Interesting in relation to the session Price, Ruane and Byrne are giving
at the CSE conference.
-----Original Message-----
From: CyberBrook <[log in to unmask]>
To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 24 May 2000 01:09
Subject: Assaulting Solidarity by Noam Chomsky


>
>>Assaulting Solidarity -- Privatizing Education
>>
>>By Noam Chomsky
>>
>>There has been a general assault in the last 25 years on solidarity,
>>democracy, social welfare, anything that interferes with private
power, and
>>there are many targets. One of the targets is undoubtedly the
educational
>>system. In fact, a couple of years ago already, the big investment
firms,
>>like Lehman Brothers, and so on, were sending around brochures to
their
>>clients saying, "Look, we've taken over the health system; we've taken
over
>>the prison system; the next big target is the educational system. So
we can
>>privatize the educational system, make a lot of money out of it."
>>
>>Also, notice that privatizing it undermines the danger, it's kind of
an
>>ethic that has to be undermined, namely the idea that you care about
>>somebody else. A public education system is based on the principle
that you
>>care whether the kid down the street gets an education. And that's got
to be
>>stopped. This is very much like what the workers in the mills in
Lowell,
>>Massachusetts were worrying about 150 years ago. They were trying to
stop
>>what they called the new spirit of the age: "Gain wealth, forgetting
all but
>>self." We want to stop that. That's not what we're like. We're human
beings.
>>We care about other people. We want to do things together. We care
about
>>whether the kid down the street gets an education. We care about
whether
>>somebody else has a road, even if I don't use it. We care about
whether
>>there is child slave labor in Thailand. We care about whether some
elderly
>>person gets food. That's social security. We care whether somebody
else gets
>>food. There's a huge effort to try to undermine all of that--to try to
>>privatize aspirations so then you're totally controlled. Privatize
>>aspirations, you're completely controlled. Private power goes its own
way,
>>everyone else has to subordinate themselves to it.
>>
>>Well that's part of the basis for the attack on the public education
system,
>>and it goes right up to the universities. In the universities there's
a move
>>toward corporatization and that has very clear effects. You see it at
MIT
>>where I teach, you see it everywhere. It means that you want to
create, just
>>like industry, you want to create a more flexible work force. That
means
>>undermine security. It means have cheap temporary labor, like graduate
>>students, who don't have to be paid much and who can be thrown
out--they're
>>temps. OK, they're going to be around for a couple of years, then you
toss
>>them out and have some more temps.
>>
>>It affects research, strikingly. I'm sure you see it here, but at a
research
>>institution like where I am, MIT, you see it pretty clearly. As
funding
>>shifts from public entities, including, incidentally, the Pentagon, in
fact,
>>primarily the Pentagon, which has long understood that its domestic
role is
>>to be a cover for transferring public funds into private profit. When
>>funding goes from the Pentagon and the National Science Foundation and
>>others to corporate funding, there's a definite shift. A corporation,
say,
>>some pharmaceutical corporation, is not particularly likely to want to
fund
>>research which is going to help everybody. There's exceptions, but, by
and
>>large, it's not going to want to fund, say basic biology, which may be
a
>>public good that anybody can use 10 or 20 years from now. It's going
to want
>>to fund things that it can make profit from and, furthermore, do it in
the
>>short term. There's a striking tendency, and a perfectly natural one,
for
>>corporate funding to institute more secrecy and short-term applied
[projects
>>for which the corporation has proprietary control on publication and
use.
>>Well you know, technically corporate funding can't demand secrecy, but
that's
>>only technically. In fact they can, like the threat of not re-funding
>>imposes secrecy. There are actually cases like this, some of them so
>>dramatic they've made the Wall Street Journal. There was an article in
the
>>Wall Street Journal last summer, you may have seen, about MIT, my
place.
>>What had happened was that a student in a computer science class had
refused
>>to answer a question on an exam. When he was asked why by the
professor, he
>>said that he knew the answer but he was under a secrecy condition from
a
>>different professor not to answer it, and the reason was that, in the
>>research he was doing for this other professor, they had sort of
worked out
>>the answer to this; but they wanted to keep it secret, because they
wanted
>>to make money, or something. Well, you know, this is so scandalous
that even
>>the Wall Street Journal was scandalized.
>>
>>But that's the kind of thing you can expect as there's a move toward
>>corporatization. After all, corporations are not benevolent societies.
As
>>Milton Friedman correctly says, though in slightly different words,
the
>>board of directors of a corporation actually has a legal obligation to
be a
>>monster, an ethical monster. Their legal obligation is to maximize
profits
>>for the shareholders, the stockholders. They're not supposed to do
nice
>>things. If they are, it's probably illegal, unless it's intended to
mollify
>>people, or improve market share, or something. That's the way it
works. You
>>don't expect corporations to be benevolent any more than you expect
>>dictatorships to be benevolent. Maybe you can force them to be
benevolent,
>>but it's the tyrannical structure that's the problem, and as the
>>universities move toward corporatization you expect all of these
effects.
>>
>>And one of the effects, in a way, I think the most important, is the
>>undermining of the conception of solidarity and cooperation. I think
that
>>lies at the heart of the attack on the public school system, the
attack on
>>social security, the effort to block any form of national health care,
which
>>has been going on for years. And, in fact, across the board, and it's
>>understandable. If you want to "regiment the minds of men just as an
army
>>regiments their bodies," you've got to undermine these subversive
notions of
>>mutual support, solidarity, sympathy, caring for other people, and so
on and
>>so forth.
>>
>>The attack on public education is one example. I don't know how it's
working
>>here, but in Massachusetts, where I see it directly, there's a
comparable
>>attack on the state colleges, which are there for working class
people,
>>people who come back to college after they're half-way in their
career,
>>mothers who come back, people from the urban ghettos, and so on and so
>>forth, that's what the state college system has been, and they're
under
>>serious attack by an interesting method. The method has been to raise
the
>>entrance standards for the state colleges without improving the
schools. So
>>when you don't improve the schools but you raise the entrance
standards for
>>the people who are trying to go on, it's kinds of obvious what
happens. You
>>get lower enrollments, and when you get lower enrollments, you've got
to cut
>>staff because, remember, we have to be efficient, like corporations.
So you
>>cut staff, and you cut services, and then you can admit even fewer
people,
>>and there's kind of a natural cycle, and you can see where it ends up.
It
>>ends up with people either not going to college or figuring out some
way to
>>spend $30,000 a year at a private college. And you know what that
means. All
>>of these are part of the general effort, I think, to create a
socio-economic
>>order which is under the control of private concentrated power. It
shows up
>>all over the place.
>




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