinese out of poverty.  It was, to use an expression of Marx drawn from the Bible, through the ‘sweat of their brow’.

Finally, Rajan has to consider that China has a (probable) population in 2022 of 1.3 billion.  It is about to be surpassed by India (by 2025).  Taking 0.85 billion (850 million) from 1.3 billion leaves 4.5 billion.  In other words, what about the other 450 million people in China?  Have they not been lifted out of poverty, and if not ‘why not?’

The Failure of Capitalism (Round 2)

What the ‘failure of capitalism’ means has very different connotations and implications for different speakers. For Thunberg it is a ‘system’ leading to global disaster, but for Mr Pension or Ms Moneybags (of the City), the ‘failure of capitalism’ means a failure to earn, specifically a ‘return’ on their funds, and thereby to receive an income.  The failure of capitalism occurs when capital fails to ‘earn’ a return – to make a profit.  Given that profits (properly, surplus value) are not a singular fund which can be neatly and fairly divided, the concept of multiple, competing ‘capitals’ comes to the fore.  When profits decline, capitals are set at one another’s throats, whether at a national, group (corporation) or individual level.  Even in 1767, Sir James Steuart realised that profits can be earned ‘relatively’ (one person gets richer at another’s expense).

One important developmental element of capitalist societies in the 20th century was to keep the wider system ticking over by ensuring there are sufficient numbers of ideologically supportive individual ‘capitals’ – a loyalty purchased through effective rewarding for their efforts.  Mass capitalism has witnessed the broad accumulation of individual pensioners, pension schemes, homeowners, independent investors as sources of larger and larger investment funds.  But the accumulation crises of the 20th century also highlighted how things break down when profitability declines – there isn’t enough to meet every claim on, and expectation, about the ownership of capital.

At this moment in time, it might not seem as if there is a ‘profitability’ crisis when large oil companies are earning super-profits due to the Russia-on-Ukraine War and subsequent embargoes (there are calls for governments to impose windfall taxes so ‘all’ can benefit from this ‘windfall’ – a private benefit seen as a positive externality or outcome which is not due in any way to the actions of the oil companies).  But, such super-profits in on location (on type of capital investment) simply doesn’t make up for the losses in profitability elsewhere – in short, living by profit (and especially in small business) appears impossible.  Many businesses are folding left, right and centre due to rapidly rising energy and fuel costs.

The response of capitalism to such crises has pretty much always been the same – laying workers off, and increasing ‘productivity’ amongst those remaining in work (automation for Ford’s era, and ‘artificial intelligence’ in ours).  But such increases in productivity have meant rising consumption of organic materials, namely, fuels. 

In short, Thunberg’s failure of capitalism (the impending doom of continuing to use fossil fuels) turns out to be the exact same failure as that of Mr Pension and Ms Moneybags – their ‘failing’ leads to pressure to extend the use of ‘machinery’ in replacing animate power (labour) with inanimate power (natural resources).  The claim has always been that this ‘trade off’ produces wealth (commonwealth) since use of labour would never have produced the ‘standard of living’ we ‘enjoy’ today.  But no such universal benefit has ever existed – after 250 years of capitalism (‘commercial society’) many workers and their entire families are no more than one pay cheque away from using the ‘food bank’ (charity) to exist.

Therein lies Thunberg’s ‘failure of capitalism’ and Rajan’s need to refer to ‘China’ to defend the capitalist system.

by doctormcgrail

Declassifying the Faculty

Higher education should be inclusive and diverse, with open and equal ‘opportunities’ for all.  As George Davie (1986) makes clear, this issue was debated and discussed in Scottish higher education as early as the 1900s and again (post-Great War) in the 1920s, specifically relating to the innovation of state-funded university places and the introduction of entry qualifications (in the primary form of school leaving certificates, known as Highers and A-levels).  The latter was, supposedly, to make access to higher education more of a ‘meritocracy’ and reduce the influences of finance, social class, and property-ownership on entry.  In the future, of the 1920s, Scottish university places would go to the most deserving (in terms of ability) rather than the most ‘served’.

Currently, a similar noble goal (in widening participation, or ‘WP’) has been discursively centred, with framing or ‘modelling’ attempted, via key institutional policies and projects on equality, diversity and inclusion (now known as ‘EDI’ for short).  Indeed, recently EDI has become a veritable ‘hive of industry’ as working capitals (i.e. ‘labourers’ to you and me) latch on to how the ‘field’ (a rather battle-laden term) might carry career potential and status advancement (praiseworthiness) through paper promotion, workshop or initiative leading, and the general meeting of institutional demands for ‘continuing professional development’ (CPD).  Such new higher education managerialism seeks to root-out employee bias and/or failings with regards to achieving academic harmony.

Of course, this ‘good fight’ against the triple scourges of inequality, uniformity, and exclusion (IUE) takes place along a wide front, with many salient pockets of non-progressive (and micro-aggressive) resistance.  Some battles are more prominent than others, but in the interests of equality nothing is excluded.  Alongside major battles on racism and gender-bias – which affect (and should do so) ever larger numbers and proportions of the higher education population – there are concerns for respecting neurodiversity and uniquely complex health and socially disadvantaged ‘intersections’.  Advances might be made in one area only for the extent to which another ‘set’ of people have been left behind or out becomes clear.  The ideal position (x) appears to constantly lie beyond the frontline, which subsequently occupies a minus ‘x’ (or ‘-x’) position.  As the Daily Telegraph – hardly a bastion of working class consideration – could hardly wait to point out (Friday 29th July 2022), ‘white teenagers’ are now the group least likely to attend university!

The difficulties in making ‘historical progress’ can be elucidated, via a couple of my own experiences which raise questions about a core issue – highlighted as long ago as Marx’s 3rd Thesis on Feuerbach (1845) – namely, ‘who educates the educator?’ and ‘how do they do this?’  A key problem is how to deploy our own understandings and language when attempting to make things right?  And thus, crack the old chestnut of ‘unconscious bias’ within the crusading faculty itself.

Case Study 1: Widening Participation to Reach the ‘Lower Classes’

In 2021 one department I teach for asked me to take part in a teacher-led ‘reflective’ research exercise under the auspices of advancing ‘scholarship of teaching and learning’ (SOTL).  The aim was to undertake a review of the department’s pre-undergraduate level interdisciplinary social sciences provision for both international foundation and access (open entry) students aiming to follow on to degree study.  It was established, as part of the ‘commission’, that a core concern was how we might “decolonise the curriculum”, that is, to examine to what extent the content (but also delivery) of our courses could be more diverse and inclusive in terms of the voices and positions being represented (or not represented).

Since I had played a central part in designing the existing courses, for both international and access students, my role was required since I was one of few (indeed, the only person on some aspects) who was still around (had survived long enough) to provide information on the original ideas and processes involved in creating those existing courses.

It could be argued I had a ‘vested interest’ in justifying or defending these courses but, truth-be-told, the creation of those courses had been complex and compromised in various ways for very practical reasons.  For instance, the international foundation course had ‘evolved’ (in 2011) out of an earlier course (dating from 2003) in which I played no part.  Certain elements involving ‘Western’ ‘dead white males’ (e.g. Plato and Locke) were retained because the lessons had proven, via trial and error, popular and pedagogically successful (with students).  Meanwhile, no ‘development funding’ was advanced for course design and new teaching materials in the first 8 years (2011-2017), other than ‘normal’ hours intended for class (or tutoring) preparation – so, to be clear, no funding for course design nor redevelopment.  The situation presented a very standard example of teacher frustration and of wanting to ‘do more’ but never having adequate time to do the quality job one would like.

Meanwhile, the Access course, whilst receiving dedicated ‘development funding’ (2017-2018) and, hence, a new course (created from the ground up – no ‘evolution’ of a previous course), still had to be framed within multiple sets of institutional demands and requirements, such as: preparing students for the available degrees they would move on to; the need to focus on academic literacies and study skills; and/or retain structural alignment between humanities, arts, and social science courses within the overall access programme.

