Thread: How academia manufactures consent and shapes students’ and scholars’ thinking 1/x
I have spent most of my professional life in academia (apart from a five yr stint running a non-profit, and a yr running my own business), so I have some experience within this system

I’ve had a long interest in Marxism and left political economy, and was lucky enough to study at a place which took these pursuits seriously (UMass Amherst), and I was able to start grad school young

One of the primary mechanisms of control is over what is seen as ‘respectable’ or ‘serious’ within academia. These mechanisms are often very subtle. There is a certain language that is expected, certain texts that are avoided, even within Marxism.

In my field, economics, pure theory of the most mathematically abstract kind, was always elevated above all others. (There is even a variant of Marxism which makes heavy use of calculus and mathematical proofs; this ‘analytical Marxism’ is influential within left-academic

economics circles, but virtually unknown outside).
An interest in the nitty-gritty details of politics, organizing, and activism was generally frowned upon and seen as unserious, even while those with these backgrounds were given surface-level praise.

More insidiously, the markers of a working class background, or an interest in working class politics, marked one as an outsider, and this was dangerous. The perceptions of your profs were very important, as your profs are the gatekeepers of fellowships and tenure-track jobs.

I was rebellious, and was generally bad at the kind of sucking-up that the system thrived on. I raised questions about what was taught and how it was taught; the exam-heavy environment of cyclical stress and anxiety that is the academic culture combined with what felt like an

atmosphere of threat seemed to me absolutely antithetical to an environment where real learning could take place. I managed to alienate many of my professors; even my beloved mentors Resnick and Wolff came close to abandoning me

(we were able to patch things up)
No doubt things were worse at other departments; UMass Amherst Economics was unique in that the grad students back in the 70s had essentially mounted a coup, and taken control of teaching assistantships (TA).

For those who don’t know, being a TA means teaching discussion sections of a large lecture class and doing the grading. Typically, a full load TA meant you taught 3 discussion sections of 30 students each, once a wk, and for a ~300 student class that had lectures 2x a wk.

This was vital, because it gave you a tuition waiver and a small stipend, making it possible to work your way through school. (When I was a grad student the stipend was $5000 for a four month semester; about $200 a week after taxes.)

Normally, the TA is basically the serf of a professor; top professors have many grad students clamoring to be their TAs, and the system forces grad students to compete with one another for often scarce resources.

My econ grad student predecessors had said “fuck this system” and gone on strike, with the demand that the econ grad student organization would take control of all the TAs, and allocate them based on a lottery system.

The TAs would be filled, and the cronyism, sycophancy, and oppression of the students would not be the primary mechanisms which determined a students’ academic future.

I had the chance to observe some other depts, and see the way other econ grad students lived in basically a permanently-fearful cringe. Forget your own research interests: you did research which will allow you to get a powerful prof’s sponsorship as your dissertation advisor.

But of course academia is an entire system, and changing one part of it, no matter how vital that is, does not change the entire system. Though we had taken control of TAs, you still needed to work with a professor to complete your dissertation, and you needed

strong recommendations -- ideally from well-connected, influential professors -- to find a job upon graduation.

The fear of the job market was intense and affected so much of the decision-making process. Even though you know, on some level, that having a grad degree is the main thing, not the details of what you studied, it still affected what books you read, what seminars you attended,

who you associated with, and so much else.
Even in a dept known for Marxism, students were encouraged through subtle and overt means to stay away from it, study more of the mainstream economic theory and statistics that would supposedly give you ‘more options’ on the job market.

When I finally got to the academic job market, I found that what ultimately mattered was your academic pedigree, not what you specialized in. This was really driven home to me when some of the most ambitious and driven of my student colleagues were able to obtain perhaps

8 interviews, versus a student who had left the UMass grad program to study with a Nobel laureate at UC Berkeley had gotten 40 and had to turn some of them down for lack of time

As a result of all this, I emerged from grad school with a good grasp of economic theory, but a woefully inadequate understanding of the concrete history and politics of socialism. This was odd because there were several experts on Soviet history in the dept, but that history

was not part of the curriculum. (And doing the coursework in the regular curriculum occupied all one's available time)

You were encouraged to read Marx (in a few classes), but never to read Mao, Lenin, or Stalin. I think if you were caught reading Stalin there would be some audible gasps, even in a dept that was known in the econ field as the most radical left program in the country

Don’t forget that academia is part of the establishment, and it has its own rules and norms that maintain the status quo.

The most subtle and insidious of these affect your thinking without your conscious awareness of the process, and it is all the more difficult to discern when you are being taught by liberals, progressives, leftists, and Marxists.

For those who choose to learn inside this part of the establishment machine, remember always that the young Marx called for a ‘ruthless criticism of all that exists’