Marxism and Higher Education

In their continuing quest to ensure a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of rich people and their families, the Browne report, released yesterday, gives the Tories and LibDems the green light to dismantle higher education provision in this country and let the market take over. There's commentary and opinion here, here, and here.

Again, for all of Saint Vince's faux reluctance the government's enthusiasm for dismembering the university system and organising it along the lines of the oh-so successful American model is justified by the deficit. Once again it is the cover for an experiment in neoliberal social engineering. And like similar policies in the past, and quite apart from the social consequences, the effect this could have on the profile of British capitalism is potentially catastrophic. In his recent book, The Writing on the Wall: China in the 21st Century, Will Hutton argued that the key advantage Western economies have over China is their 'soft' cultural and institutional infrastructure, on which successful capitalist economies depend. As technological innovation, entertainment, knowledge and other forms of "intangible" commodities become more important for global capitalist production the greater the advantage accruing to those countries with large further and higher education sectors. From the standpoint of British capital, the government's attack on higher education threatens the preeminent place it occupies in the global knowledge economy. While science and advanced manufacturing are to be protected by subsidy, the so-called soft subjects which sustain strategically important entertainment and creative industries, as well as providing the kinds of transferable analytical skills essential for any advanced economy are threatened by the government's reckless plans. In plain economic terms, market share and billions of pounds are at risk.

One argument advanced by opponents of free HE, whether Liberal, Labour or Tory is how unfair it is for the poor to subsidise the education of people who, on average, will earn far more over their working lives (curiously, the logic of this argument is never deployed in relation to corporation tax cuts and tax breaks for business). This is an example of bourgeois economism, of deploying a "common sense" that appears to stand up for the economically weak while reinforcing a socially regressive agenda.

If you want to get all Marxist about it - and I do - capital gains far more from a well educated workforce than the economic rewards accruing to individual workers. As regular readers and anyone with a passing acquaintance with Marx know, the ultimate source of profit lies in the difference between the amount of money paid out as a wage (determined by what is necessary to reproduce a worker at a historically and socially given physical and cultural level) and the total wealth they generate over the course of the working week - this difference accruing to the employer. From this perspective, qualifications serve to make available workers with certain sets of skills to fill particular niches in the social division of labour. Regardless of their wage, salaries and other privileges, graduates are as economically exploited as any other section of the working class.

Until the abolition of free education by Tony Blair, HE funding from general taxation reflected this (to an extent). Capital profits from a well educated workforce, and so capital paid. Under the Tory/LibDem-endorsed Browne report, capital will will receive all of those benefits without having to pay for the cost - in effect, students will be picking up the tab and subsidising their future employers.

As with any other measure being pushed by the Tories and LibDems, it is a statement of intent. It can be stopped by mobilising as wider a coalition as possible against the cuts. If, as the political elite like to think, a new spirit of cooperation and working together is abroad, then let our movement be the repository of it. Let us turn their slogan of 'all in it together' into our own. Students, public sector workers, the elderly, parents, public-dependent private businesses: this is the vast constituency the government are determined to clobber. It is the labour movement's challenge to bring it together and give it shape and a sense of direction. Because if we don't, these counter-reforms, this decimation of the social wage is a recipe for generations of misery. It's not much, but where HE is concerned there is a march on 10th November. Details here.

Cuba: Another Education is Possible

Last night's meeting of North Staffs TUC heard from Bill Greenshields of Derbyshire Cuba Network and the Cuba Solidarity Campaign speak, funnily enough, on Cuba. As readers can imagine Bill's talk was unashamedly pro-Cuba, but this is an important corrective to received notions that have it as a gulag with palm trees - a view assiduously cultivated by the US state department, right wing Cuban exiles, and intellectually dishonest ex-lefts.

Bill opened with a very quick overview of the Cuban system, touching on the statutory right to work, the 1:650 doctor/general population ratio, the strength and depth of social solidarity, and its avoidance of personality cults and dogmatism characteristic of similar societies. If we realise how all this is possible in a poor country under the lash of an economic blockade then, Bill argued, we can also understand why the USA sees Cuba as a threat.

As a former leading member of the National Union of Teachers, most of Bill's talk focused on Cuba's education system. We were given the impression this extends far beyond formal schooling and HE. Crucial to retaining mass support for the Cuban revolution are the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution. These community organisations, working in conjunction with the other mass organisations (the party, the federation of women, the young pioneers, and the unions) are responsible for community events and officially tasked with maintaining high rates of "morality" (i.e. social solidarity).

Pre-school begins at the age of three, with compulsory schooling kicking in at six. This ends at 15 with a guaranteed job for every school-leaver. The way education is done will be quite different to the experiences of readers of this blog. Central to it is 'emulation'. Instead of a system based around competitive exams the emphasis is one educating the collective. If a group of students grasp something in advance of others, the expectation is they will work to help the rest of the class get it. If a section of the class still can't understand it then no one passes the set task. This has led to a reconfiguring of competition between students - instead of awards based on grades, praise is conferred on those who seek to lead emulation.

There is, however, something of a teacher shortage on the island. Education policy is committed to reducing class sizes to 15 for primary and 20 for secondary schooling. The situation is complicated by attempts at integrating disabled children from special schools into the mainstream system: they are guaranteed by statute one-to-one teaching, therefore while integration does take place it is rare.

Apart from the discussion of education and digressions into the health system, Bill gave us a good sense of Cuban social relations. While it is true there are political prisoners and penalties for those who criticise the system, society is more cohesive and solidaristic than in advanced capitalist states. How this manifests itself in education and elsewhere deserve careful study by socialists outside Cuba.

Personally speaking I am always wary of solidarity campaign talks, as they're usually structured around guided tours that show the country in question in the best light. But even with my critical hat on Bill's presentation did an excellent job showing that Cuba, despite its problems and less than spotless record on democratic rights, is a different kind of society. If Cuba is a living example of what can be achieved on a small island under conditions of economic autarchy, imagine the kinds of achievements within our reach if this was married to greater deomcratisation and available resources.

I don't think Cuba is socialist, but it does prefigure some features of future socialist societies. For this reason, despite its flaws, Cuba deserves the solidarity and support of labour movements everywhere.

Stoke Central Labour AGM

Not the snappiest of titles ever to have featured on this blog, but it succinctly describes what happened this evening: Stoke Central Constituency Labour Party finally held its long overdue annual general meeting.

Regular readers and those sad enough to follow the permutations of politics in the Potteries will know Labour in Stoke Central hasn't had an easy time of it in recent years. The CLP has been paralysed by a drawn out faction fight that was one part personal, one part political and the final part organisational (more here and here). This resulted in the administrative suspension of the entire party shortly after your humble scribe joined (pure coincidence, I assure you). When things seemed they couldn't get any worse, sitting MP Mark Fisher stepped down and in came new MP Tristram Hunt after a selection process that can euphemistically be described as "controversial". This was the final straw for many long-serving members, most of whom decamped shortly before the election.

So it was hard to say what tonight's AGM had in store for the members who turned up. There were many faces not present who were at the (unofficial) CLP meeting I had previously attended to give Mark Fisher his send off. But by the same token there were an equal number there tonight who were absent from that preceding meeting. Thankfully, it was business like and friendly. As it was an AGM concerned with the election of officers, politics, properly speaking, were not on the agenda: that was mostly confined to a few remarks by council leader Mohammed Pervez on the new four-way coalition running the city and bits of pieces from Tristram on his parliamentary experiences.