Practical reality, from my perspective, was that if the original commissioning stages (for both courses) had contained concern for making, or a remit to remake, course content and delivery more inclusive of ‘decolonising’ perspectives then that could easily have been done at the time.  There was no invisible wall of unconscious bias holding change back.  I could have introduced and referred to (and made pedagogical use of) the work of Cedric Robinson, Eric Williams, CLR James, Franz Fanon, bell hooks, or Angela Davis (to name a few Black authors I have been interested in).  However, at the time, no practical emphasis or significance (i.e. funding) was given to ‘decolonising the curriculum’.  In subsequent years, higher education ‘discourse’ has shifted and ‘decolonisation’ has become a defining feature of learning and teaching and, thus, the review of what can (or should) be done.

The outcome of the reflection and review was that, of course, something can and should be done to make both course content and delivery (the teaching / learning techniques used) more ‘inclusive’, and it isn’t simply teaching staff (the ‘employees’ with their ‘unconscious bias’) who hold ‘progress’ back.  As a ‘teacher’ of social science, I’d love to do a whole course on CLR James, his connections with Raya Dunayevskaya, and his seminal work The Black Jacobins (1939), but there is seriously limited scope within any foundation-year focused department for such specialist courses when it comes to credit-bearing ‘programmes’ OR ‘market-based’ public-engagement short courses.  Ultimately, we serve Leviathan or the ‘market’, or educational product consumers, or political demands – or whatever.

However, the most surprising element (experience) of undertaking our course content reflection / review was something which never made the final report (and never should have), and this was related to the sometimes ‘unconscious’ class-bias of the language used to discuss and refer to our very own WP students.  For instance, I came across, in written discussion, our very own students being referred to as ‘lower class’.

In some ways such statements are a ‘sociological’ statement of ‘fact’.  How else should our target audiences and student cohorts within WP be ‘defined’ and then referred to?  But in other ways such language conjures up images and tales of My Fair Lady ­­and the ‘saving’ of the ‘lower classes’ through education.  The phrasing definitely carried a clear sense of ‘unconscious bias’, since as soon as I pointed the problem out, conscious awareness changed the ‘text’.  Indeed, such a situation was never meant to be – it was a proverbial ‘slip of the tongue’ (or ‘text’ in this case).

‘Naturally’, such pronouncements are an easy thing to make.  The higher education WP ‘sector’ is awash with references to its ‘target audiences’ using identity-laden words and phrases, and this is despite a shift in the sector’s general ‘discourse’.  That is, there is recognition that we need to change how we talk about inclusivity and diversity such that curricula and pedagogical ‘models’ draw on and meet the experiences of those to be ‘included’ (literally those who are extra mural, or ‘outside the walls’) rather the experiences of those firmly ensconced ‘inside them’ (intra mural).

Surely a first goal in the latter transformation is to get away from thinking about (never mind referring to) our own students as, somehow, ‘lower class’?  They are, first and foremost, our fellow citizens and thoroughly deserve an equal ‘billing’.

Case Study 2: Advancing Critical Thinking in Access (foundation / entry level) Students

My second ‘awakening’ – and this is definitely the kind of thing which makes me ‘woke’ – occurred at an online conference organised by the Open University (OU).  The focus and theme of the conference was ‘interdisciplinary foundation courses’ and their continued relevance within the OU.  For background information, the traditional OU degree (which starts ‘open entry’, not demanding enlisted students have any prior qualifications) begins with a (large) 60-credit interdisciplinary ‘module’ – the ones I have taught (2000-2022), namely, DD100, DD101 and DD102, have covered sociology, politics, social policy and criminology, economics, geography, and psychology.

However, growing demand for ‘named’ Honours degrees (in an identifiable subject area, that is, having a degree in ‘Psychology’ or ‘Criminology’ will make the graduate a psychologist or criminologist, and not just a ‘graduate’) witnessed the decline of the multi-disciplinary Open Degree and a clamour for more clearly demarcated higher level modules. 

When I undertook a Diploma in European Humanities with the OU (1995-1998), all 3 modules I studied (at levels 1, 2 and 3) where interdisciplinary.  However, interdisciplinary provision has been retained, for now, on Foundation (SCQF Level 7) and Access (SCQF Level 6) modules.  Hence, the conference was a chance to examine the role and relevance of interdisciplinary learning and teaching when the main focus is (should be) on student induction to academic literacies and study skills.  There were, of course, a number of workshops / sessions I attended, including a very useful one on the differences between interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary work (including the meaning of the terms).  But a standout session, from my standpoint, focused on the challenge of teaching ‘critical thinking’ to access and/or foundation students on interdisciplinary access courses.

This session generated the usual debates about how ‘critical thinking’ can be induced or instilled into new, open-entry students.  My own view that ‘critical thinking’ is not an ‘attribute’ (nor possess-able ‘trait’) which can be ‘taught’ as an individually-centred or owned ‘skill’, but is rather the constant product of a ‘social situation’, I will leave to another article.  What is of interest here is one of the responses (from a fellow participant – an associate lecturer and member of ‘teaching staff’) to the issue of how critical thinking can or might be taught.  After all, some students manage to pick the desired skill up quite easily, but others don’t – no matter how much we try to instil this desirable and highly ‘employable’ skill.

My erstwhile colleague appeared to have a STEM background (perhaps biology), and then asked (via chatbox): ‘Is critical thinking something we are born with?’

This is a controversial and thorny question!  The immediate difficulty is that the question can be read in two different ways – through socio-historical positive and negative lenses.  The positive understanding is that the possibility of ‘critical thinking’ is something we are ALL ‘born with’, and thus the challenge is how this ‘born-with’ capacity or facility for ‘critical thinking’ can be brought out (a la The Enlightenment) in each and every individual.  Consequently, the struggle lies with ‘teachers’ to ignite, or spark, the latent intellectual fuel within the student ‘subject’.  No doubt, the student also plays their ‘part’ or role, since failure of the process may (also) come down to some form of fuel dampening which makes the ignition stage more difficult in some ‘target’ subjects than others.  But at least on this understanding of the ‘born with’ question, every human individual has the potential to be, and chance of being, sparked into action.  And once the fuel is burning it will, somehow, do so for the rest of the individual’s life.

The alternative interpretation of the question, the negative one, is that only SOME individuals are ‘born with’ a capacity for critical thinking.  That is, is critical thinking something the aspiring student ‘has’ or does ‘not have’?  And can the latter distinction explain why our attempts at inducing and/or instilling ‘critical thinking’ succeed or fail?

Now, biologically-determinist approaches to human intelligence cannot be dismissed that easily.  Having worked with people with learning disabilities for almost two decades it was obvious to me that biology can and does place limitations (and quite severe ones) on an individual’s ability to learn and understand the world.  What often emerges are very different ‘realities’ about what the world (and the social world) consist of.  And beyond learning disabilities (which typically have physical or biological roots, as in brain injury or chromosomal divergence) there are many forms of biologically-rooted learning difficulty and neurodiversity which produce unique ways of learning that, of course, cannot be viewed as ‘lesser’.

On top of this, the research of political scientist Prof Karen Stenner has demonstrated that about one-third (33%) of any human population consist of ‘authoritarians’ who do not like change.  This is not a simple matter of political ideologies and allegiances, since Left-liberal populations still have a substantial portion of authoritarians even though the percentage is not as high as that found amongst Right-conservative populations.  What this comes down to, then, is what we ‘mean’ by ‘critical thinking’?  That is, are we referring to an ability for self-reflection and self-criticism, an ability to question others and what they are doing, or the capacity to see multiple points of view?

One response is to note that such differences in human populations are highly ‘marginal’.  That is, there are differences (in, say, size of brain cavity between males and females) but the tolerances are so small that in practice such measurements are meaningless.  You really need bigger ‘leaps’ or ‘gaps’ in units of what is being measured before variance in outcome or output would be distinguishable.  In short, biological factors might explain ‘something’ (at extreme points of intelligence quotients, IQs) but they don’t explain anything within a central ‘bell curve’ crowd (the vast majority).

