Exploitation of academics (was reparations)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>At 09:37 AM 3/21/01 -0500, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>That "X is functional" doesn't mean, however, that "only X is 
>>functional," even under capitalism, I believe.  Take the "welfare 
>>reform," for example.  The "welfare reform" is functional for 
>>capitalism (especially under the hegemony of neoliberalism).  That 
>>doesn't mean, though, that the working class could never have 
>>stopped the "welfare reform."  It was not inevitable that AFDC was 
>>abolished, "workfare" was instituted, etc.  The same goes for an 
>>astonishing degree to which academy has come to rely upon TAs, 
>>"part-time" adjuncts, "full-time" professors hired on the contract 
>>basis, etc. It was & is not inevitable.
>>
>>Yoshie
>
>functionalist explanations do not necessarily have anything to do 
>with teleology.
>
>kelley

No, but that functionalist explanations are often either teleological 
or tautological is a common criticism.

Anyway, if you want to discuss methodology for the sake of discussing 
it, you might change the subject line.  I thought the main point in 
this & related threads is to explain the corporatization of 
universities & think about how to fight against it.

At 10:59 AM -0500 3/21/01, Dennis Breslin wrote:
>But I'm suspicious of functional explanations where the system is 
>seen as policing itself.  There's just way too much
>purpose behind all those unanticipated and unintended consequences, 
>regardless of whether good or ill is involved.

That a mode of production sets limits to what is possible under it, 
without determining exact concrete outcomes of each struggle within 
it, is not an illegitimately teleological argument.

The system doesn't police itself, but one can analyze it sometimes 
profitably if one sees it _as if it were doing so_.


>And why look for functions when it
>the intentions of college administrators and faculty can supply the
>desired explanation.

I don't think that you can explain the corporatization of humanities 
by looking at the intentions of college administrators and faculty 
alone, though they can be a part of explanation.

Brad Mayer wrote to Gordon:


>Nah, many leave academia and get jobs as doc writers (a favored 
>repository for leftists) and such in the computer industry.  So they 
>are not really being blown off as a social stratum.

Ph.D. programs may serve as a high-end cooling-off mechanism (= 
cooling off intellectual & other ambitions, aspirations, 
expectations, etc.), just as community colleges perform the same 
function for generally poorer working-class students.

Yoshie