The votes themselves were all uncontested, apart from the chair's position. However one of the candidates was handicapped by his holidaying in Spain and lost out, which is just as well: it's hard to take over the running of a meeting in Stoke from the sun-drenched beaches of the Costa Brava.

Yours truly ran for the position of political education officer. I wrote a very short stump speech in case it was contested, which I reproduce here for those interested in such things:

Rebuilding Labour is more about recruiting members and winning back past supporters: it has to develop the talents we already have as well. Political education in the party has an important part to play in producing new activists, trade unionists, councillors and MPs.

As political officer I will develop a programme of political education that will deepen our understanding of socialist, trade union and Labour values; learn from the considerable experience members of this CLP have; work with Tristram to bring well-known speakers to the city; and work to make accessible to members the sometimes complex and rarefied policy debates taking place in the council chamber, the think tanks and parliament.

What do I bring to this role? I'm passionate about education. I've been teaching at university level for almost eight years, I have recently been awarded a PhD, and I write regularly on political, social and cultural issues. If you allow me to become your political officer this evening I will bring all my skills and experience to the position.

In the end there was no contest so my actual remarks were even briefer and they went down well (no one shouted "he's a Trot! Stop him!")

The AGM took the decision to move from delegate-based meetings to all-members meetings: under the previous leadership this was a major bone of contention and was partly why the CLP was slapped with a suspension.

And that's all there was to it really. I think one member summed it up well when she said this was the first CLP meeting in 20 years which she would be leaving on a high. I get the impression this was more productive and convivial than what had gone before from a number of members. Long may it stay this way.

Stoke Central Hustings

The Public and Commercial Services union is one of the largest unions not affiliated to the Labour party. Instead of asking members to vote one way or the other, through its Make Your Vote Count campaign the PCS aims to facilitate political discussion by quizzing candidates about its policy priorities (in this election, it's the union's five public service pledges). To this end the PCS organised a Stoke Central hustings on Monday night that, despite a lack of publicity, attracted 29 people. This probably explains why only three of the eight eligible candidates turned up - Norsheen Bhatti for the Tories, Labour's Tristram Hunt, and Matt Wright from Stoke SP/TUSC (quite rightly, as a trade union it will not give a platform to fascists, which means our Nazi parachutist Simon Darby and "reformed character" Alby Walker).

The opening speeches of each candidate set the tone for what was to come. Norsheen basically regurgitated the Tory party manifesto, substituting 'Britain' for 'Stoke'. She was full of how Labour's let down "our families, city, and community". Voting for change (i.e. her party) will see action on debt, regeneration, work toward making Stoke Britain's most family-friendly city, etc. etc. Matt's opening dwelled on how the SP campaigns week in, week out and not just at election time. If elected, he planned to take only the average wage of a Stoke worker and that he, like any other TUSC candidate, would use parliament as a platform to fight against the attacks to come on the public sector. Tristram's introduction focused on regeneration. He argued that elsewhere regeneration has concentrated on infrastructure and pretty buildings, but real regeneration requires investment in people. The opening of Sure Start centres and new schools and colleges are a step in this direction because, ultimately, investment from outside will come if the work force is better educated.

I don't want to spend time on the nitty gritty of every question, so I'll stick with those that will be of most interest to readers. Like many towns and cities devastated by the hurricane of deindustrialisation a great deal of the local economy is dependent on the public sector. One comrade asked if cuts here in Stoke could derail the regeneration process, and ultimately benefit the BNP? Matt replied we needed more public sector jobs, not less. If cuts were to come the axe should come down on trident and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cuts would further fuel the racialisation of Stoke's problems. Tristram conceded the latter point, but added that no one would invest in a BNP city. This is a serious issue because, ultimately, the solution to Stoke's problems lies in more businesses and more employment. Pressed on Labour's records, he flagged up the coming 50p tax band and the possibility of global taxes on bank transactions. He said that, unfortunately, the City has the county over a barrel because of the proportion of GDP it provides. If taxes hit the finance sector any harder, he believed there was a danger of reducing overall receipts. Norsheen stuck with the Tory line on efficiency savings, but seemed to think cracking down on public sector fat cats (i.e. top earners) would save three billion!

On schools and academies, Brother I from the trades council asked if candidates thought schools should be democratically accountable as opposed to being at the beck and call of private sponsors. Looking at the record of academies he said 59% of them are currently in the 'challenged' category. He also asked if candidates would promise to vote against the "free schools" in Sweden that Cameron is threatening to introduce in this country. Bro I said these lay claim to 'parent power' but are in reality fronts for multinational companies. Completely oblivious to what he had just said, Norsheen thought free schools were a wonderful idea because it gives parents power. Matt said he was opposed to the creeping privatisation of schools - instead of winding down state schools and shoveling money into the academies' gaping maw why not redeploy that cash in more democratic, accountable schooling? Tristram thought there was nothing wrong in principle with outside groups getting involved in schooling, such as FE and HE institutions, but he would draw the line at evangelical and fundamentalist groups.

Brother A from the SP used his question to return to regeneration. He said he had a Sentinel centre spread special on regeneration ... from 1983. Given that we're still talking about it 27 years on, the growing gap between rich and poor, and that a decade of economic growth has passed Stoke by, what hope for it? On the issue of cuts, he said whoever gets in after the election will be trying to make workers pay for the crisis. This means massive levels of struggle, much of it directed through the trade unions. So which candidates are for repealing the anti-trade union laws? Once again Norsheen must have misheard the question as she dwelt exclusively on encouraging new jobs and tackling the benefits culture. Tristram disputed A's claim on the wealth gap but conceded the government could have probably done more. However, he maintained a lot had been done considering the context of globalising capitalism. He said the decline of manufacturing has been a common feature among most Western countries and argued it wasn't the government's place to roll back the automotive processes that have made many jobs redundant. On unions Tristram thought labour laws had gone far enough, but wouldn't necessarily be positive about rolling them back. He did however criticise the recent court decisions against Unite and the RMT. Matt felt the boom contained the seeds of the bust in its lop-sided character, and while there has been a bit of trickle down and a raising of living standards, the rich have accelerated well in advance of the rest. He would like to see a massive rise in the minimum wage, on which he'd lived on most of his adult life.

Summing up, Tristram welcomed the PCS-sponsored hustings and thought the political ecology of the city could do with more meetings like it. But on the election, there is a choice on May 6th - and that's between the "repugnant figure" of the BNP. Even if they don't win, a significant vote will damage the Potteries. The only credible alternative to this is Labour. Norsheen said that the contest in Stoke was open, and that the Tories were the only united party focused on the city. Lastly, Matt said he was addressing the meeting as a fellow trade unionist. There were battles ahead and the labour movement need to be ready for them: a voice in parliament would greatly aid this process.

Overall the hustings was well worth it. It was a shame it hadn't attracted wider publicity or drawn in the other candidates, but nevertheless many thanks to the PCS comrades who organised it.

