The University, technology and co-operation

The University, technology and co-operation
Professor Richard Hall
@hallymk1 rhall1@dmu.ac.uk
richard-hall.org
Critical Perspectives on Educational Technology, University of Brighton.
15 October 2013

I. “Let's start at the very beginning. A very
good place to start.”

Our labour and our society are folded inside a
systemic, historical crisis of capitalism. This secular
crisis demands a political return.
Historical, socialised value is being accumulated
through commodification and coercion. There is no
alternative.
The University is a central site of struggle over our
past, in our present, and for our future. What is to be
done?

it is impossible to understand the role of the University
without developing a critique of its relationships to a
transnational capitalist class
restructuring the University for hegemony
(pace Robinson, W.I. 2004. A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production,
Class, and State in a Transnational World. Johns Hopkins UP)

neither the cyclical business downturns nor the upturns,
nor a whole series of capitalist counter-measures (local
and international), have resolved the underlying problems
of the system... to lay the basis for a renewal of stable
accumulation.
the continuing threat to the existence of capitalism
posed by antagonistic forces and trends which are
inherent in its social structure and which persist through
short term fluctuations and major restructurings.
Cleaver, H. 1993. Theses on Secular Crisis in Capitalism: The
Insurpassability of Class Antagonisms. http://bit.ly/10ASDy4

to broaden the flexible, transnational capital accumulation
from territories in the global South
to deepen the mechanics of accumulation from previously
socialised goods in the global North like healthcare and
public education
these spaces are in-turn enclosed, folded into the circuits
of globalised production, and then commodified for private
consumption and gain
(pace Endnotes #2. 2010. Misery and Debt: on the logic and history of
surplus populations and surplus capital.
http://endnotes.org.uk/articles/1)

1. Technological change is the result of social forces in
struggle and the need to overcome the temporal and
spatial barriers to accumulation
2. Secular control: the power of transnational capitalism
over the objective material reality of life, and which is
reinforced technologically and pedagogically
3. To argue for emancipation through technological
innovation is to fetishise technology and to
misunderstand how technology is shaped by the clash
of social forces and the desire of capital to escape the
barriers imposed by labour

It took both time and experience before the workpeople
learned to distinguish between machinery and its
employment by capital and to direct their attacks, not
against the material instruments of production, but
against the mode in which they are used.
Marx, K. 2004. Capital Volume 1, p. 554.

Technology discloses man’s mode of dealing with
Nature, the process of production by which he sustains
his life, and thereby also lays bare the mode of formation
of his social relations, and of the mental conceptions that
flow from them.
Marx, K. 2004. Capital Volume 1, p. 493.

1. Technological and organisational forms of production,
exchange and consumption.
2. Relations to nature and the environment.
3. Social relations between people.
4. Mental conceptions of the world, embracing knowledges
and cultural understandings and beliefs.
5. Labour processes and production of specific goods,
geographies, services or affects.
6. Institutional, legal and governmental arrangements.
7. The conduct of daily life that underpins social reproduction.
Harvey, D. (2010), The Enigma of Capital: And the Crises of Capitalism, Profile
Books, London

1. Networks of power and affinity, that enable the reproduction of ‘geographies of social relationships’.
2. Networks form shifting assemblages of activity and
relationships that reinforce hegemonic power.
3. Transnational activist networks consisting of:
i. academics and think tanks;
ii. policy-makers and administrators;
iii. finance capital and private equity funds;
iv. media corporations and publishers;
v. philanthropists/hedge-funds interested in corporate
social responsibility etc..
aim to regulate the state for enterprise and the market.
Ball, S. 2011. Global Education Inc.
BUT c.f. Neary, 2012 and Davies, 2011, critique network governance.

II. “We are the dollars and cents.”

Education markets are one facet of the neoliberal
strategy to manage the structural crisis of capitalism by
opening the public sector to capital accumulation. The
roughly $2.5 trillion global market in education is a rich
new arena for capital investment.
(Lipman, P. 2009: http://bit.ly/qDl6sV)

$4.4tn, 2012 Global Education Expenditure ($91bn in elearning is the fastest growing).
(IBIS Capital. 2013: http://bit.ly/16aJi1Q)

http://bit.ly/nLQJFG

http://bit.ly/GJjTPu

http://bit.ly/HoMFaU

1. hacking competitions, education departments and national security:
http://bit.ly/J5NSqt
2. the use by Universities of drones, with connections between U.S.
military, academic research, defence contractors: http://bit.ly/JLld6T
3. public/private partnerships in the UK that focus upon wireless video
surveillance: http://bit.ly/LTn6Ba
4. the deep connections between the military and research inside UK
universities: http://bit.ly/LFOzDL
5. the disconnect between our activist promotion of technologies that are
apparently transformative in the global North at the expense of their
implication in war in the global South, like the Raspberry Pi:
http://bit.ly/HUGTBC
6. MOOCS and global labour arbitrage: http://bit.ly/11QLsXU

The hidden hand of the market will never work without
a hidden fist. Markets function and flourish only when
property rights are secured and can be enforced, which,
in turn, requires a political framework protected and
backed by military power… the hidden fist that keeps the
world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is
called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
Friedman, T. L. (2000). The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Anchor Books: New
York.

