<< I fear I catch a tinge of derision in the question, and I hope we haven't reached the point on the Left where revolution is merely the butt of humor. >>
No, I find revolution quite a serious topic and a goal I hope I share with some on this list. And I will work for it even if that revolution does not meet some ahistorical ideal, e.g., a civilization somehow free of all forms of coercion, which I rather doubt will be attainable under any historical conditions.
As for your dismissal of any progressive reform under capitalism as essentially useless or counterproductive--you know, merely "the soft cop" at work--well, yes, I was putting in a note of (sardonic) humor. I am not one to dismiss centuries of struggle by many largely forgotten heroes just because they did not establish a socialist world. Even though I dream that a post-revolutionary society could do away with what we call schooling (a more concrete distinction than your education-learning opposition, IMO), I don’t think that the historical evidence shows that the development of mass schooling is a net loss for human progress. Nor that it should be abandoned to the forces of capital. To say the least.
People in struggle, always, everywhere, have recognized the importance of expanding educational opportunities to themselves. Ruling classes, always, everywhere, have recognized the importance of restricting the fruits of education to themselves. Both higher education and near-universal elementary-secondary education are right now under concerted attack by the Right. I will not cheer them on through blanket dismissals of the existing system.
<< When I began working in the craft of computer programming in the mid-60s, no one knew what a computer programmer was or how to create one …>>
This may have been the case in your milieu, or at your level in whatever hierarchy you found yourself in, but by the mid-60s the military (the developer of the computer) and industry (with many companies, like IBM, depending on military contracts, although the expansion of computers to the civilian sector was well established) had already figured out the danger of craft autonomy developing among computer programmers. Both the military and industry leaders had established in-house training by this point, and, as with all such training, it had a clear ideological component. Although everyone may have still been muddling through what it meant to be “a programmer,” the need to establish control over the programmer was understood; the future was clear. The myth of that libertarian romantic hero, the hacker, has only tended to obscure this.
Although computer programming was all but invented by women in the late 40s-early 50s—-because the US military at first ignorantly assumed that programming was mere technical mop-up work—-once its importance was established, new opportunities inevitably fell more often to men. In industry, the distinction between the programmer (relatively well-paid men) and the data processor (an archetypal “pink collar” job) was made early on. The top-down “IBM style” of professionalization that was later derided by the hacker culture was well established by the mid-60s.
<< As the academic system and its clients, noticing the money and power involved, gradually got control of the situation, that is, convinced employers that only "computer scientists" and "software engineers" with credentials could possibly be competent, >>
This has it backwards, per above, although I will concede that there is a dialectic at work here. It was capital, not academe, that led the way. Higher ed, as usual, was a latecomer. Software engineering was not an academic field, I don’t believe, and certainly not a respected field, until much later, was it not? Mid-to-late 70s? Wasn’t it at first the field that “real” engineers could field snobby toward, much as “real” scientists could feel snobby toward engineers? It was the needs of capital (“society”) that legitimated the already-professionalizing field to academe.
<< class war infects and pollutes everything it touches … >>
Class struggle effects everything that we think and do. To me, this knowledge brings measured hope, not pessimism and disgust.
----Original Message Follows---- From: Gordon Fitch <gcf at panix.com> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: Re: academic economics Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 18:53:40 -0400
Gordon Fitch wrote:
> << Since the educational system reproduces the class system, then
> the more people become involved in it, the more the class
> system will be strengthened. >>
Gregory Geboski:
> Huh? I guess the Left has always been all wrong for wanting free universal
> education, seeing how we're doing nothing but helping the bosses.
>
> Sure, the educational system in a class society will reproduce those
> classes, all in all. As will, all in all, every institution in a class
> society. That's pretty much true by definition. But does that mean we settle
> for no or reduced education for the working class under the existing
> system--until the Revolution, I guess?
>
> The post-war expansion of higher education in the US, especially the
> expansion of state university systems, was, despite its flaws, a move for
> democratization, and a potential threat to the ruling class. This was
> recognized by the Right, at least, who have been steadily moving to make
> higher education available only to those who "deserve" (i.e., can pay) for
> it.
I can't bring myself to be ardently concerned about quarrels between segments of the ruling class, between the hard cop and the soft cop, which is what the post-war expansion of higher education and the opposition to it are all about. The fundamental idea of education, insofar as the word has any concrete meaning about contemporary life, is to entrain the intellects of people, especially young people, into some pre-existing system of authorized knowledge which suits ruling-class interests. It's not equivalent to learning, although people with an interest in Education, the institutionalized social project, often use it that way.
I speak not only theoretically but empirically. When I began working in the craft of computer programming in the mid-60s, no one knew what a computer programmer was or how to create one. People learned on the job, and those who succeeded in learning were variegated: where I was working, almost half were women, and many were of other non-privileged classes and castes. As the academic system and its clients, noticing the money and power involved, gradually got control of the situation, that is, convinced employers that only "computer scientists" and "software engineers" with credentials could possibly be competent, the population became increasingly White, male, and at least semi-privileged, just like engineering school. Of course this now became a Problem and the very people who had created it now created more work for themselves by generating committees, jobs and institutions to solve it or rather pretend to solve it.
Insofar as I can envision a post-revolutionary society, education would be abolished. If people can't learn what they need to know without being subjected to coercion, then there is no hope for them, and they will need popes and emperors forever. As for waiting for the revolution, I don't see the point of non-revolutionary politics because, as exemplified in my little story, class war infects and pollutes everything it touches. I fear I catch a tinge of derision in the question, and I hope we haven't reached the point on the Left where revolution is merely the butt of humor. Have we?
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