In front of a trade union audience a Tory can never expect an easy ride, so even though it's doubtful she won many (if any) votes at least Norsheen's presence was appreciated. I thought Tristram acquitted himself well. He didn't try and hide his position on cuts and the deficit, which would have been tempting in front of this left audience. Instead he spoke plainly. For this (at least from chatting with PCS activists afterwards) he went down well, even if it wasn't what the comrades wanted to hear. I think Matt turned in a good performance too - I can't remember another occasion where two representatives of the main parties had to respond seriously to socialist critiques and positions.

This hustings was very much a debate about policies, which itself is a refreshing change from the policy-lite farce of the general election campaign.

Inside Stoke Central's Selection Meeting

Thursday night's selection meeting was always going to be a fraught affair. While shenanigans are a feature of all the mainstream parties, especially where the last minute placement of candidates are concerned, in Stoke Central's case the stitched-up shortlist comes on top of the soured relations with the regional organisation and the National Executive Committee. It's a situation that has seen party members fall out, activists barred from standing for election, and the administrative suspension of the entire CLP. And so when I turned up at Equality House in Shelton for the meeting, the air was thick with ill-feeling and rebellion.

Eventually the 71 voting members plus the dozen or so ineligible members and assorted hangers on took their seats to hear what the hopefuls had to say.

First up was Tristram Hunt, who was always going to win thanks to the shortlist fix. Nevertheless he gave an excellent performance. He began by evoking the history of the Potteries and moved on to his role in securing funding for the Wedgwood Museum and helping keep the Staffordshire Hoard in the West Midlands. His priority is education, which he believes can challenge long-term unemployment and the associated evils of poverty, ill-health and anti-social behaviour. He also pledged to use all of his connections to attract investment, including getting Stoke connected to the much-vaunted Glasgow-London high speed rail link.

But his politics proper came out in the questions from the floor. He criticised the recent court decisions against industrial action ballots as politically motivated, and he likened them to turning the clock back to the Taff Vale judgements. He said he was for the democratisation of regional regeneration quangos, which have only really been interested in inputs from business elites. Tristram was also critical of Academies, being especially worried about their large size. Finally on local internal politics, he said regional and national levels of the organisation only feel confident enough to intervene if a CLP is weak. While he was for the reconfiguring of the relationship between different parts of the party, the best way to resist such attempts in the future is to recruit and rebuild.

Saj Malik's pitch struck a rather different tone, which can be best summed as 'I'm working class, me'. He argued this background made him ideally suited to a proletarian constituency like Stoke, and made welcome noises about fighting the BNP and opening a proper constituency office. He said Labour had let working class people down, but the government still managed to do plenty of things to be proud of regards schools, hospitals and so on. Unlike Tristram's pitch however, Saj's accent was more on the need to "protect" working class people and doing things for them. His opponent was more of the school of helping people to help themselves.

In the questions, he thought court interference in industrial disputes was shameful, especially under Labour. He described Academies as a "mixed bag". Refreshingly, but perhaps unwisely, when confronted with a question he couldn't answer Saj often replied "I don't know". He appeared unfamiliar with local issues, but was clear that he'd need to learn a lot on the job. Saj did however receive the biggest laugh of the night. Asked how he would feel if the selection process foisted on Stoke had been imposed on his home constituency, he said "I'd be pissed off"!

Joe Ukemenam was by far the weakest candidate. To put it bluntly, his opening remarks were more suited to a panel at an academic conference than a selection meeting. He rattled off his record as a self-financed student from undergrad to PhD level, helped deliver "capacity-building" initiatives and policy development in Stratford and several African countries. He led the UN mission to Liberia in the early 90s and, rather immodestly, said he'd been described as "one of the unsung heroes of his generation".

But it was the questions that showed him up as a poor choice for a traditionally labourist constituency party. When the same question about the courts and the unions was put to him, he said he had no problem with their interventions (in fact, he said "why not?") On his specialist subject he didn't come across well either. Asked what he did about the use of Liberia as a flag of convenience during his time there, he said his brief was about demobilising armed factions and organising an election. Of the issue itself he said there was need to look at the interaction between international organisations and the third world. On Academies, he said "there is a debate in the labour movement ... and I will continue to be involved in the debate" without once saying where he stood. But most damning of all, asked what he would like to see done about tax loopholes exploited by nondoms Joe replied "there's no point a soldier answering a general's question" - it was up to those who make the relevant decisions to make the decisions.

If proof was needed of the contrived nature of the shortlist, Joe provided it.

Due to some lacunae in the Labour party rule book, a motion had to be moved so the selection meeting could go to a vote (I may have heard wrong, but by doing so in this instance some sort of precedent has been set). The chair, Barry Stockley, was very clear that if the motion fell the CLP ran the risk of having a candidate imposed. It was fairly close - the move to the vote was passed only by 41 to 30, and as everyone knows Tristram went on to easily win it.

However, there are now two interrelated problems. While Tristram will no doubt be a very capable MP and one that will find favour among the city's elite, there is a big question mark hanging over the legitimacy of his selection. Everyone in the CLP knows this, not least Tristram himself. Second is the news that this legitimacy is already being publicly challenged by the party's secretary, Gary Elsby. Yesterday he announced he will stand as an Independent Labour candidate. In other words, the election in Stoke Central has gone from being a dead cert for Labour to an open contest.

Gramsci on Education

One of the points Gramsci emphasises in his notes on intellectuals (see the previous post) is the links between increasing intellectual specialisation and the division of labour. This is the starting point for Gramsci's brief notes, grouped in the Selections under 'The Organisation of Education and Culture' and 'In Search of the Educational Principle'. The piece begins:

It may be observed in general that in modern civilisation all practical activities have become so complex, and the sciences so interwoven with everyday life, that each practical activity tends to create a new type of school for its own executives and specialists and hence to create a body of specialist intellectuals at a higher level to teach in these schools (Gramsci 1971, p.26).

In the Italy of Gramsci's day, education had prior to Mussolini been divided by class. There was a distinction between vocational schooling, which to all intents and purposes were for proletarian and semi-proletarian layers of Italian society; and the classical schools which offered an undifferentiated and universalist education befitting the class born to rule.

As industrial capitalism took hold in the 19th century the demands of unceasing expansion and technological advancement required a new type of urban intellectual. As we saw previously these professionals tended to be drawn from the big city bourgeoisie and other urban middling layers. Furthermore, rather than benefiting from a traditional classical education these entered and graduated from new (non-manual) technical schools. While the end result of proletarian vocational education was to equip them with basic skills and habits to enter industry, the urban professionals learned how to organise it.

A consequence of this was to erode "disinterested" general education. What elements of it fed into the vocationally-oriented education of the many were put under pressure and gradually expunged. General education became even more a property of elites. This situation of course was not unique to fascist Italy - today it is increasingly difficult to defend academic disciplines not immediately connected with "usefulness" defined almost exclusively in neoliberal terms.

This link between education, class and capital is not the only one. There are other ties that bind too. In the first place, specialisation in the division of labour has a tendency to generate their own 'post-scholastic' institutions. These act as bearers of disciplinary culture, carry news about the latest developments, and are generally the public (expert) face to outsiders. These bodies are important for all forms of governance too. Gramsci reduces deliberative political bodies to two functions (whether they are democratic or not is immaterial). The first is their essential deliberative functions. The second are 'technical-cultural activities', that is complex and sometimes very technical issues they need to make decisions on. Often this is beyond their immediate competence and requires experts to analyse and make recommendations about the issues - which is where the professionals of the post-scholastic institutions come in.

