There are few things in the world more frustrating than people who list problems but offer no meaningful solutions. Such people often seem to be drawn to academia. I think academics need to seriously engage with the world.
Citicism But No Solutions
This brings us to Lawrence Busch’s Knowledge for Sale. Busch makes many good points about academia’s problems. He lacks clear plans to improve things. This failure partly comes from a disappointing casualness of analysis. He indulges in the classic game of blaming evil people who apparently call all the shots. For Busch, this is “neoliberals”. He doesn’t really define neoliberalism. He just cheats by saying it is a program of action, a school of thought, and an ideology. Given everything he doesn’t like is “neoliberal” many different things get caught in the same complaint.
I Have Seen The Neoliberal Enemy And He Is Us
He complains about the increasing number of administrators at universities. According to him, this is partly because of the increasing need to report on a range of things, including gender equity in sports. In my experience gender equity isn’t the top concern of the right-wingers who he labeled neoliberals in earlier sections. Such reporting concerns are driven by people who don’t think the market will create equity. I am not convinced the burden of reporting on gender equity is a serious problem. Still, for the sake of argument let us assume it is. If reporting on gender equity is a problem it surely isn’t a neoliberal plot by the same people bringing market forces to bear on education.
Let The Best People Decide?
Apparently, neoliberalism is based upon the:
fallacious argument that students can make a meaningful choice when provided with more information about universities….
Busch, 2017, page 54
Sure student judgment is far from perfect. Still, Busch doesn’t give a concrete alternative. Perhaps a return to the good old days when youngsters knew their place and some pompous old guy told students what they should do? That sounds awful to me. I don’t think the pompous people had great judgment either and nothing Busch wrote changed my mind.
Education Is Not Just About Jobs But…
I agree with him that education shouldn’t just be about getting a job. That said, some people, especially those from poorer backgrounds, don’t have the luxury of not worrying about what they’ll do for a living. Everything shouldn’t be about getting a job. Still, any decent person (regardless of their neoliberalism) should worry about whether students can feed themselves upon graduating.
He makes the reasonable point that for a lot of research it is hard to predict the benefits. Yet, we can’t fund everything so we need some allocation system. What is Busch’s system? I simply don’t know. I guess we can ask the government to fund all our research. We, after all don’t perfectly know what will eventually prove valuable. That said, I’m not sure what Busch’s plan is when the politicians say no to this impractical request.
Rankings An Evil Plot By Neoliberal Journalists?
I’m not clear how rankings fit into his thesis. He sees them as evil but I don’t recognize them as a plot by any meaningfully defined group. Business school rankings can arise from the desire to sell publications by Business Week etc…. This means they are often done on the cheap and are methodologically dubious. For this reason, senior academics/administrators often hate rankings. They generally aren’t part of any neoliberal plot to promote rankings. Instead, they feel that they have little choice to go along with rankings. Who then is driving the tide? Journalists? Students? Alumni? Anyone who buys the magazines that publish rankings? It simply isn’t clear who is behind the evil plot. Furthermore, I have no idea what his plan is to change things. Ban rankings maybe? How? Academics need to seriously engage with the world. Busch doesn’t.
Non-Specific Specific Proposals
My favorite chapter was entitled: “Remembrance of Things Future: Some Specific Proposals For Change” (Busch, 2017, page 109). Clearly, he has a different definition of specific to me. I saw absolutely nothing specific. After reading it I had no idea who he wants to do what, how they should do it, or when he wants it done.
This book is clearly aimed at getting fellow academics to nod along with the problems while not grappling with any tough choices. He is right in saying that we rarely perfectly know what ideas will influence the world but I’m pretty sure Busch’s book won’t.
For more on universities see here, here, here, and here.
Read: Lawrence Busch (2017) Knowledge for Sale: The Neoliberal Takeover of Higher Education, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, (English Language Edition)