Capitalism and its impact on education - learning to work

Education has been an essential pillar of society throughout history. However, its power is often understated and regarded as neutral in its impacts. Education, as said by Paulo Freire in ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’, is “{never neutral}. Education either functions as an instrument to bring about conformity or freedom.” The ideological lean of educators can manifest itself in a series of ways, the main three being: a tool for capitalist reinforcement, a tool for squashing revolution, and a tool for academic segregation. Through this article, I will explore the way in which the capitalist system shapes the education system's purpose within our society. Many famous activists, philosophers, historians, and academics other than Freire have spoken about the inherent bias in education. Another example of this would be Assata Shakur, who said, “No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history [or] teach you your true heroes if they know that that knowledge will help set you free”. In this, Shakur makes the case that the ruling class will not hand you the tools to dismantle years and years of capitalism and colonialism. It is up to the individual and their communities to educate themselves on revolutionary ideals outside bourgeois education systems.

Argument 1

The first argument often made about how the education system reflects the wishes of the capitalist class, is that the entire system is made to churn out workers who have been acclimated to strict conditions and stripped of their power. Two Marxist sociologists by the names Bowles and Gintis created and coined the term ‘The Correspondence Principle ’. This principle states that the primary purpose of capitalist education is to reproduce labour-power for the workforce and that the hierarchy of schools mirrors the hierarchy of corporate/capitalist society. This is shown in the diagram below.

Retrieved 8/12/21 from https://revisesociology.com/

Revise Sociology defines the four ways in which the Correspondence Theory is represented. These include how it helps to produce a subservient workforce of uncritical, passive and docile workers, encouraging an acceptance of hierarchy and authority, motivation by External Rewards, and the fragmentation of subjects at school. The first strategy mentioned is the way that schools assist in the production of docile, subservient workers. Children in schools are forced to maintain a strict schedule through set lunchtimes, being forced to respect higher authorities, homework, late notices, and strict punishments. These conditions make for a perfect candidate to work in corporate or manufacturing jobs. The harsh school conditions do not allow students to fully develop their sense of identity and unique relationship with work. A box is placed upon students that perpetuates ableist and racist cycles of disenfranchisement and allows these young children to be trained and fitted for future menial, repetitive work. The education system has developed into the perfect mechanism to produce worker bees which consider strict environments and a 40-hour workweek natural. Businesses can stop unionisation and worker mobilisation against their unfair treatment by acclimatising these workers to those environments. Kids who are free thinkers, creative or who are aggressive to the idea of strict rules are swept to the side and punished for ‘disruptive’ behaviour. Through repetitive punishments and the overarching fear of change placed onto these children, the education system is constantly churning out easy to manipulate labourers who are ready and occasionally excited to participate in capitalist society.

The second strategy mentioned was how schools encourage an acceptance of authority. Schools create a hierarchy of power where pupils act as the bottom of the hierarchy and are forced to obey the rules and demands of the higher-ups. Teachers, coordinators, Principals, and outside educational authorities make up the hierarchy and condition students to accept this way of thinking unconditionally. From the first day in school, children are taught that any disagreement or ‘rebellion’ against these systems will be punished. If the ‘rebellion’ goes far enough, they can be severely punished. Altogether, this emphasis on punishment and push towards hierarchy plants a seed of unconditional acceptance of future unethical power structures in the children’s heads.

The third strategy used by the education system is external motivation through rewards. This arguably is the most prominent amongst them all. By conditioning students to conflate extreme levels of work with short term rewards, educators can create a group of people who will work - even when there is no emotional reward, just for some far off chance at getting a higher pay or short term gratification. It changes the psychological motivations of students but emphasises work qualifications and university acceptance as opposed to finding passions and learning for the sake of learning. In Marxist ideology, worker ownership creates an enjoyable work environment. People's passions are rewarded under communist organisation of the economy, but in the capitalist system, workers are alienated from their labour. This is a phenomenon that Marx coined as ‘Theory of Alienation.’ In this, workers are forced to perform menial, repetitive, and often uninspired work and are not allowed to reap the full benefits of their labour. Students grow up and are forced to be one part of a production line; schools prepare them for this by forcing them to abandon any inquisitive nature they may have and focus on the tasks at hand. In squashing the curiosity and drive of young people, there is a lower chance of people refusing to take part in corporate capitalism. Overall, schools use external motivation such as qualifications and future results to force children to take part in repetitive tasks which train them for corporate life.

The fourth and final strategy implemented by education systems is the separation of school subjects. Classes in schools are fragmented into their individual subjects such as English, Economics, Maths, etc. By separating these subjects, schools are able to emulate the fragmentation of the workforce. In manufacturing jobs, the worker is asked to specialise in a specific part of the production process; a similar thing occurs in offices where each worker is ordered to complete a specific task. This alienates workers from their labour and makes them easier to control as they lose the big picture image of what they have assisted in creating. Schools use fragmentation of subjects to acclimate children to this mode of labour and prepare them for participation in capitalism.

The fact that disabled students or people who need assisted learning are forced into separate facilities or are not accounted for is another example of how capitalism influences the education system. Many schools have little to no accessible areas for students with mobility issues. Capitalism does not value the education of students with disabilities and often sees them as an insignificant minority. However, a large portion of the population has physical or learning disabilities. As crucial as it is to cater to them, oftentimes, educational institutions refuse to do so, whether it be because they see it as unimportant or as too high a cost to the business. When schools value profit over the wellbeing of their students, it leads to issues such as unequal rates of education and lack of future career prospects. It is just another symptom of capitalism infecting the education system.