It is difficult to see how this mediating role of expertise can be avoided - even the mass democracy of technologically advanced socialist societies will have to make use of specialist knowledge by 'lay' delegates and representatives. But in capitalism, this mediation is one means by which the system erodes the depth and quality of democratic decision making. Expertise, which is united by its informal disciplinary bodies, is in reality distributed across bureaucracies consisting of universities, think tanks, consultancies, enterprises, etc. Despite the disinterested, "free-floating" conceit of intellectualism, they are bound by a thousand and one bureaucratic links to public and private finance, which has the effect of defining/conditioning the parameters of expert scrutiny and the recommendations they make. Therefore when politicians turn to experts for advice, the latter's mediation helps align the (often unspoken) interests of capital with the outlook of politicians.

As an alternative to education geared around the needs of capital, Gramsci advocates a more comprehensive system drawing on vocational and classical education. He upholds a distinction between primary and secondary education. In the first phase of schooling it should provide information about rights and responsibilities and inculcate a basic world view at odds with folklorist superstition (which was still a live issue in early 20th century Italy, particularly in the countryside). Primary schooling should also be prefaced with pre-schooling. Gramsci notes that the cultural backgrounds of parents do matter - children of city dwellers come to school better habituated to the rhythms of education and school discipline (those with a background in the intellectual strata even more so). Pre-schooling can potentially "level-up" children without this background advantage.

In secondary education there is a renewed emphasis on 'humanism', which Gramsci identifies with the inculcation of the moral discipline and independent intellectual activity necessary for specialisation. Hence secondary education needs to be creative, but with limits placed on intellectual libertarianism. It must expand the individual personality and potential of its pupils appropriate to the demands of a technologically sophisticated society, but do so on the basis of a common morality. For Gramsci, the latter is inculcated in the primary phase - authority, instruction and discipline are important, but this form of comprehensive education will only really work if the result is 'dynamic' conformism.

In the second section of his notes on education, Gramsci returns to the education system prior to the fascist era (Italian education was significantly reformed by the 1923 Gentile Reform). The vocationalist education "enjoyed" by the working class and peasantry taught some of the basics of natural science, and some ideas around rights and responsibilities. For Gramsci the science was designed to prepare children for the 'realm of things', and the latter the state and civil society. Both helped move the child away from notions of natural philosophy and aimed to construct an appreciation of society - of understanding the world and how society has the power to change it. In other words, for Gramsci, the guiding principle of this education was work.

However, whatever model of education one favours Gramsci was fully aware it is not received in a vacuum - hence his argument for pre-schooling. But even then this will not and cannot engineer 'dynamically conformist' pupils. He explains:

The individual consciousness of the overwhelming majority of children reflects social and cultural relations which are different from and antagonistic to those which are represented in the school curricula: thus the "certain" of an advanced culture becomes "true" in the framework of a fossilised and anachronistic culture. There is no unity between school and life, and so there is no automatic unity between instruction and education (p.35)

Therefore hunting for an ideal method of teaching that will produce the right results (an assumption that undergirds most right wing grumbles about what's wrong with schooling in Britain) is as pointless as it is idealist. Bridging the gap between education and instruction can only be done by the teacher's practice, and for it to work they need to be aware of the gulf between their culture and society and that of their charges. The discipline and conformism necessary to imbibe formal education may (and often is) in direct contradiction with the life experiences of the pupils. As any teacher will tell you, there's nothing more difficult than teaching children who don't want to learn.

And this presents a fundamental problem socialist politics has to overcome. For large sections of the working class, there is a general lack of social competencies appropriate to the mores and discipline of formal education. And yet we need to build the capacity for intellectual work within our class to develop Marxist concepts AND the millions of organic intellectuals through which the class can become conscious of its interests.

Whether you can argue Gramsci's analysis of the situation in early 20th century Italy is appropriate to early 21st century Britain is a matter for debate. While it is true formal education is a complete turn off for significant layers of working class people, it is also true the workforce has never been more highly educated as at present. According to the 2001 Census, 30 per cent of the work force have no qualifications while 20 percent are university graduates or have a higher qualification. We may be a long way off Labour's target of 50 per cent, but undoubtedly the numbers have increased since this data was collected. So while the culture clash problem Gramsci identifies has not gone away, it would appear to be less of a problem now.

But of course, there is a related problem. Despite a highly educated work force class consciousness remains at an historic low. People are being educated, but not politically. The difficulty of propagating socialist politics, working class history, and suffusing our class with the confidence to act for itself remains - and is probably even more acute than it was in Gramsci's day.

A list of posts in this series on the Selections from the Prison Notebooks can be found here.

UCU Greylists London Met

This email was sent to all members of the University and College Union this morning concerning the dispute the union is in with London Metropolitan University. Greylisting is the UCU's "nuclear option". Therefore it's imperative the action succeeds and brings management back to the negotiating table.

Dear colleague,

As you will know, I seldom email you directly and only do so when I feel that a situation is extremely important to our union. As such, it is with regret that I write to you today to formally notify you of the greylisting of London Metropolitan University (LMU). Those of you who have been in the union since its inception or were in one of the predecessor unions, AUT or NATFHE, will be aware that this is the most serious sanction available to us and this will be the first time in UCU's history when greylisting has been formally implemented rather then threatened (such as at Keele University and Nottingham Trent University).

As of today, 1 September, UCU will be asking colleagues across the country, other trade unions, labour movement organisations and the international academic community to support our members at the university in any way possible, including:

* non-attendance, speaking at or organising academic or other conferences at LMU
* not applying for any advertised jobs at LMU
* not giving lectures at LMU
* not accepting positions as visiting professors or researchers at LMU
* not writing for any academic journal which is edited at or produced by LMU
* not taking up new contracts as external examiners for taught courses

If you are able to support in this way, please email: jstephens@ucu.org.uk

Please could I also ask that you, as a matter of urgency, write to the
vice-chancellor at LMU, Alfred Morris (Alfred.Morris@londonmet.ac.uk ) to:

* express your concern
* state that that you will not take part in any collaboration with LMU for the duration of greylisting
* call on the university to honour UCU's redundancy avoidance procedure
* request that the findings of the independent enquiry currently being conducted by Deloitte Touche are made public and are acted upon
* call for an urgent internal review of LM management following the reports of both HEFCE and Deloitte Touche

Please copy any correspondence to: jstephens@ucu.org.uk

All UCU members are also asked to consider the following questions and respond as soon as possible to jstephens@ucu.org.uk in order that we support our colleagues and students at London Metropolitan as effectively as possible.

* Are you involved in collaborative research activity with LMU?
* Are you aware of any collaboration between LMU and other HE/FE institutions, including international?
* Are you planning to attend any conferences and/or are you booked as an external speaker/guest lecture?
* Are you aware of any high profile speakers or events being planned at LMU?
* Are you aware or involved in any other collaborative relationships - such as with business?
* Have you been approached to be an external examiner at LMU?

