Dan,

Oy. Try to understand that Aboriginal people do whatever the hell they like, within constraints: they certainly, in my experience, don't tail along behind what somebody else tells them to do. That really would be like trying to herd cats.

So some choose to go to uni, some choose to wallow in lifelong welfare. I have relations in marriage who have done one or the other.

As for 'neoliberal' whatever, this seems to be a boo-word for whatever societies find that they need to do, but which may disadvantage some rent-seeker or other. If we are currently living under neoliberal conditions, or under some sort of neoliberal government, I don't have any particular problem with it, I've lived through worse.

As for universities, good luck to managements who try to buck the 'loose coupling' that Karl Wieck wrote about in universities. Check it out on Google :)

Joe

Marko Beljac in "#Occupy the university" (Online Opinion, 5 November 2015) suggests that "In a free society university life must necessarily be autonomous and self managed" but "... the university essentially becomes a private enterprise supplying graduates to other corporations. The courses universities provide, the manner they are delivered, and the research that they do, necessarily will cater to the interests and concerns of the corporate sector. ...".

Universities do cater to the vocational needs of their students, which I suggest is not all together a bad thing. There should be scope for non-vocational studies, but someone has to be willing to pay for these. If the students are not willing to pay, because such studies will not get them a job, and the state will not pay, because their is no perceived social benefit, then who will pay?

Calls for a non-corporate approach to universities, such as that by Beljac, are not new. These are documented in Hannah Forsyth's "A History of the Modern Australian University".

A radical dawn in the corporatization of Australian universities happened, almost unnoticed, in July 2012, when Torrens University Australia was admitted to the Australian National Register of higher education providers as an "Australian University" and authorized to self-accredit courses. Torrens is part of the private for-profit, Laureate International Universities, which provides education online to 800,000 students around the world.

Professor Jim Barber, while UNE Vice-Chancellor, advocated changes to government regulations to allow on-line universities to be established in Australia. He failed in this, however Laureate's example with Torrens shows it is possible to establish a new institution with a different way of working. This approach could be applied for new non-government, not-for-profit higher eduction institutions which have social goals.

Links and more at: http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2015/11/not-for-profit-private-australian.html

diver dan

Okay, so we are agreed that you are arguing IN FAVOUR OF
1. authoritarianism
2. the powerful exploiting the weak and powerless
3. making society poorer i.e. socialism.

Mark

Can you see that, in a discussion of a political economy, if a professional intellectual looks on a government monopoly, or system of compulsory government price control, and considers that "unregulated capitalism", "unrestrained capitalism", "unbridled capitalism" or such like, that person is either
a) disqualifyingly ignorant and stupid, or
b) deliberately dishonest?

Can you see that? Yes or no?

Can you see that the case is worse when he is government-funded and JUST HAPPENS to be arguing for an increase in government power?

What we would expect from government funding of universities, far from being free and critical thought, is a class of deprofessional arse-lickers to the State, incapable of questioning authority or critical thinking as concerns the State.

Notice how you provided no definition of the State, even while assuming without reason, that no even you agree with, that it is a moral and economic super-being? And there's that strange coincidence again, isn't there, you just happen to be a government-funded intellectual?

1. What is your definition of the State?
2. What is your reason for saying that universities should be government-funded?
3. What is your reason for saying that universities should be autonomous of government?

Go ahead. Let the self-contradictions, circularities, double standards, garbled illogic and factual absurdities roll.

What is your answer to my challenge and my three questions please?

Mark

1. What is your definition of the State?
2. What is your reason for saying that universities should be government-funded?
3. What is your reason for saying that universities should be autonomous of government?

You see, whenever anyone makes any statement about human action under conditions of scarcity, they are employing economic theory. Since at least time, space, work, capital and money are always scarce, therefore any statement about human action, and therefore human society or political economy, involves economic theory.

As you would be the first to agree, not all economic theory is true, is it?

Thus there is a need for a way to know whether economic theory is true or not. As you would also agree, this task is complicated by the fact of the vested interests in the persons and groups commenting on it.

The problem cannot be solved by the standard left-wing method of squarking about ideology. The question is whether or not an economic theory is true or false, not whether or not it's ideology.

At a minimum, an economic theory must comply with the principles of logic, and must not be inconsistent with observed fact. This doubly disqualifies your economic theory, or rather unarticulated assumptions.

Go ahead. Answer my questions that you have so far been too gutless and evasive to answer, and I will prove it to you and your readers.

Your entire argument against liberty and property is false, many times over. You are just a shill for the parasite ruling class.

Hi Marko,

Enjoyed your article; I've written a few in a similar vein in the last few years, since becoming a student at a bottom-tier university. (I was also a Wobbly for many years, and only really let my membership lapse because I moved from Sydney to regional Australia, and keeping my dues up to date when not in regular contact with Ray & chums was more than my severely limited organisational skills could manage.)

For a time I ran a website (http://www.uniadversity.org) which was actually the idea of Richard Hil (author of 'Whackademia' and 'Selling Students Short', which I highly recommend). I quickly made it way too ambitious, and found I had to mothball it due to information overload. I'd like to resurrect it, but need some more editors to help. If you'd be interested in lending a hand, contact me via http://mjd.id.au/contact

Cheers,
Matthew.