When my fellow participant first posted the question I understood it in the positive mode.  So, it was a surprise to me (given the OU teaching and learning context) from seeing subsequent discussion that the negative mode had been intended!  Literally, is ‘critical thinking’ something you are either born with, or not?  A further, perhaps more shocking, surprise was that the question had been accepted and taken-for-granted, as if the idea that some students (probably taken to be quite a lot, given the levitation of the question) are not   capable of critical thinking is just a rather sad ‘fact’.

From the Enlightenment-inspired provision of education to the general masses – the Open University – discussion of developing ‘critical thinking’ (as some kind of skill within ‘students’) had descended into world familiar from an Aldous Huxley novel – Brave New World­ ­ – where part of the teacher’s work is to diagnose those with low capacity or potential (the Epsilons) so they might be separated from those with the ability for ‘critical thinking’ (the Alphas).  I would like to categorise the experience of this incidence as ‘quaint’, yet it is just worrying that some ‘ideas’ continued to be pervasive.

Elitism and the Division of Labour

The key social science question is ‘where do such ideas emanate from?’  Do they merely arise out of perspectives which lack lived experience of being one of the ‘lower orders’?  Or does it goes back to what Adam Smith noted in Book 5 of the Wealth of Nations, namely, that divisions of labour have the potential to make us all ‘stupid and ignorant’.

When I introduce Smith’s comments about the division of labour potentially making use ‘stupid and ignorant’ (in Access and Foundation education, but also on a not-for-qualification course I teach on Smith’s Wealth of Nations as part of public engagement) I ask the self-reflective question of whether or not Smith would have included himself as part of the division of labour which induces such stupidity and ignorance?  That is, what, if any, powers does Smith have to rise above and out of the division of labour which helps him to recognise the latent stupidity?  More importantly, as academia (university research and teaching) is yet one more ‘division of labour’, aren’t academics just as prone to being ‘stupid and ignorant’ as anyone else?

It is a wonderful belief that ‘we’ (academics, sociologists, philosophers … however ‘we’ want to describe ourselves) have superior-powers of observation, insight, introspection, research, or understanding compared to the ‘common’, ‘everyday’, or ‘unthinking’ mass of humanity.  However, as my OU colleague managed to convince me, no we don’t.  Surely ‘the some can and some can’t think critically’ position is in itself a sign of failing to think critically.  That is, it fails to reflect on the social position of the enunciator and why it is that they think they are thinking critically when they might not be.  Furthermore, the same goes for WP sector phrases such as ‘lower class’ and even ‘disadvantaged’ – why is holding the upper, higher or even middle ground understood to be an ‘advantage’?  And ‘advantage’ to or for what?

To conclude, as a community prompt aimed as much at myself as any other self, widening participation in higher education is about reaching ‘out’ and never ‘down’.  There is much to be learned by ‘reaching out’ where one set of educators can educate another set of educators.

by doctormcgrail

Women in Power to Power-less Communities

What follows is a comparison of Mary Beard’s (2017) Women & Power: A Manifesto and Thomas Markus’ (1993) Buildings and Power: Freedom and Control in the Origin of Modern Building Types on the question of power – what it is and what people should do with or about it?

Beard on Power

Beard’s Women & Power is a small collection (124 pages) of two lectures presented on the topic plus a later ‘Afterword’ responding to the rise of the #Me-too movement in 2017.  It also contains a list of Further Reading, which cements the educational-style and flavour of the (quick read) format and, overall, I would recommend it as a single afternoon read to students.

The title of the book, which I think uses the word ‘and’ purposefully between ‘women and power’, highlights how women have been ‘separated’ from power, and this forms the theme of the first lecture entitled ‘The Public Voice of Women’.  This lecture concisely outlines, referencing examples from ancient and modern works of art (featuring stories and myths), the way in which women have been ‘silenced’ throughout history (and still are) as a means of isolating them from public spaces and demonstrative actions (the speech acts) of political power.  While women have been, at times, able to voice their experience, knowledge, and expertise in areas deemed segmentally female, they have been expunged from wider matters of civic interest for millennia.

This process has taken many different but nonetheless linked forms, such as being ridiculed, ignored, shamed, threatened, punished, violated, and mutilated.  A woman’s place is ‘not’ to speak in public, and Beard reveals the sad (though hardly unexpected) continuation of such social customs and conventions in the contemporary world, despite recent historical gains made by feminists, by noting the atrocious treatment of women on social media.  Atrocious acts, of course, committed by men – though Beard subtly underlines the role women can play in undermining each other’s confidence and their own cause (the ‘don’t rock the boat’ approach).  Silencing women keeps their voices from being heard and their views, perspectives, and opinions out of public debate.

Her use of ‘silence’ reminded me of Michel Foucault’s work on the same subject of ‘power’.  It is why Foucault started to talk about undertaking ‘archaeologies of knowledge’, because archaeologists deal with human development before the appearance of written records, whereas historians deal with the ‘written record’.  Foucault’s point was that whilst studying the ‘history’ of power/ knowledge (he was very interested in the Early Modern, Enlightenment, and Industrial periods), one is also dealing with the actions and wills of those who could not write, could not speak, nor express themselves ‘on record’.  For many people and groups in society (remembering Foucault was gay) this meant their historic record is shockingly ‘recent’.  The researcher has to learn how to read between the lines, and this led Foucault to an interest geography and the use of space, where building design forms an essential component of the knowledge-archaeologists’ ‘dig’ (more on this later).

The second lecture in Beard’s book examines ‘Women in Power’, and what happens to them – that is, how women must morph into something else to meet the expectations of who holds power and why.  Classic myths are again referenced – Clytemnestra and Antigone, who display their ‘masculine’ side as ruler and rebel – and the way such examples are used by modern day critics of women in power are beautifully denoted.  Again, Beard ties the issue to everyday use of language and how this disparages women moving into positions of power.  She notes how one newspaper talked of female applicants for the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and Bishop of London roles as ‘grabbing’ power.  Would the same newspaper have discussed all the previous male incumbents as having ‘grabbed’ power?  The word ‘grab’, of course, implies greed, selfishness, dishonesty, or plain old theft – the taking of something one is not entitled to.

However, despite the positive and welcome points Beard makes on the holding and distribution of power, what I did not get a sense of from Beard’s book was any clear definition of (political) ‘power’ – what it is, in and of itself.  Obviously, that men, or any single part of the community, have all the power – the ability to dominate public speech – is a bad thing.  The situation is unequal, unfair, and consequently inefficient and unstable.  Hence, power needs to be redistributed but, importantly for Beard, obtaining it should not entail morphoses nor assimilation.  For instance, women should not have to drop the pitch / tone of their voices (as Margaret Thatcher did) in order to be taken authoritatively or ‘seriously’.  Here Beard is highlighting that the required redistribution of power is about more than changing the guard and the gender / sex of the guard – it is about changing, somehow, the nature of power by enabling those who would not ‘normally’ hold to access it (whether their voice is high-pitched or not).

Markus on Power

By contrast, Thomas Markus’ Buildings and Power: Freedom and Control in the Origin of Modern Building takes a very different approach to understanding the distribution of power within modern society and how it should be tackled when a more egalitarian outcome is being sought.  The comparison with Beard’s book is not about the different formats and purposes of their respective works.  Buildings and Power was the culmination of Markus’ career as a professor of architecture at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow) and stretches to several hundred folio-sized pages, with at least one illustration per page.  It is painstaking in descriptive detail of its many examples and case studies of modern buildings, with chapters divided by building type (such as schools, hospitals and asylums, bath-houses, libraries and recreational pavilions).  Markus’ narrative aims to build up a ‘history’ of the emergence and deployment of new (modern) building types, and how these evolve over time.