Background to the dispute:

As I am sure you will by now be aware, toward the end of last year, LMU was hit by a £15 million reduction in recurring grant and repayment demands totalling more than £36 million by HEFCE following submissions of incorrect student completion records. The university responded by stating that they intended to cut 550 posts. Despite our best efforts over the last nine months to attempt to persuade the university to enter into formal negotiations to reach a resolution, and a vigorous, nationally and regionally supported branch campaign, including industrial action, the university is forging ahead with the planned compulsory redundancies – the first 50 FTEs of which are imminent.

The situation at London Metropolitan University is unprecedented. The vice-chancellor, Brian Roper resigned in March and a special report into HEFCE's role in the crisis at LMU was published last month (available here). After months of public pressure from the academic community, UCU and our sister unions, Deloitte Touche have been commissioned to undertake an independent inquiry into the situation at London Met and UCU will be contributing to this inquiry.

UCU's position:

We believe that this reinforces the dire need for a fresh start for London Metropolitan. The staff and the students deserve a new leadership and new, open and productive industrial relations. Yet, in spite of our calls for a suspension of their proposals until after the independent reports have been made public, the management appears dogmatically committed to press on with its plans to make 550 redundancies of which many, we fear, will be compulsory.

I believe that we cannot stand back and allow this university to be destroyed. We cannot stand by and allow hundreds of staff and students pay the price for a catastrophic failure of management and governance. As a national union, we must be able to say that it is unacceptable for staff to pay for mismanagement with their jobs and students to suffer huge detriment to their education and we must establish the principle that universities must be accountable for their actions.

UCU remains committed to a negotiated solution and we hope that management will back away from a course which we believe will threaten the long-term future of the university.

Many thanks,

Sally Hunt,
UCU General Secretary

Branch Meeting: Political Discussion

An essential ingredient of any Socialist Party branch is the weekly political discussion. Unlike trade union and mainstream political parties our meetings are organised around a talk on a certain topic. Unfortunately the pace of work in our branch has meant the branch programme fell into neglect for this week only, and so instead we had a session about the role of the political discussion.

Brother A opened with a few observations about the importance of the weekly lead off. It helps build the political understanding of comrades on topical issues as well as introduce and explore other subjects that might be just as important, but don't often get an airing. Crucially political discussions help round members out and prepare us for the sorts of conversations we can have in the course of activity, be it with the general public, trade unionists and other lefts.

P added that you can be thrown any sort of question while you're on stalls. While it's no use pretending to have infallible knowledge on every topic under the sun, some degree of understanding of a particular issue can reflect well on the party. For example, during the bank collapses in autumn last year he had to bat away all kinds of curve ball arguments that claimed it was "manufactured" or that some how immigrants were to blame(!) On one stall he was even asked about the party's attitude to nuclear weapons.

J came in and said lead offs on historical events were opportunities to draw out the key lessons and how they apply to our political practice today. As an example from last year, P talked about the series of cadre schools WestMids SP ran on Trotsky's The History of the Russian Revolution. Even though the events described took place some 90 years ago, Trotsky's description of the vacillating roles the parties played in the revolution find their echo in organisations that represent the interests of the same classes in the present.

Moving on to tips, Brother F said he always tries to add a number of questions on the end of his talks to get the discussion flowing - this is especially useful if the discussion is complex or of a theoretical nature. Sister A added that she's done q fair few where she knew absolutely nothing about the subject beforehand, and it has forced her to learn.

The important thing to remember, replied A, was these are not seminar room discussions. Our discussions are always linked to action.

With that in mind we managed to sort out upcoming topics for the next eight weeks on the Iranian Revolution, European election results, Why The Socialist is vital, Marxism and the state, Art and revolution, Politics of genetic engineering, How to put a leaflet together, and the BNP.

Teaching Max Weber

Of the 'big three' founding fathers of sociology, Max Weber (pictured) was definitely the most miserable. If he thought to preface his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism with a few gags then perhaps more of my Thursday students would have persevered with their reading. Does this explain why Slavoj Žižek appears so sexy to so many?

I digress. The purpose of the week's seminar was to bring out the basics of Weber's method and then examine the thesis that protestantism, and Calvinism in particular played a key role in the formation of capitalism. These were my batch of questions for the students:

1) What is Weber's 'Ideal Type' method? Can you think of any examples?

2) What are the main features of a) The Protestant Ethic, and b) The Spirit of Capitalism?

3) For Weber, what differentiated capitalism from preceding modes of production? Why did it develop in Western Europe after the Reformation? Why not in other well developed societies such as China?

4) Do you think there are any problems with Weber's thesis?

5) Despite criticisms do you think Weber's arguments could be useful for understanding contemporary capitalism?

6) What criticisms could Marxists make of Weber's account? Do Marx and Weber offer incompatible views? Whose analysis of capitalism is superior?

Except for committed Weberians and Marxists the subject matter was never going to ignite the passions, and so it proved with this session. But nevertheless Weber's thesis did come in for a bit of a kicking over his value judgements concerning what did and what didn't count as rational action (was it really irrational for Catholic aristocrats to invest in piracy, slavery and wars?); whether you can read off actors' actions from religious prescriptions; and if the documents Weber used to underwrite his argument. His disjointed "tick box" schema of capitalism's emergence was compared with Marx's emphasis on class struggle to explain the breakdown of West European feudalism.

The next session will be looking at the emergence of nationalism and democratisation - whether the nation is an invention of capitalism or has roots in pre-capitalist times, what social forces have historically driven the struggle for democracy, and the relevance of both today. With a nice cross section of political views in all my classes - from UKIP to anarchism - I hope on this occasion the fur will fly ...

Teaching the Communist Manifesto

It's been some years since I last stood in front of a class, but times are hard and the funding's long since dried up, so needs must. But what better course for a Marxist to teach than an introduction to political sociology that also requires the students read and engage with a bit of Marx? This is how I've spent a few hours these last couple of Thursdays. For my classes I set the Communist Manifesto as their reading, and much to my delight, most of them appeared to have read it. So, how did it go?

Quite well actually. I always begin a session based on a reading with how the students got on with the text and pleasingly, it elicited a couple of very strong reactions from a LibDem and a Tory, respectively. The boy in the yellow corner objected to its general political thrust while the woman in the blue corner thundered about Marx's critique of charity, and tried to claim that because the Manifesto is for the workers it is "elitist". But there were a few positive responses as well - a dangerous subversive from Socialist Students praised it for predicting capitalism's line of march when it remained very much in its infancy, while another went on to praise China(!)

Below are the questions around which most of the discussion revolved:

Does class still matter? How does Marx define it? Is there a struggle between the classes? What is "special" about the working class?

Why, for Marx, is capitalism the best and the worst thing to have happened to the human race?

"The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie". What does Marx mean by this? Do you agree?

Is the spectre of communism abroad once again?

What did Marx mean by the abolition of private property? Do communists want to nationalise your telly?

The discussions also ranged over the materialist conception of history, the theory of surplus labour and surplus value, social mobility, whether we're all middle class now and the class location of David Beckham and Wayne Rooney.

Next time it will be Max Weber and the origins of capitalism. That's a recipe for a less passionate and wide-ranging a lesson but still, it could prove to be interesting.

