Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame

Synopsis

The current neoliberal mutation of capitalism has evolved beyond the days when the wholesale exploitation of labor underwrote the world system's expansion. While "normal" business profits plummet and theft-by-finance rises, capitalism now shifts into a mode of elimination that targets most of us--along with our environment--as waste products awaiting managed disposal. The education system is caught in the throes of this eliminationism across a number of fronts: crushing student debt, impatience with student expression, the looting of vestigial public institutions and, finally, as coup de grace, an abandonment of the historic ideal of universal education. "Education reform" is powerless against eliminationism and is at best a mirage that diverts oppositional energies. The very idea of education activism becomes a comforting fiction. Educational institutions are strapped into the eliminationist project--the neoliberal endgame--in a way that admits no escape, even despite the heroic gestures of a few. The school systems that capitalism has built and directed over the last two centuries are fated to go down with the ship. It is rational therefore for educators to cultivate a certain pessimism. Should we despair? Why, yes, we should--but cheerfully, as confronting elimination, mortality, is after all our common fate. There is nothing and everything to do in order to prepare.

Copyright:

2013

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

319 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781780995793

Related ISBNs:

9781780995786

Publisher:

Zer0 Books

Date of Addition:

11/05/25

Copyrighted By:

David J. Blacker

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Business and Finance, Education, Philosophy, Politics and Government, Sociology

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.