The 99% Spring

I heard a story about the Internet Center for Corruption Research this morning (on NPR, I think) and I am starting to think that corruption really should be some sort of subcategory in the academic study of contemporary U.S. universities. On Monday, I listed recent examples from Illinois, but today I find even more stories from elsewhere; these involve institutionalized form of corruption but perhaps individual corruption as well.

Administrators at Harvard managed to report both a budget shortfall requiring program and a million or so in bonuses for the “two Cadillacs” crowd. (“Bonuses and Furloughs“).  Other reports note the ongoing move to shift the cost of college to the individual (“Colleges Increasingly Dependent on Tuition, U.S. Study Shows“) and,…

Over the last three or four decades the growing influence of neoliberalism– in brief, the irrational worship of markets– has steadily shifted the costs of education away from the collective– in the U.S., federal or state governments– and towards students and families in the form of student loans. As that loan burden nears a trillion dollars, you’d think that we’d hear increasing calls to shift the costs of college back where it belongs, with the collective.

Despite some calls for a mass forgiveness of student debt, this hasn’t happened. Instead, the current status quo has become so naturalized that even the most “enlightened” seeming propositions are too often nothing more than repetitions of the economic orthodoxy’s insistence that “full market transparency” will…

Continental European capitalism, which combines generous health and social benefits with reasonable working hours, long vacation periods, early retirement, and relatively equal income distributions, would seem to have everything to recommend it – except sustainability.

“Is Modern Capitalism Sustainable“– Kenneth Rogoff

Mike Konczal assembles some striking quotes from Federal Reserve transcripts showing how obsessed the monetary overlords are with keeping wages down. I won’t recycle any of the quotes—check out his post for the full flavor.

“The Fed and the Class Struggle” — Doug Henwood

Here’s an juxtaposition that might be used to teach critical thinking. The contrast between these two ways of seeing the economy isn’t simply a matter of right and wrong, yes and no, or even “subject positions,” although that…

There you have it. A concise summary of what’s wrong with present corporately driven education change: Decisions are being made by individuals who lack perspective and aren’t really accountable.

Those decisions are shaped not by knowledge or understanding of educating, but by ideology, politics, hubris, greed, ignorance, the conventional wisdom, and various combinations thereof. And then they’re sold to the public by the rich and powerful ( Marion Brady, “When an adult took standardized tests forced on kids“).

The economist Doug Henwood has long contended that the problem with the U.S. economy now isn’t just the ordinary cyclical ills of capitalism but a deeper malaise rooted in a decadent ruling class. It’s decadent…

I have to agree with the letter writer who complained that the Chronicle of Higher Education ought to cover recent events in Arizona more thoroughly (“Controversial Arizona Law Deserves Scholars’ Attention“). A new law, HB 2281, represents the cutting edge in the long-expressed desire of the right-wing to eliminate ethic studies, as a part of their larger drive to end diversity programs in education. It’s another example of the irrationality of white supremacy, its profound fear that if it does not fully assimilate the other, its own unique identity will disappear.

In Arizona, the formula is very simple: either the people who are ethnically Mexican– most are not recent immigrants, of course–drop their own language and culture and adopt…