Against Tuition Fees

Keele Socialist Students this week visited the question of tuition fees and what we can do about them. Our visiting speaker was A of the Socialist Party's national committee. Though not currently a student, like me, he was involved in the campaign against their introduction back in 1997/8.

He began outlining government plans on the future of tuition fees. At the moment students are liable for a yearly fee capped at £3,000 and, if they fall beneath a £25,000 parental earnings threshold, a grant with a maximum ceiling of £2,825/year (I've never understood the logic of giving with one hand but taking away with another, but I digress). If the government gets its way it will see the cap removed and university's given the power to charge what they like. Inevitably a two-tier system will result - the top universities will charge thousands, ensuring they're even more a bastion of the rich and privileged. At the other end many universities, particularly the post-1992 institutions, will offer "budget" degrees to compete for students. The effect this will have on the employment prospects of graduates do not need spelling out.

But there's more than future careers at stake. At present the average student debt upon graduation stands at £12,000 - but the £20,000 figure is not uncommon. Already hundreds of thousands have to work to pay their way through university, often in low waged, insecure and exploitative jobs. The time these students have dedicated to their studies can and often are truncated by the demands of the workplace. Small wonder some 22 per cent of students drop out, a quarter of whom citing debt as the main reason.

Can this situation be reversed? The government says not. "We can't afford it" they say, an argument that's already threadbare after the mammoth funds it has splashed out to save the banks. If we rule out borrowing as a solution to the problem, there's still plenty of resources to be found. There are approximately two million students in Britain. If tuition fees were abolished and a grant of £5,000 were awarded all students this would cost approximately £15 billion. Right now, New Labour have earmarked a massive £76 billion for Trident. Is this really necessary? Furthermore the corporation tax rate in Britain stands at 28 per cent compared to 30 per cent in Germany and 35 per cent in France. If it was raised up to the French level an extra £10 billion would flow into government coffers. Additional funds could also be realised by actually forcing more British-registered companies to pay their tax. Of the top 700, only one third pay their way. Another third fiddle the system so they pay less then £10 million between them. And the final third paid nothing at all.

The 'can't afford' argument doesn't wash. So how to achieve our campaigning aims? Not by pursuing the NUS strategy. Its current position on fees is to limit it to keeping the cap, something it shares with Labour Students. Apparently, the argument goes, we have more chance of changing the government's mind if we stick only to this objective. As far as Socialist Students are concerned, at Keele and elsewhere, we will work with anyone to achieve this but think we need to campaign more widely. The NUS and Labour Students have no strategy addressing fees per se, grants and debt. It devolves to socialists to take the lead on these issues, and we can, as the experience at Bangor demonstrates.

Let's Talk About Sex

I don't remember my officially-sanctioned sex education being all that great. All it consisted of was watching a hideous film presented by Sarah Kennedy and having a group talk with our PSE teacher, Mr White, about wet dreams (the girls spoke to fifth formers about periods). You couldn't think of a more hideous and inadequate way of going about it. But it worked, if you count "working" as the low number of gym slip pregnancies. In my school year there was just one pregnancy. That wasn't to say kids weren't having sex, but it does suggest that despite our sex "education", the contraception message the government were pushing at the time had got through. For our young and impressionable minds the hard hitting AIDS campaigns of the time had sunk in.

If you believe the commentariat's frequent sexual moralising, teenage pregnancy is at an all-time high and hundreds of thousands of people are busy between the sheets, passing on all manner of sexually transmitted infections. The tone is people, generally speaking, are just too "uneducated" to have sex. Is there any truth to this?

The accepted way of measuring the success or failure of sexuality governance in Britain are the number of teenage (i.e. 13-18) pregnancies and diagnosis rates of sexually transmitted infections. On the former, according to the Every Child Matters government agency, teenage pregnancy statistics for under 18s between 1998-2005 shows a declining trend, from 46.6 per 1,000 (total 41,089 in 1998) to 40.4 per 1,000 (total 39,003 2006). There was a weaker decline in under 16s - 8.8 per 1,000 (total 7,855 in 1998) to 7.7 (total 7,296 in 2006). Legal abortion for both cohorts - from 42.4% to 48.9% for under 18s and 52.9% to 60.3% for under 16s over the same period. The government are looking for a 50% cut in the pregnancy rate by 2010 from 1998, and have only managed an 11% reduction so far. They may be a long way off target but it hardly fits the popular narrative of spiralling numbers of "children having children".

STI rates, however, are heading in the wrong direction. According to the HIV/AIDS charity, Avert diagnoses are way above the height of the 1980s AIDS panic. Throughout the 90s figures fluctuated within the 2,000-3,000 range, climbing above the latter for the first time in 1999 and peaking at 7,692 diagnoses in 2005. Since then they have declined to 7,276 (2006) and then 6,393 (2007).

Here are some more figures from the Health Protection Agency:

# An overall rise in the number of new diagnoses seen in GUM clinics of 3% in 2005 compared to 2004 (from 767,785 in 2004 to 790,443 in 2005)

# Genital Chlamydia remains the most commonly diagnosed STI in GUM clinics with an increase in diagnoses of 5% (from 104,733 in 2004 to 109,958 in 2005)

# Primary and secondary syphilis diagnoses increased by 23% (from 2,282 in 2004 to 2,814 in 2005)

# Genital warts increased by 1% (from 80,055 in 2004 to 81,137 in 2005)

# Genital herpes increased by 4% (from 19,073 in 2004 to 19,837 in 2005)

# Gonorrhoea decreased by 13% (from 22,321 in 2004 to 19,392 in 2005). This follows the 10% decrease seen between 2003 and 2004

Where STIs are concerned, something needs to be done. Education has to be part of the mix, but in these neoliberal times we can't have the state taking up the cudgels. Into the breach comes more calls for sex education, and tonight Channel 4 did its bit with the launch of a new six-part series, The Sex Education Show. Anna Richardson (pictured) describes the reluctance to be more communicative about sex as a "peculiar British disease". So let's talk some more about it!

Tonight's episode cast a wide net, covering porn, sex commodities, body image and contraception - and no forgetting a close up of male genitalia. On contraception, Anna went and spoke to the mighty Long Ashton football team. Depressingly, of the 11 players only three of the guys admitted to regularly using condoms - and reported that slippage/breakage was one of the main reasons why (according to SES research, 35% of surveyed men had experienced this at some point). Returning back to the studio. one woman said they were a passion-killer in her experience, and so didn't bother, while others had a more sensibly cautious view. A poll of the audience found 22% of women and 40% of men did not always use a condom with new partners. All grist to the Daily Mail mill.

The short feature on porn revealed 58% of 14-17 year olds had seen it and five per cent viewed internet porn every day. Anna speaks to three 15 year old boys about their habits and very quickly the conversation starts talking about the extreme things they've seen. Judging by the description they gave, they talked about the infamous 2 Girls, 1 Cup (don't worry, it's a link to the Wikipedia entry!) ... she then went and viewed it with their parents. Understandably, they were disgusted, shocked and scandalised by the very, very "specialist" content. But this seemed to miss the point, as far as I was concerned. The implication was that millions of teenage boys are getting off on this content, when in fact for the overwhelming majority it is a gross out meme used to shock and amuse their friends. And this is nothing new - when I was at school and college, fetish magazines and literature were passed around to the same effect. (Erotic Horse and Dog Orgy, anyone?)