David Willetts' address at We need to talk about Quality:
MOOCs, 8 July 2013, QAA. http://bit.ly/18VCOHQ

EdTech and value: labour costs; efficiency; discipline; credit
ratings
EdTech and rent: publishers and services; private equity
firms and LMS; data mining
EdTech and competition: MOOCs and labour arbitrage;
personalisation and entrepreneurial activity
Technology has become a crack through which private
corporations can enter the publically-funded, governed and
regulated education sector, using public/private
partnerships and outsourcing in service-delivery.

III. “Hold on to what you need. We've got a
knack for fucked-up history.”

“only in association with others has each individual
the means of cultivating his talents in all directions.
Only in a community therefore is personal freedom
possible... In a genuine community individuals gain
their freedom in and through their association”
Bottomore, T.B., and M. Rubel, M. 1974. Karl Marx: Selected Writings
in Sociology and Social Philosophy. London: Penguin.

“At the heart of it all is a new sociological
type: the graduate with no future”.
Mason, P. 2011. 20 reasons why it is kicking off everywhere:
http://bbc.in/hSZ3Ak

the possibility of struggle and emancipation lies in the
autonomous organisations that exist within and between
both the factory and the community, with a focus on the
forms of labour and the exertion of “working class
power… at the level of the social factory, politically
recomposing the division between factory and
community.”
Cleaver, H. 1979. Reading Capital Politically, University of Texas Press:
Austin, TX, p. 161. Available at: http://libcom.org/files/cleaverreading_capital_politically.pdf

http://bit.ly/QoRAec

cybernetics is ‘not just a technological history but a
history of the changing social networks that connected
these technologies to the function of the state and its
management’ (p. 17)
'[technologies] helped solidify a particular articulation of
the state that was supported by new claims to legitimate
power' (p. 96)
Miller Medina, J.E. (2005), The State Machine : politics, ideology, and
computation in Chile, 1964-1973. MIT Ph.D. Thesis.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/39176

Allende:
We set out courageously to build our own [cybernetic]
system in our own spirit. What you will hear about today
is revolutionary - not simply because this is the first time
it has been done anywhere in the world. It is
revolutionary because we are making a deliberate effort
to hand to the people the power that science commands,
in a form in which the people can themselves use it.
computation in Chile, 1964-1973. MIT Ph.D. Thesis, p. 252.

After the military coup in 1973 the Pinochet government
used computer technology in the service of its political
repression, surveillance, and disappearance, policies that
were part of Operation Condor. Although we are still
uncovering information on Operation Condor and do not
know the full extent of this cooperative intelligence network,
available documents from U.S. and Latin American
archives describe the Condor data bank - modeled after
the police network Interpol, without its judicial safeguards and the encrypted Condortel telex network.
computation in Chile, 1964-1973. MIT Ph.D. Thesis., p. 333

Collective work is one of the cements of autonomy,
whose fruits usually spill into hospitals, clinics, primary
and secondary education, in strengthening the
municipalities and the good government juntas. Not
much that has been constructed would be possible
without the collective work, of men, women, boys, girls
and the elderly.
Zibechi, R. 2013. Autonomous Zapatista Education: The Little Schools of
Below. http://bit.ly/19XfrAF

Good Living
The five revolutions: democratic; ethical; economic;
social; Latin American dignity
To build a fraternal and co-operative coexistence.
The transformation of higher education and the transfer
of knowledge in science, technology and innovation.
The Republic of Ecuador. National Development Plan: National Plan for
Good Living 2009-2013: Building a Plurinational and Intercultural State.
http://bit.ly/GQJi0M

Education is crucial to reinforce and diversify individual and social
capabilities and potentialities, and to foster participative and critical
citizens.
Education remains one of the best ways of consolidating a democratic
society that contributes to the eradication of economic, political, social and
cultural inequalities.
From a strategic perspective, it is essential to develop various forms of
knowledge with high added value, as well as technical and technological
research and innovation.
The combination of ancestral forms of knowledge with state-of-the-art
technology can reverse the current development model and contribute to
the transition towards a model of accumulation based on bio-knowledge.
The Republic of Ecuador. National Development Plan: National Plan for Good
Living 2009-2013: Building a Plurinational and Intercultural State.
http://bit.ly/GQJi0M

Affinities on The New Cooperativism: http://bit.ly/187iT8R
De Peuter and Dyer Witheford on Commoning:
http://bit.ly/Ve2cE9
Draft report on the contribution of cooperatives to overcoming the
crisis: http://bit.ly/1gyzDtk
Lambie on Cuba: http://bit.ly/mIdVzV
Lebowitz on Co-Management in Venezuela: http://bit.ly/1awBnOF
Office Central de la Coopération à l'Ecole: http://www.occe.coop
The Schools Co-operative Society: http://bit.ly/z1YmCA

For educators deploying critical pedagogic
responses, the question is how to use
technology politically to recompose the realities
of global struggles for emancipation, rather than
for commodification.

This presentation is unlicensed.
This presentation wants to be free.
This presentation contains no Fluoxetine, Amitriptyline or
Lorazepam. It is not to be taken once-a-day with water.
This presentation will not give you a future that works.
This presentation is against silencing.

The University, technology and co-operation

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