Markus was in correspondence with Foucault towards the end of the latter’s life (in 1984).  Indeed, Tom Markus personally told me (he was the external examiner for my doctoral thesis) he had arranged to meet Foucault (for the first time) in Paris (at Foucault’s apartment).  Markus arrived and rang the doorbell, but no-one was in – the previous day Foucault had been taken into hospital, where he would die.  The meeting of these two minds was not to be.  What they shared in common was an interest in the ‘unwritten’ about (unspoken of) distribution of power through built space.

Developing earlier concepts from Hillier and Hanson (1984) on ‘spatial syntax’, Markus drew on the design of room-structures, passage-ways, pillar and wall positioning, sight lines, and layering of utilities within building designs to examine how ‘positioning’ within a building’s space enabled or disabled the actions and behaviours of human subjects.  This was something Foucault had brought his readers’ attention to with regards to Bentham’s ‘panopticon’, or (more accurately) ‘inspection house’, in Discipline and Punish (1977).  The Hillier / Hanson / Markus production of spatial syntax diagrams took this approach to an entirely new level – the role of surveillance but also motion (bodily) control could be traced and laid bare for nearly any building (and even outdoor spaces such as gardens and sporting enclosures).

The conclusion of Markus’ study, which spanned analysis of buildings across Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and North America from mediaeval to modern times, though most specifically from 1730 to 1850 (the period of the Enlightenment), was that architectural designs were becoming more ‘open’ as their social usage (and successful operation) relied more and more heavily on the freedom of participants.  From deep hierarchical spatial structures (think thin-and-tall, or many floored, ‘pyramids’) to shallow equalising ones.  At the ‘unspoken’ level, power, as distributed through built forms, was being increasingly flattened.

Of course, this does not mean that a ‘flattened’ form of power is any less ‘powerful’ or controlling than a ‘deep’ one – it is certainly less ‘visible’, and perhaps that is the fundamental point.  For Foucault, his investigations into the evolution of modern power brought him to the conclusion that the power to ‘put to death’ (Sovereign power) was first replaced by the power to extend life via the control of conduct (Disciplinary power) before this power-over-life (bio-power) was finally transferred to the individual (Self-control).  That is, modern subjects of power place themselves under the watchful eye of ‘self-evident truths’ and behave themselves accordingly whether or not there is a surveyor (manager) in sight.  Gone are the straight-jacket spaces of ‘deep’ hierarchies.  Contemporary power is much more malleable, shape-shifting, and adaptable than what went before – the birthplace of power has been left well and truly behind.  Consequently, for Foucault, our contemporary period is symbolised by many more individuals (than in the past) being brought under the ‘sign’ of power as self-control.

Unfortunately, Foucault is all too often read in a dystopian mode – as a purveyor of the hopeless situation.  Power is everywhere and little can be done against it.  Women may think they now ‘have’ or possess power, or at least possess more power than they used to have.  In truth, sadly, power has subsumed them.  But this is only one way of reading Foucault.  The other is to understand him in the tradition of dystopian novelist – the siren who screams ‘look out, danger about’ with the precise aim of preventing such a subsuming into power by highlighting the dangers.  In the collection of Foucault interviews (by Paul Rabinow), Power/Knowledge, Foucault makes it clear that his use of Bentham’s panopticon was to indicate how such a form of power could never come to be – it was far too mechanical and had to be abandoned.  In that sense, Discipline and Punish can be understood as a history of ruling class dreams about how power should work, and not a history of how it has worked.

It is within this framework that Markus’ noted, to me, how we (humans as a collective) need to de-power our relationships.  It is not all ‘bad news’ in the sense that modern buildings are more open and leave people free (or freer) to interact and conduct themselves in the manner that they so wish.  For a start, not all of our relationships are ones of ‘power’.  When we go out with friends, for a meal or drink, or spend time with family (when we ‘choose’ to do so) we are, in essence, partaking in relationships where ‘power’ is suspended.

To adopt terms used by Marx, our lives consist of a realm of necessity (where we have to or must do certain things) and a realm of freedom.  The core issue is to what extent these two are ‘balanced’ with greater time being given to one over the other.  Power may well be something we have to accept at some level in our complex, highly urbanised, and spatially interconnected lives, but it is also something which can be reduced to a pre- or after-thought.  This means that the ‘aim’ (the political goal) should be to de-power our lives (a phrase I picked up from Markus) as opposed to thinking in terms of how to ‘win’ power for one or other disadvantaged or marginalised group.  Is it time to ask how we might de-power men rather than empower women?

Dual Languages of Empowerment and De-powering

Most people will be familiar with the concept of ‘empowering’ disadvantaged or marginalised groups.  Given the importance of ‘power’ within the modern world, such an approach appears to make perfect sense.  The poor are to be ‘levelled up’ and the marginalised are to be brought into the fold.  Though questions can be raised about the historical experience of such an approach.  We appear to have been levelling-up and empowering the disadvantaged for decades, but it also feels like a game of whack-a-mole.  Is it the very ‘nature’ of (political) power to distribute itself unevenly?  And at what point should we consider alternatives – how do we ‘remove’ power from our lives, pushing power to the margins?

There is no easy answer and I cannot see the phraseology of ‘empowerment’ waning any time soon.  The most important thing I took from Markus’ notion of de-powering relationships was the very possibility of asking the question.

by doctormcgrail

Going Kwasi, Learning Economics!

On the morning of Tuesday 27th September 2022 the Financial Times reported experienced professional economists referring to Kwasi Kwarteng’s (UK Chancellor of the Exchequer) understanding of economics as being “A-level”.  In other words, his understanding involved a superficial or populist comprehension (of economic relationships) which, interestingly, is something to be expected of school children (‘why?’).

Apparently oblivious to the potential damage his actions, and those of his Prime Minister, Liz Truss, could have, the Kwasi Chancellorship initiated a chain of events (in historic proportions) leading the Bank of England, on Wednesday 28th September, to act perversely to its own policy and purpose (by buying gilt-edged government bonds when it job is to sell them).  The latter emergency purchasing strategy was aimed at saving UK (defined benefit) pension funds and the economy, more generally, from the actions of the UK peoples’ own government!

Despite all the ideology and rhetoric (fine words) bound up in claims to ‘free market economics’ – that governments should ‘leave well alone’ and can do so by reducing their own income – the tale is clearly one of a government intervention that impoverished (quite rapidly) the country.  Truss and Kwarteng wanted the market to decide, and it was soon spooked by their actions and ‘decided’ to sell UK government debt, forcing up interest rates, not just for the government but everyone in the UK and specifically those seeking mortgages.  What happens ‘next’ remains to be seen at time of writing (Kwarteng has just been fired).  Can the government now convince the market (in finance and investment) that its ‘plan for growth’ can be ‘stabilised’?  Analysts on programmes such as BBC2’s Newsnight (Wednesday 28th) were at pains to point out that even if Truss (and her new Chancellor, Hunt) now manage to do so, the resultant ‘options’ would still be 3rd and 4th best outcomes compared to having left things ‘alone’.

Though my interest in writing this piece is not simply about current economic policy.  Rather, it is about economic education and the idea that, somehow, children (high school students) – and indeed the general public (the ‘commoners’) – are and should be ‘lied’ to.

This takes the form that provision of education in economics entails a Russian Doll or Onion Peel experience, namely, stripping away layers of bigger ‘lies’ to reveal ever smaller ones (that is, there is a reasoned movement from larger to smaller ‘generalisations’ and/or conceptual ‘errors’) until ‘the truth’ is finally revealed at the ‘highest’ expert-level of ‘postgraduate’ economics, where the margins for error between theory and reality are somehow, or should be, smallest.  Based on the Financial Times’ reference to ‘A-level economics’ being part of the problem, this onion peeling process appears to sum-up our current ‘system’ of education in economics!