What was interesting was the recognition of the ways the ubiquity of porn is affecting teenage perceptions of the body. SES reported that 92% of teenage girls were not happy with their bodies, nor were one in five comfortable with the appearance/size of their genitalia. Small wonder really: the boys were shown a sequence of flaccid penises and were asked to select the one they thought corresponded to the British male average. All of them chose two that were 4.5 and 5 inches long. They were genuinely surprised to learn the average was three! A mixed group was then shown a parade of breasts and select what corresponded most with their "preferred" pair. Unsurprisingly, the round, pert and evenly spaced pair, i.e. the surgically enhanced pair, got the thumbs up from boys and girls. As one lad put it, it's not surprising the fake is their norm because, in porn, you have nothing else to go on. Small wonder so many teenagers are unhappy with their bodies.

One strong undercurrent was the message that if you want to improve your sex life, you have to be willing to spend money. Anna describes her sex life as not being particularly adventurous or torrid, and goes to see how she can spice things up a bit. It means a trip down to the beauticians to keep up with the latest hair removal fashions. The beautician 100% guaranteed that a full Hollywood wax would improve her sex life. "Men find it exciting" she cooed. But not only men, increasingly women too seem to prefer a "tidier" look on them, which probably explains why 92% of the female and 60% of the male studio audience "style" themselves. If that is or isn't your bag, sexy undies can add a sparkle to bedroom goings-ons. And how about a bit of tantric sex training at £100 a throw? In the name of investigative journalism, Anna tried the lot and appeared to have had a raunchy night in with her partner.

As this is a six part series I expect SES and Channel 4 will cover all the permutations and complexities of human sexuality in their customary depth. Pictures of willies and mimsies before the watershed will generate some outraged publicity too. If some people pick up on the information around contraception and body image and helps them lead safer, more fulfilling sex lives, than that's all for the good. But I can't shake the thought that SES is more geared toward navigating the world of contemporary commodified sexuality than anything else.

A Day With Bourdieu

Alas, only metaphorically seeing as this titan of the French intelligentsia passed from the scene six years ago. But Pierre Bourdieu's ideas live on and this was the topic of yesterday's Reproductions day school at Warwick University. After the customary tea and biscuits the proceedings began.

The first session by Michael Grenfell, titled 'Social Class? Bourdieu and the Practical Epistemology of Social Classification' was an overview and recap of Bourdieu's work for those of us whose brains had gotten a bit stiff. Among other things, he suggested there were three key moments in Bourdieu's approach empirical work. The first concerns the construction of the research object. This means anything the sociologist approaches as an object of study is not innocent. To illustrate, social space is composed of an overlapping and shifting number of fields. Each of these fields operate as if they are an economy, with their own methods of regulation, stakes to fight over, capital to accumulate and strategies that can be deployed in struggle. There are any number of agents active within these fields who occupy certain positions and trajectories and have an interest in struggling for the possession of the capital specific to it. The more capital one has, the greater the potential for reconfiguring the field around their interests. All social phenomena have a position in one or multiple fields and are constituted by their relations to other objects within the field and the overarching dynamics of struggle. Therefore starting point for sociological research is to conceptually locate the object in relation to everything else and not commit the fallacy of treating it as stand alone phenomena.

The second methodological instance consists of three distinct levels. Even though social space is configured through interrelated fields, it is worth bearing in mind that contemporary social formations are organised hierarchically - and this applies to fields too. The wider social field constitutes/is constituted by the economic and political fields, but it is also dominated by them. Even though each field has a certain autonomy and a specificity that cannot be wholly understood with reference to external determinations, who "decides" what is and isn't legitimate tend to be those who are rich in the capital of the dominant fields. The closer a field is to this field of power, the more apparent this domination is, and the more value the cultural capital specific to it has vis other fields. For example, among academic disciplines Economics enjoys close links to the business world, attracts more research monies, influences key decision making and so on by virtue of its position. The same cannot be said of Cultural Studies. Hence sociological research involves analysing this field of power, the relations between the agents competing in the field and the 'habitus' of agents, a "practical sense, that is, an acquired system of preferences, of principles of vision and division (what is usually called taste), and also a system of durable cognitive structures (which are essentially the product of the internalisation of objective structures) and of schemes of action which orient the perception of the situation and the appropriate response. The habitus is this kind of practical sense for which is to be done in a given situation – what is called in sport a “feel” for the game, which is inscribed in the present state of play." (Practical Reason 1998, p.25).

Thirdly and crucially is the element of Bourdieu's work Grenfell felt was often overlooked by sociologists - the process of 'self-objectivation'. What this means is turning the sociological gaze back upon ourselves. It follows that if all social phenomena are bound up in the structures and struggles outlined above, so are we. There's no Mount Olympus from which sociologists can observe the social space below, we are as much part of the fields we study as anyone else. Bourdieu is not for a 'sociology of the sociologists' because it's a jolly excuse for academics to churn out more papers no one is likely to read: it is the condition of scientific sociological knowledge. By looking at our own trajectories, positions and interests in academic and other fields we control for the distortions and biases that are the inevitable outcome of a sociology operating in a society stratified by class and cut across by fields and their species of capital. This can only strengthen the claims our research makes (something, incidentally, that concerns about half of my thesis).

Then came the first of the day's workshops. The first was Raffaella Bianchi whose paper was on musical culture and class in Risorgimento Milan. She looked at how opera was assimilated into the class practices of the nascent Milanese bourgeoisie, of how private boxes at La Scala became a key site for the constitution of common political interests and a new nationalist hegemony to counter the Austrian and Papal domination of Italy. The second was from Will Atkinson who was using Bourdieu to understand class reproduction in a self-stylised individualist age. As education is one of the primary fields where we all begin acquiring the cultural capital that allows us to get on, he was interested to see if class remained a key factor in its accumulation and therefore individual life chances.

After lunch Andreas Bieler gave a talk on European integration and 'Neo-Gramscianism' - but I'll leave that one for a post of its own. So it's to the afternoon workshops. Saleem Izdani Khan gave a presentation on sectarianism and class in Pakistan. This was basically an account of the shifting composition of the Pakistani ruling class and the project of constructing a secular Muslim state in the aftermath of Partition. He also looked at the position of the army and the contradictions arising from Pakistan's backwardness (i.e. feudal basis of much of the ruling class, low rate of urbanisation, regional rivalries, geopolitical positioning, etc.). Considering no one knew anything about Pakistan apart from Saleem, the question and answer session was very thorough.

The final event saw Lisa Adkins give a talk called 'Mobility in a Time of Futurity' which was a complex encounter between Marx and Bourdieu, and one where Bourdieu didn't come off lightly. Adkins critiqued him for ignoring how exploitation and surplus extraction are also fundamental constituents of the social order. He disregards the Marxist understanding of capital as representatives of congealed abstract labour time and deploys capital merely as effort recognised by others in a field. The problem with this, I would suggest, is by treating capital in this meritocratic manner Bourdieu can only really describe the reproduction of the uneven distribution of capitals, but not explain it. For that you need Marx. Adkins went on to look at the composition of abstract labour in contemporary capitalism and argued there were new modes of capital accumulation starting to emerge. With reference to her work on freelance web designers, she described how they made their money. Basically they build websites and charge according to the number of potential hits it would likely generate. In classical terms, the designer is not exploiting their labour power as would a self-employed small business owner, instead earnings are entirely future-oriented, based on time that does not yet exist. I wasn't entirely sure about this myself.