Argument 2

The second argument is that education can act as a tool for squashing revolution. People in positions of power will use education to either willfully misinform or withhold information from students, which could radicalise and fundamentally change their perspectives. This was prevalent in 2021 when Texas passed ‘House Bill 3979’, which restricted the teaching of ‘Critical Race Theory’ in schools all across Texas. The bill fundamentally forced teachers to provide ‘opposing’ examples and opinions on race-related topics such as the Holocaust. Teachers all across Texas were confused on how and why they should approach issues such as slavery and the Holocaust from the confederate or Nazi perspective. We see the reach further in Texan history textbooks, which regularly teach the civil war and slavery through the white Southerners’ perspective as opposed to the enslaved people or abolitionist perspectives. We do not only see this in ‘conservative’ states or countries. Patriotic ideologies are prevalent in many western nations.

Australian education minister Alan Tudge spoke to Hack, a subgroup of Triple J, and called for a ‘more patriotic’ picture of Australia’s history to be painted in classrooms. He stated, “So I want to make sure there’s a balance, but I want people to come out having learnt about a country with a love of it, rather than a hatred.” This on its own does not seem too bad but paired with Australia’s already eager dismissal of indigenous history and poor representation in school curriculums, this could lead to little to no honest teaching of indigenous history, further perpetuating white supremacy and ignorance, which translates into an easy to please, patriotic group of ‘Australia first’ individuals. These individuals are more likely to accept injustices within capitalism; instead of blaming the system for issues such as job loss, housing crises’ and income inequality, they will blame minorities and scapegoats. As said by Audre Lorde, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” Though that statement was being made to refer to the systems of oppression that perpetuate misogynoir, it can be applied to capitalism since both systems interact with one another. A capitalist tool such as the education system will never teach us what we need, or give us the motivation to dismantle it.

If anyone needs more convincing, a school board in Texas recently banned over 130 books from school libraries. The superintendent responded to the backlash by saying, “During my tenure, I have witnessed radicals come into our board room and go onto social media platforms to distort the truth, exaggerate issues, and badmouth our trustees … We will not back down from you. We will not let you divide our school and community. … I have actually read what is in those books, and I am proud that they have been removed from our shelves.” The banned books include ‘Equal rights’ by Maureen O’Connor, ‘Being Jazz: My life as a transgender teen’ by Jazz Jennings, ‘Roe V. Wade’ by Susan Dudley Gold, ‘V for Vendetta’ by Alan Moore, and many more.. The banning of these so-called ‘radical’ books demonstrates the fear that these educational institutions have of properly educated youths who are not afraid to challenge unfair power structures in their lives. There is a growing request for books such as the ones banned, that allow young people to understand many perspectives and somewhat radical ideas. This goes to show the lengths that government bodies and the education system will go to to make sure young people do not have the tools or motivations for change/revolution.

Argument 3

The capitalist education system also perpetuates academic segregation. Over time schooling has become not only incredibly expensive for those who choose non-government institutions, but the gap in quality between government and non-government schools has rapidly increased as well. There are examples of this worldwide, but one of the most prominent examples of academic segregation is in America. Public schools in America are generally funded by the property taxes of the houses in that school district; this means that higher-income neighbourhoods (usually predominately white) receive more opportunities for students and an overall more varied syllabus. These distinctions within public school education create a lower starting point for students in lower-income communities. Segregation within education does not keep itself within class lines; however. Due to the historical systemic disadvantages placed upon minority communities, most students in these low-income areas are non-white, creating genuine racial segregation in the schooling system.

The same Idea develops between public and private schools in other countries. For example, public schools in Australia experience governmental cuts, while private institutions are rarely subjected to any funding changes by the government. Catholic schools receive ongoing funding from the government, while public schools usually find it challenging to make ends meet. As a result, lower-income students are barred from higher quality learning, making things more difficult for them regarding getting into universities/colleges and finding career jobs. These patterns of disenfranchisement stop the creation of generational wealth and lead to further cycles of oppression in future generations. By placing profit as the number one objective, the education system has benefited from the persecution of minority communities. It has disabled them from having the quality of learning that their white counterparts have. This repetitious cycle leads to young workers who grow up in these lower-income communities to take jobs that are either extremely menial, have low pay or are entirely different to the wishes of the worker, which fosters an environment for a slew of negative impacts regarding their mental and physical wellbeing. The education system regularly puts people of colour at risk to make a dollar, and this is just capitalism working the way it is intended.

The capitalist emphasis on worker alienation, conformity, and self-preservation creates a toxic, racist and ableist environment hell-bent on manipulating workers. As stated, The main ways that capitalism manifests itself in education are as a tool for capitalist reinforcement, squashing revolution, and academic segregation. These systems are designed to mirror capitalist society in order to produce a docile workforce, ready for active participation in that society. This is purposeful and malicious. The capitalist class will never allow for their workers to be educated enough for rebellion. In saying this, as young people, we have a duty to educate ourselves and help dismantle and fight against these systems, even through small acts such as furthering our own education and the education of our communities.

!Disclaimer!

I am not black or indigenous and I am able-bodied. The experiences with racist and ableist institutions I speak about here are not first hand. It is important that anyone reading this realises my limited scope of understanding. People wishing to understand further should pursue education from disabled BIPOC people who are willing to teach you.