By way of contrast, the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher Thomas Reid set out to save the so-called ‘expert’ philosophy of his day (Descartes / Berkeley / Kant / Hume) from its ‘ridiculousness’ in asking questions such as: ‘how do I know I am here?’  Reid’s point was that the ‘common’ person in the street knows the answer to this question – quite simply and without the angst.  As a Scottish ‘common sense’ philosopher, Reid’s concern was that some questions cannot and should not be left, nor limited, to experts.  Essentially, discussion must be broadened out to encompass the community.

Should this not be the case with modern ‘economic’ decision-making?  But, how can this democratic goal be achieved if our economic education system perpetuates the ‘dumbing down’ model described above?  It is akin to saying that the non-experts will remain ‘stupid’ until they have picked up a PhD – something Kwasi Kwarteng has.

The alternative, of course, is to tell foundation level students in economics, whether ‘school age’ or adult returners to education, and, to wit, the great unwashed public ‘mob’, what is currently known about economic relationships.  In other words, what is wrong with starting by covering the cutting-edge state-of-human-knowledge, or what post-graduate students and professional economists actually know, understand, or argue?  In a similar vein, Kate Raworth (Doughnut Economics) asks a pertinent question about why we still teach economics as if it’s 1948 (i.e. by using Paul Samuleson’s graph-based formulations)?  This just doesn’t happen in physics, biology or chemistry.  Now we know there are 8 planets in our solar system (when it was understood there were 9 when I was a child), we don’t tell contemporary school children there are 9 planets only to reveal to them later on, in university, that there are, in fact, 8.

One immediate (establishment) answer is that such economic thinking and perspectives are ‘too advanced’ for the ordinary citizen (and, by implication, child), not least because to ‘make sense’ the acquirer of such ‘knowledge’ should be conversant with complex mathematics, equations, formulae, and/or deep statistical modelling.

Indeed, was it not the absence of such understanding, data, and information from Kwarteng’s ‘mini-budget’ which spooked the markets?  He presented a political ideal – less taxation for all – but decided not to provide any evidence as to how his proposed tax cuts would be ‘paid for’ via reductions in state expenditure.  Since data was available from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), though perhaps not ‘immediately’, people had to ask the question if Kwarteng was either in a rush (to do something before a party conference), did not want the existing information to come out, or did not understand or like what the data had to say.  Despite his lack of data, Kwarteng (and Truss) forged ahead on the basis of “A-level” economic comprehension – using the overly-simplified assertion that lower taxation produces greater economic growth.

It’s a simple enough mantra, one the ‘commoners’ it was presumed would ‘get’, but also ignores basic, and simply understood, historical facts.  As Robert C. Allen notes in his Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction, a work aimed at ‘beginners’, between 1920 and 1940 the fastest growing economy in the world was that of the Soviet Union, where the ‘communist’ state utilised forced expropriation (i.e. a very ‘high’ form of taxation) to achieve rapid social change, ‘advancement’, and so-called ‘social progress’ (whilst the ‘liberal’ low-tax economies of the US and UK languished in a Great Depression).

The Kwasi mantra also overlooked the possibility of a simple ‘theoretical’ reversal of cause and effect, namely, that it is the fastest growing economies which (just happen to) have the lowest rates of taxation!  Consequently, it is not because the army is small that the economy grows (Kwarteng’s assumption), but because the economy is growing that it can afford its army (what is required) at a much lower proportional rate of taxation (or size of state to economy)!  Such oversight distracts from studying possible ‘alternate causes’ of lower economic growth (or lack of rising productivity), such as a tendency for the rate of return on capital to fall (aka a crisis of over-accumulation).  The latter is the core conclusion of Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the 21st Century.

This is not to say that Kwarteng’s position has no intellectual merit.  In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith provides the example, in Book 5, of a state maintaining an army (actually, he refers to the British navy and its size following the 7 year war with France) above the size required in peace time.  Smith makes it clear that whilst the Admiralty has a vested interest in sustaining the navy at 100,000 sailors (because a larger navy means more power and social status for the Admirals) the general or national economy has no such ‘interest’.  Though Smith’s underlying question is ‘how should such interests, the national interest, be decided?’ 

Smith thinks it should not be left to the Admirals (who represented the top 5% of his society – the ruling class elite).  In the ensuing peace, the retained sailors continue to consume national food and clothing stocks (and much else) without adding anything to the growth of those material stocks via rising output (productivity).  Things were different during the war, when their activities were ‘valued’ and central to advancing the supply of food and clothing by securing trade routes.  Following Smith’s conceptual outline and analysis from Book 2 (on capital accumulation), where he draws the distinction between productive and unproductive labour, the sailors are being retained in roles which are ‘unproductive’ of new output – the sailors fall into a category of the population which Smith highlights in his ‘Plan of the Work’ (the first few pages of The Wealth of Nations) as ‘consumers’ of national stock rather than ‘producers’ of it.

Subsequently, Smith advocates release (or liberation) of the sailors from their state-imposed marshal deployment so they can find work best suited to their personal aptitudes and capacities via the labour market, and where the marketplace more generally (or ‘society’ expressed in its trading actions) decides where they are most needed.

However, there is no guarantee that the transfer or transition of sailors into ‘civilian’ life will, indeed, make them any more productive – not if they end up ‘unemployed’ and reliant on Poor Relief, nor if they end up having to work as domestic servants, nor as adjuncts to specific ‘masters’ (those who can monopolise trade in various ways, legislate for state subsidies of their own business, and implement all the abuses of the market Smith has highlighted in Book 4 of the Wealth of Nations).  Therefore, what Smith is advocating in Book 5 is not a simple and thoughtless ‘reduction in taxation’, but a root and branch transformation of the Mercantilist system where taxation was being used to promote the interests’ of the few over the many.  The latter is so easily forgotten in ‘adherence’ to Smithian liberal economics. 

Truss’ and Kwarteng’s priorities appear to be growing the economy in the interests of some (a few) over others with reference to trickle-down economics, on the basis that ‘some’ have a greater impact on the promotion of growth (productivity) than others.  The latter theory, of course, has been thoroughly disproved after 50 years, with the London School of Economics (LSE) having undertaken a review of all the occasions where ‘trickle-down’ policy has been invoked by politicians. The result? All trickle-down has ever produced, in practice, is greater inequality (or ‘dribble-up’) – something IMF economists were at pains to point out following Truss and Kwarteng’s mini-budget.

Returning to Reid and the traditions of Scottish Common Sense Philosophy, the moral of the tale relates to the how the interface between ‘expertise’ and democratic discussion should be constructed.  If “A-level” economics are responsible for Kwarteng’s policies then, obviously, something needs to be done about “A-level” economics!  There should be no presumption that the commons are ‘too thick’ to understand what is going on, nor that a ‘proper’ understanding of economic relationships requires a degree in mathematics.  Experts in economics should, like their brethren in physics or biology, be able to communicate the ‘latest’ advances in their field to their non-expert fellow citizens, who ultimately play a ‘role’ in keeping the ‘experts’ from becoming ‘ridiculous’.

One problem in our existing society is that expertise in economics is not (always or even typically) used to advance the wider social good but advance private (corporate and commercial) interests.  In that ‘sense’ the role of expert knowledge is skewed – it gears itself towards guarding the mysteries of priesthood, and generating an aura of mystique, rather than allowing its claims, assertions, and ‘models’ to be exposed to general, public evaluation.  And when it comes to developing (and shaping) the curricula of economic education the ‘demand’ to produce ‘more people like us’ over-rides any attempt to open up the ‘foundation’ years of study to alternate approaches (to the graph-based microeconomic and econometric orthodoxy).

by doctormcgrail

The Glass Funnel: On the Problem of Equity in a Hierarchy

In 1945 Karl Popper published his famous work The Open Society and Its Enemies, which has been viewed as a major defence of liberal democracy and an attack on historically determinist theories which see human development following a pre-ordained path.  I am not going into the details of Popper’s work here but ask a simple question: who could disagree with Popper’s desire and assertion to keep the future open and elevate the common person to equal status with that of Plato’s philosopher-king?