Overall it was an excellent day. All the sessions were high quality and gave pause for thought. And it was good to see plenty of Marxist and Marxisant postgrads in attendance. If this is in anyway representative, it looks like the increasing take up of Bourdieu is paving the way for a sociological comeback of Marx. Afterall, it is impossible to talk about Bourdieu and not have the old beard crop up sooner or later. 

Keele UCU Suspends Grey Listing

There has been a welcome development in the six month long dispute between Keele UCU and the university's management over the planned closure of School of Economic and Management Studies and Centre for Health Planning and Management. Previous posts and statements on the dispute can be read here, here, here and here. The deal itself won a majority vote among the SEMS Action Committee, the rank and file body of UCU members that has played a leading role in this dispute and their decision was unanimously backed at an emergency meeting of the union's branch committee this afternoon. Here is the message our union branch has circulated to members.

To all UCU members,

Following talks on 10th June 2008, an agreement has been reached between UCU and management on the SEMS/CHPM dispute. The agreement was approved by a meeting of UCU members in SEMS/CHPM and by a meeting of the Local Association committee today.

All industrial action - both the SEMS/CHPM assessment boycott and the other action short of a strike begun on 21st February - is therefore suspended with immediate effect. Members are asked to work normally from now on.

The greylisting of Keele University is also suspended with immediate effect.

The aim of our action was to bring management to the negotiating table on the issues of

- academic discussions with the School on the future of the teaching programmes,
- the terms of the voluntary severance offer and an extended period of voluntary severance.

We feel that we have achieved those aims and also defended the role of Senate in consideration of course closures and academic restructuring, and furthermore that the agreement provides a space in which this situation can be resolved without need for compulsory redundancy. However, there is still much work in front of us to implement the agreement.

The agreement is available at
http://www.keele.ac.uk/socs/ucu/local/sems2008/agreementJun08.doc

See also an accompanying statement from Sue Davis, UCU regional official, at
http://www.keele.ac.uk/socs/ucu/local/sems2008/statementJun08.html

I should like to thank all members who have supported the industrial action and greylisting. It is only by our vigorous campaign, and the immense support we have received from colleagues across the country, that we have been able to get this far.

Peter Fletcher,
for the Keele UCU committee.

You can also read the national UCU's official statement here.

Edited to add: this is a significant step forward in the dispute and can rightly be regarded as a victory against a management who were determined to dig their heels in.

University and Utopia

This afternoon the Keele sociology research seminar series heard Mark Featherstone speak on his ongoing project on utopianism. In this session he concentrated on the utopian dimensions of the university campus, or rather the contradictory demands placed on it as a utopian space.

He began by outlining the difference between the commonplace understanding of the term and that deployed in the burgeoning field of utopia studies. Its object is not so much visions of the perfect world or the ideal society, but rather the key characteristics of utopias: spatial order and the control of thought. Utopia is an enclosed space constructed through executive power and authoritarianism, which rules out certain modes of thought and prescribes correct thinking. There is no room for internal opposition.

Unfortunately this vision of utopia has leaped off the pages of 1984 and become real blueprints that are layered on to reality. We are not talking large scale utopias here of the kind that led to the gas chamber and the gulag. (Post)modern utopias are small and comparatively limited, but for all that more pernicious and widespread. Drawing on the ideas of Castells and Virilio, Mark suggests contemporary capitalism is too fast and too interconnected to allow new stable certainties to form in the spaces vacated by the old. The viscosity of fluidic social space has allowed greater freedoms and opportunity for the few but these same processes also engendered a coagulation of 'paranoid reaction formations' which aspire to orderliness against the backdrop of global uncertainty. This is where utopianism comes back in. Utopias are the dominant species of reaction formations. Their control of space fosters illusions of certainty and safety. Paranoid anxiety underwrites calls for more prisons, more detention centres, more gated communities. The utopian promise is security in an increasingly insecure world.

Hence far from dying with the passing of Nazism and Stalinism from the stage of history, utopia is back with a vengeance. We live on Planet Utopia, a global society where the conditions for the formation of new utopias are always overdetermined by the operation of the networks that criss-cross the world. Speed, superconnectivity and volatility render the dominant tendency of mainstream politics toward technocratic management utopian in the original sense of the word. The idea society can be shaped by a pragmatic approach to reform is out of date. Long term planning is impossible. But here lies a paradox. The philosopher kings of old have been dethroned, but the only modes of governance deemed practicable to the new society is premised on intuitive thought. And it is only existing elites who are capable of exercising it.

Mark argues intuitive thought is thought at high speed, without deliberation and unencumbered by democracy. To give an example, American foreign policy is based on pre-emptive action. We don't need evidence to show Iran is up to dastardly things, we just know it is. This governance is well-suited to an unpredictable world. If the world is too complex, if social relations are moving too fast, if the causes of crisis cannot be fathomed and their origins are impossible to pin down, why bother?

As one node among many in the global network, the campus university lies across contradictory social processes. It has its utopian dimensions. Thought and modes of thought are segregated through spatialisation. Research and experimentation are separated from the library, the lecture theatre and the seminar room. And these are separated from accomodation, eating areas, administration and recreational facilities. Through the control of space thought is compartmentalised and disciplined. But the functions demanded of the university are different from other utopian spaces. It cannot retreat into itself. It always has to look beyond the campus to the world to produce adequate knowledge about it to feed the insatiable appetite of global capital. Therefore the university campus finds global contradictions telescoped into its tightly regulated social space. The utopian impulse is locked into antagonism with the possibility of freedom. This tension is expressed in a series of oppositions - outer space vs inner space, democracy vs enlightened despotism, developing critical thought vs the vocationalisation of degrees. Unfortunately, the utopian is in the ascendent and the balance of forces tilt in its favour.

Utopias are riddled with irony, and this case is no exception. Utopian campuses evoke market fundamentalism to legitimate the measures they take. However what is done in the name of the market is often not what's best for the market. To reap the rewards of global network society requires an ability to think imaginatively and creatively. One cannot take up an entrepreneurial position if the skills one has acquired have trundled off an HE assembly line. The global marketplace may generate utopias, but they can and do undermine its efficacy. Capital's gravediggers they're not - instead utopia is a sympomatic of fatigue.

A number of questions were raised. One asked about the operation of time in utopian settings. If you close of space, you close off history too, which is next to impossible in the era of turbo-charged global capitalism. What utopianism does is slow down time and, within an enclave, offer a possibility of micro-scale management. From my perspective, what was interesting was the seeming absence of agency in this world. Mark suggested there does remain a space for radical politics, and it lies in resisting the seductive qualities of utopianism. The aim is not to seek positions within the quai-natural relays of the network but finding ways of bringing them under control. He didn't elaborate further, but at least this model shows alternative possibilities to the postmodern totalitarianism of global capitalism. And one good place for alternatives to flourish are in the problematic environments of the contemporary campus university.