His argument for openness connects with many other political theorists, including Hannah Arendt, who described freedom as the ability to do something novel – in other words, freedom requires and presupposes that the future is not foreclosed but open to change.  In a similar vein, the approach of ‘Open Marxism’ adopts the term ‘open’ in a manner that applies a requirement for historical openness to what is deemed one of the most ‘closed systems of thought’ – the inevitable trudge of history towards socialism under the ideology of ‘dialectical historical materialism’.

In Popper’s view, the equality of liberal democracy acts as a foil against the ‘historicism’ (inevitability) of a totalising system – one with the tendency to ‘close off’ futures and present tomorrow as a foregone conclusion.  Liberal equality and freedom of speech will, surely, undermine the tyranny and oligarchy of Plato’s class-based social structure from The Republic (a target work in Popper’s argument), with its use of deception and essential propaganda to maintain a ‘stable’ (unchanging) social world.  Given the Bolsheviks’ adoption of Platonism in the form of the Leninist ‘vanguard’ party, where some ‘know better’ than others, and this party’s wedding to historical ‘inevitability’, Popper’s critique was an undeniable pummelling of his (and Marxist orthodoxy’s) interpretation of Hegelian and Marxist ‘philosophy’.  And, hence, Popper acted as welcome midwife to the need for a review of Marx (and those who followed him, whether Marxians or Marxists) via the praxis of Open Marxism.

The problem with Popper’s critique is that he wasn’t living in the liberal and equal world he thought or presumed he was.  Britain in the 1940s and ‘50s was far from being an ‘open society’, and in that sense could be described as an enemy of itself.  In 1945 the British Empire was yet to ‘de-colonise’, and this was an Empire on which the sun was never meant to set.  Popper’s society was not ready to accept the levelling of ‘us’ with ‘others’ – a possibility his intellectual and utopian ‘openness’ held forth.  And whilst the democratic element of Western ‘liberal democracy’ might have offered the possibility of ‘openness’ (who knows what decisions ‘the people’, now or in the future, might make?), usage of the word ‘liberal’ was firmly associated with the mini-tyranny and ‘free agency’ of the private property owner – the ‘ones’ who (to follow Sylvia Federici’s rather than Marx’s version) had liberated, and could liberate, the earth from the commoners and natives living on it (impoverishing them and making them available for ‘work’).  In short, Popper’s supposed ‘open society’ was nothing other than a contradictory dream space in which the equality of inhabitants had been taken-for-granted.  Such an ideal speech community (to use Habermas’ term) could, therefore, treat every section of ‘society’ on an intellectually-presumed equal basis, as if they had been heard, and were being heard, in a truly representative manner.

From Abstract Equality to Meaningful Equity

This position is contemporary as well as historic, and ‘liberal democracy’ is still held forth as the best political and social ‘model’, despite its shortcomings, because, as noted in Churchill’s famous quotation: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others”.  Indeed, viewed aright, the liberties of liberal democracies are, in fact, accumulations of rights, freedoms, expectations, demands, and licenses wrought by successive inferiors from the hands of their superiors.  However, criticism of the many ways in which ‘access’ to liberal democracy, premised on the need and ability to express oneself and be heard, has been denied to large portions of the population have not declined over time but have grown in number, extent, and focus, especially since the post-war social revolution of the 1960s.

Feminist, racial and ethnic minority, LGBTQi+, indigenous, nationhood, and disabled movements have all come forward in highlighting how this intellectual presumption (of legal or political equality) undermines and keeps them, in effect, silent no matter how loud they shout.  In their stead, money talks and everyone knows it (though, clearly, not everyone accepts this situation).  And in some cases not even having enough money is sufficient for certain people to gain a platform which would give them an equal footing with others.

Into these spaces of discrimination and neglect, which are locations of permanent exclusion for the majority of those discriminated against, and despite sporadic ‘punctuations’ of rebellion, or those global events involving the sudden rise and revolt of the oppressed (which shake or shatter the existing world order), new methods of population ‘aspiration’ management have come into being.  I shall call these the ‘policies of social equality’ and/or, the same thing, ‘the social policies of equation’.

Of course, to acknowledge Lenin’s question of ‘What is to be done?’, something always needs to be done and such policies and their programmes should not be rejected outright as purely ingenious system-saving products of whatever happens to be the current hegemonic or totalising vision (or, in simplistic terms, ‘the ruling class’).  Rather, they are complex figurations and the compromised outcomes of long ‘negotiation’ (or, in simplistic terms, ‘class struggle’).

Such ameliorative policies do effectively rattle what has politically been, and the way the social world was.  As the bumper sticker demands: “More blacks.  More Irish.  More dogs”.  The 19th century movement for the establishment of Sunday Schools can be berated by secular moderns for their practices of ‘religious indoctrination’, but this conveniently forgets that the Sunday Schools movement was populated by the oppressed working masses seeking literacy for their children.  The drive for literacy, which entailed first and foremost the reading of the Bible, was not simply a ruling class conspiratorial ‘plot’ (to indoctrinate) but an historical shift marked by contradiction.  The working classes learned to read and, hence, what they then read became the next point of contention and ‘negotiation’ (struggle).  The ruling class, against their economistic belief system, began to provide the ‘right’ books for free in public libraries, part and parcel of ‘rational pursuits’.  Thus, a basic concept of contradiction needs to be retained when reviewing any social policies of equation.

Anti-discrimination laws, against racism and sexism, or against non-employment and/or dismissal on grounds of creed or sexuality, were the first kinds of policies to come into being following the 1960s ‘revolution’, but they were largely a blunt tool which enabled the prosecution of what should not be done, that is, if anyone in a position of authority could be bothered to discover what should not have not been done.  It was too easy for, even publicly-funded, organisations and institutions to subtly avoid ‘detection’.  For instance, in Aberdeen and Glasgow, for 30 years after the 1974 Sex Discrimination Act, dinner ‘ladies’ were paid less than bin ‘men’ on grounds that their work was, somehow, very different and that the ‘bin men’ did a dirty, heavy, and dangerous job whilst the ‘dinner ladies’ did not.  Workers were not, apparently, being discriminated against on grounds of sex since the existing wage differentials came down to the variation in tasks involved.  It was historic coincidence that more men worked on bin (‘trash’) collection whilst more women worked in the kitchens of school canteens.

Quite correctly, the women chipped away at the theoretical justifications of the so-called ‘differentials’.  Industrial kitchens are dirty (wastes and bacteria), involve heavy jobs (a 50 litre pan of boiling water), and are dangerous (sharp knives and machetes, electric mincers, hot stoves, and wet floors).  Questions about the meaning of equality and equivalence were brought into consciousness and focus.  The law / policy claims people are equal, but what does that mean, in practice?

To get a usable answer things have to go to court or some other approved arbiter – an official pronouncement is required on what counts as ‘fair’ and equal.  But what happens if the complainants cannot afford to go to court whereas the defendants have bottomless pockets?   One answer (outside of combination and union, friendly and charitable society, or fundraising campaign amongst the commons, like ‘crowd funding’) was to establish formal publicly-funded prosecutors for the most important cases (and in the US ‘class’ cases), such as race equality commissions, regulatory ‘ombudsmen’, or problem-solving ‘czars’, who would, as state-appointed representatives, bring the cases to court.  Even so, it was clear that equal right did not equate to equal might, and simply ensuring people had a ‘right’ before the law (was applied) was an insufficient means of overcoming the foul practices of the discriminatory past and present.

And so, farther-reaching and improved policies and mechanisms of ‘promotion’ began to emerge.  Perhaps the most well-known of these would be the employment ‘equal opportunities’ form, which acts as a preventativemore than curative measure.  For large companies and institutions, this filtering recruitment mechanism helps to avoid the creation of conditions and situations which may, at a later date, land them in court or at an industrial tribunal.  The fines for breaking equality laws, regulations, and codes are often so puny, relative to the wealth being generated, that unfair hiring and employment practices could be ignored on a financial basis (just pay the fine and continue), but the negative publicity cannot be ignored, and highly developed mass-worker societies are also mass-consumer and mass-media ones.  Consequently, the structure of the workforce has to be brought into line with the population characteristics of Popper’s republic.

An accurate, temporally recent, census then becomes crucial, such that organisations and managers ‘know’ what they are dealing with – how little does the current workforce ‘match’ societal population statistics and, hence, how unrepresentative (or under-representative) is the workforce and, by implication, recruitment procedures?  How unfair is the situation? And the approach applies at the social as well as the institutional level, as politicians grapple with issues of social inequalities related to job opportunities and access to public resources, including schools, healthcare, housing, and regional development.  Hence, what started as a means of tackling ‘gaps’ between social groups with regards to ‘employment opportunities’ (because unequal ‘access’ to jobs is an incendiary point of social conflict – whether the conflict is regional, racial and ethnic, sexual, embodied, cultural, or a matter of ‘class’ – or not having ‘class’) spread to areas like civil service and army recruitment, and finally entry to higher education (which has always been one of the quintessential forms of elitism).

What has emerged are programmes and processes of social equation which American’s know as affirmative action.  Having recognised the Popperian fallacy, the ameliorative response is to generate (out of the existing ‘condition’) a world of equitable opportunities for all.  It has been noted (Ashrad) that, whilst the concept of equality refers to treating everyone ‘the same’, the concept of equity means treating individuals (or ‘groups’) ‘differently’, but with the socially-accepted aim or goal of making everyone equal, that is, so individuals (or ‘groups’) end up in an ‘equal’ position after the intervention, such as having ‘equal opportunity’.  Thus, when it comes to student places at the most prestigious higher education institutions, one approach is to lower the entry-level qualification ‘bar’ for children (and returning adults) from statistically-defined deprived backgrounds.

To sum up, this is the principle of equity in action – the disadvantaged will be raised or levelled up.

And what is the purpose of a university degree?

To the financially invested-mind the latter developments in access to higher education do not make sense – after all the sacrifice of ‘getting ahead’ in life and the resources poured into assuring their children are at the front of the queue for the highest paying jobs, houses in the safest places, and the ‘best’ positions at the most ‘prestigious’ universities, parents of privately-educated children are appalled by any proposed ‘drop’ in the so-called (culturally-biased) educational standards applied to those who didn’t have the extra tuition and resources necessary to do well in ‘traditional’ exams.  The fall-back position has to be one of technical competence – by all means level the very best of the poor up to the required standard but don’t undermine the future of those who have already gained the skills, aptitudes, and attitudes.  This process may take 6 consecutive lifetimes, never mind ‘generations’, but slow steady progress has always been the motto of conservatism.

However, to the non-invested, or open, mind it all makes perfect sense, especially when evidence bears the key point out.  Those arriving from state schools at top universities (Oxford and Cambridge) out-perform their peers from private schools in pure academic terms.  The state school entrants still can’t join the Bullington Club nor the cavalry units of University Officer Training Corps, since they haven’t got the connections nor the horses, and, thus, they will lack Bourdieu’s social and cultural capital to forge ahead, post-University.  But the discrepancy raises questions about what the university or higher education system is for?  The ‘talent’ searching and recruiting procedures of the past have been lacking, both pre and post university degree, and the more undergraduate places that have been created (required to produce or ‘massify’ a ‘higher value adding’ workforce) has increasingly led to a greater stratification of universities (type, focus, audience, rating) and the consequent emergence of higher education ‘league tables’.  But what then has happened to the supposed universal ‘standards’?

Consequently, the most disadvantaged have been lifted up but just at a moment when the peaks of the highest mountains have shot up in comparison to the ‘entry level’ foothills.

The Parallel Cult of ‘Leadership’ and Exceptionalism

Not everything, of course, has headed in the same direction, towards greater equity and the goal of a more egalitarian society.  Just as the aim of equal opportunity has emerged, increased emphasis has been placed on the rewarding of the unique and exceptional along with a hunt for ‘leaders’ (and the ‘qualities’ of leadership).  In a contemporary version of the 16th and 17th century obsession with etiquette or manners ‘manuals’, corporations and institutions flood their virtue-signalling channels with advice and ‘how to’ guides on self-promotion, branding, and ‘getting ahead’.  Members of ‘collegiate’ academic ‘staff’ (an army term, compared to the religious ‘colleagues’) are encouraged to lead and therein rise above their peers.  

Of course, now the disadvantaged have equal opportunities they must learn how to make the most of such opportunities by assimilating the ‘leadership’ qualities of those who already ‘lead’.  Those who have just undertaken study in a post-colonial educational institution, having learned about colonialism, and even had their curriculums de-colonised in the process, are now re-colonised in the world of work (which for some – casually employed university tutors – is the same place in which they studied) and via management ‘double-think’ discourses.  Unlike their forbearers, this time the colonised will have the freedom to ‘brand’ and ‘market’ themselves – forced to adopt a language which is not of their own making.  History repeats itself – first as tragedy, then as farce.

Thus, society ends up with institutions that are simultaneously trying to flatten themselves at the same time as their ‘leadership’ hoist themselves above colleagues and peers.   “Get us closer to the common people”, announces the increasingly distant commander of the ship.  The contemporary institution is ‘network’ like, more ‘complex’, and has ‘colleagues’ not ‘hands’.  Its tentacles are stretched over the earth, adding to cultural and social ‘diversity’.  Professionalised and commercialised management is required, and expert ‘leaders’ from the exploitative industries need to be floated in, or float themselves in, at the very top levels.  The ‘wages’ of inspection and direction (see Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Bk1, Chp6, Para6 for his criticism on this point) have, therefore, to be much greater than before so the right ‘quality’ of person will, butterfly-like, be attracted to the nectar – the simple prestige of ‘heading up’ a group of ‘peers’ for a short period is no longer enough.

In summary for this section, despite moves to level and democratise, to decolonise and head toward egalitarian mission statements, the modern higher education institution remains solidly ‘hierarchical’ and, to date, socially ‘immobile’.

The Glass Ceiling is in fact a Funnel

The drive towards this ‘levelling up’ of the disadvantaged (implied in the conception of equity) is a new model for the ideal speech situation.  However, its possibility and potential does rest on another Popperian-esqueassumption.  That is, the goal of levelling up is to create an open forum and community space where all are, indeed, ‘equal’.

But most often the principle of equity is not being applied on such a basis.  There is no open-space ‘forum’ where all will be senators, but rather a pyramid or cone-shaped funnel.  At the top of this funnel is a hole where only person can emerge as top meerkat or survivalist worm.  From this vantage point the world is that individual’s oyster – they gain the ability to see all around and observe what others cannot.  They are the classic liberal subject of ‘action’ (they get to do things / make a difference).  But the horizon they look out onto is made of information (not knowledge) as the one perspective they lack is that of those who are now beneath them – the failures whom they could never be.  For the other meerkats, inside the funnel, the walls are lined with dense glass which keeps them to the required (and, of course, ‘closed’ – the ‘closure’ enemy of Popper) pathway to the top.

Women’s rights activists and feminists refer to the metaphor of the ‘glass-ceiling’.  Women have been unable to rise up the ranks of organisations, but they can’t ‘see’ why.  The barrier holding them down is, after all, ‘invisible’ (and ‘silent’).  Following Federici’s line on the degradation of women, one means of keeping women down has been via the denigration of their societal contribution as ‘non-work’, that is, what happens in the ‘home’ (domestic sphere) has been disconnected from the ‘workplace’ (industrial sphere).  The reasons women have had ‘patchy’ career trajectories is because large parts of their lives were (still are) shrouded in a mysterious fog – a realm of being which was (is) not considered nor thought about in the ‘workplace’ nor as part of ‘the workplace’.

But now, after decades of social policies of equation, liberal democratic societies are doing much better!  Glass-ceilings have been cracked, broken, nay, smashed.  At the time of writing I ‘look above me’ (my particular situation and ‘line’ within society) and see tiers and chains of command and management populated by women – Scotland’s First Minister, Finance Minister, Cabinet Secretary for Education, the Director of the Open University in Scotland, and the Head of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (University of Edinburgh).  I could follow the chains further down to Head of Department, Heads of Disciplines, and Directors of Programme.

On the one hand, this shows the clear change in opportunities and culture compared to 60, 40, 20, and even 10 years ago – when none of these positions had ever been held by a woman.  On the other, not only is there a ‘great distance still to be travelled’ (according to the ‘numbers game’), there is a continued obsession with hierarchical bureaucracies derived from the army, the church, and the colonial civil service.  In short, ‘some’ women have risen to the top, but are these individuals to be taken as representatives of a ‘class’ (category / status group / identity) or as exceptional instances of good leadership (aka ‘the right stuff’)?

Is it now just a numbers game?

A specific case may be useful here.  Priti Patel became only the second woman to hold Secretary of State for the Home Office (UK), with the first woman being Theresa May.  However, Patel is of South Asian origin and from an immigrant family.  In those respects she is a first to break a glass-ceiling for ‘women of color’ (to use the American expression).  Yet, as far as UK Home Secretaries go she is thoroughly non-original.  In her time in office she has advocated using naval gunboats to ram rubber dinghies carrying ‘undocumented’ refugees across the English Channel and been accused by civil service unions (and been found responsible by a Whitehall internal investigation) of bullying.  In one sense, she is made of ‘the right stuff’.  Such an outcome will be disappointing to radical feminists who have held the view that women won’t just replace men in public life but will do things differently, thereby transforming social institutions.  The latter is clearly going to be an outcome in certain respects – women leaders are bound to bring a female perspective to managing organisations which gives those organisations a female focus and understanding (e.g. on things such as ‘flexible employment’ contracts and routines).  But in other respects those, supposedly, ‘in power’ operate under socially-accepted ‘self-evident truths’ about what ‘power’ is and how it should be managed, occupied, and possessed.

Does one then end up with moves towards equality / equity being reduced to a numbers game?  For instance, say 1 in 14,000 white male employees of a university become vice chancellor, then it is unfair that the same opportunity for white women should be a reduced 1 in 28,000 (once unequal ratios of male to female employees have been factored in).  Furthermore, if the ‘chances’ for men and women from ‘other ethnic’ minorities of attaining the same goal are much lower (again, on a proportional basis) then is this the obvious kind of ‘disadvantage’ which needs to be addressed?  Furthermore, certain ‘other ethnic’ minorities might stand out in statistics better than others, for example, Black (African / Caribbean), South Asian, and East Asian are relatively well-known and identifiable groups compared to Roma and Gypsies.  And to the gender / sex and ethnicity ‘balance’, the disability, LGBTQi, and neurodiversity ones need to be added.  And even at this point the issue of class, cultural status, ‘background’ (e.g. first generation university graduate), nor indices of deprivation have not even been mentioned let alone touched upon.

Other, more practical questions about hierarchical opportunities then come into focus.  If ensuring a ‘perfect’ mix or balance is never possible, as individuals work their way up the increasingly-crushed glass funnel of the flattened, league-tabled institution, then to what extent should a ‘sub-optimal’ position be ‘accepted’ or become ‘acceptable’?  For instance, if there are only 16 higher education institutions in a country (i.e. Scotland) that require a ‘leader’, and South Asian women make up 1% of the population (2% being people of South Asian origin), then it may have to be accepted that a female vice chancellor of South Asian origin will ‘appear’ once in every six ‘generations’ of post-holding.  Going on the basis each individual vice chancellor holds their post for 5 years, then that is once every 30 years, and that is when things are ‘equal’ or have been ‘equated’ using programmes promoting ‘equity’.

This seems an interminably difficult situation to manage, precisely because it is. Yes, there should be ‘nothing to stop’ any individual from a minority or disadvantaged group from reaching the top in the same way as someone from a white, middle-class private-education background, and everything should be done to ‘balance’ the relative advantages (privileges) and disadvantages of the various ‘groups’ (social divisions) of people involved.  But even then (other than the very obvious 50-50 female-male split, alongside the predominance of the ‘working classes’) the weight of sheer numbers in a society like Scotland’s, which is not very ethnically diverse in terms of skin colour (with 97% identifying as ‘white’ of some variation), means ‘representatives’ of certain ‘classes’ of people are unlike to emerge or appear.   Where then are the ‘role models’?

The question then arises as to what the disadvantaged are being ‘levelled up’ for?  Is it just a means of adding to the ‘competition’ for the hierarchical positions on offer?  Or a sop to saying, referring once more to Lenin, ‘something is being done’.

Equity and the Republic

An alternate way of looking at the situation is to recognise the upside-down nature of the ‘goals’, or aims and objectives, used when ‘applying’ policies of social equation.  The principle of equity – of providing the disadvantaged (the poor; the discriminated against; the intentionally or unintentionally ‘disabled’) with extra publicly-funded resources to ‘level them up’ – operates on the basis of a republican outcome, and NOT in relation to ancient institutions founded on mediaeval vassalage NOR to modernist, bureaucratic, hierarchical incorporations.

When one of the universities I work for pumps out an email for staff every Monday morning entitled ‘Online Development Toolkit’, drawn from a private company addressed at ‘goodpractice.com’, the implication is clear – these are the kinds of activities but also ‘ways of thinking’ to be adopted in the well-managed institution.  Such emails purportedly express the ‘values’ of the institution, which include the standard EDI (Equality, Diversity, Inclusion) ones of ‘respect’ for colleagues and students (no matter who they are).  Featured each week will be one or two ‘posts’ on Black History Month and quizzes such as ‘how many black female scientists can you name?’  Or “C’mon Everybody – Tips to create a more inclusive culture” and “Dealing with Discrimination – Addressing concerns about inequality” (both 21/03/2022).  But underneath these weekly reminders and promotions a very different agenda is pushed.

One finds “How to Step Up from Peer to Leader – Five ways to survive and thrive as a new boss” and “How to Boost Your Entrepreneurial Skills” (again, both 21/03/2022).  The former forgets that being a ‘peer’ – the equal of others, and not ‘above’ them – is the greater goal, and one that offers humanity an ‘exit ramp’ from the historical tragedy of the closed-off and inevitable trudge to the top of the funnel (or being crushed against its sides).  The latter forgets that social, cultural, and evolutionary anthropologists have already declared the victory of Evolutionism over Diffusionism.

For those unaware, Diffusionism was a 19th century anthropological theory declaring that things got invented once (largely by very smart people in Europe) and were then ‘distributed’ – diffused – over the earth to ‘other’ peoples.  As such, Diffusionism neatly fitted the colonial world and its need for theoretical justification.  But Evolutionism disproved the idea of ‘diffusion’ and demonstrated that all humans, no matter how culturally different and ‘non-entrepreneurial’ they may ‘seem’, are inventive!  The notion that invention is somehow the preserve of a few, an ‘elite’ bent on serving and maintaining the ‘profit motive’, is a peculiarly ‘entrepreneurial’ perspective.  Indeed, many, if not most, humans spend their time inventing ways of escaping the drudgery of the ‘entrepreneurial’ present and keeping the future, as Popper wanted it, ‘open’.

In the, now classic, cartoon image of ‘equity versus equality’, equity is represented by three people of different heights looking over a fence.  Two of them need help to see over the fence whilst the third does not.  But the point of the image, surely, is that what they are looking onto (something we do not always see in the cartoon representations) is an ‘open’ space – the future which is still to be decided, as opposed to something that has already been completed for them (the closed structure of ‘hierarchy’).