The Need for Revolutionary Economics

 

Why do we seem unable to get out of this recession? The answers to this question lay in the naive assumptions that policy makers have about economics. Indeed, current policy makers appear to consider austerity, meaning the systematic cutting of public expenditure and increase in taxation in order to overcome budget deficits, as the most effective answer to the current economic meltdown. One of the most infamous example of government sponsored austerity are the policies promoted by the European Central Bank (ECB) in recent years. According to the economist Barry Eichengreen, tax increases and spending cuts (in other words, austerity) resulted in the draining of 1.5% to 2% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) worth of net public spending. Policy makers were aiming at major increases in investment, while this was absolutely not the case. What happened instead was a slowdown in Eurozone economic growth from -2% to -3% from 2011 to 2012, while debts skyrocketed reaching a 93.4% debt to GDP ratio.

The evident ineffectiveness of austerity measures resulted in the building of an actual anti-austerity front, including academics, politicians and social movements. Economic Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman once compared the practice of austerity to the ancient medical believe that illnesses were to be cured by bleeding. In the same way bleeding resulted in the death of the patient, austerity measures would not solve recession but further it. Taxation depresses investment and cuts in public expenditures result in unemployment, thus prolonging economic stagnation. Moreover, taxation also results in a decrease in consumption. A lack of consumption and investment leads toward unemployment. Indeed, the cure provided to the sick European patient has not cured, but prolonged the illness.

What can be a practical response to Krugman’s diagnosis? The answer is the need for revolutionary economics. What is meant by that is a drastic change in both economic policy making and in the academic realm. In the academic world the sole concept of austerity is subjected to a harsh debate. Certain economists believe in its effectiveness, while others hold lines that are similar to Krugman’s. The current economic paradigm offers only a certain set of tools to policy makers, namely financial policies and monetary policies. Nevertheless, the academic world is slowly understanding the limitations of these current tools, as they are not necessarily the right nor the only ones. Revolutionizing economics would then mean to either shift the economic paradigm or to change the tools at the disposition of the policy makers. We currently observe that this phenomenon might already be taking place. High ranking economist are already proposing alternative tools for solving the economic meltdown which the western world is facing. Major economists, such as Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Skidelsky are now attempting to revive the legacy of John Maynard Keynes. As their intellectual father, they argue that the pathway to economic growth and prosperity is to foster public expenditure and encourage investment by lowering interests’ rates. Keynesian economics indeed argue that the major causes of recession is not debt but uncertainty, which prevents investments, creates unemployment and topples economic growth.

Regardless of the existence of such alternative visions, governments keep carrying out recessive austerity. Why is this the case? The problem lays within the fact that policy makers have been academically raised in the context of the neoclassical counter-revolution, which has academically undermined Keynesian economic and other critical schools of thoughts, placing the assumptions of the neoclassical a.k.a. neoliberal school into natural laws. One of those assumptions is that the only cure to an economic recession, such as the one we are facing, can be found in austerity. It is therefore necessary that this economic revolution first takes places within the academic realm. Only if academia, both teacher and students, question neoclassical assumptions and allow the integration of alternative theoretical frameworks within economic curriculums can we hope that future policymakers will not be constrained by the neoclassical theoretical (and ideological!) yoke and will consider new alternative solutions to the problems of our times. As Isaiah Berlin once remarked, only pluralism can stir human understanding; blind faith in a monistic value system can only discourage it and result in ignorance. It is in following this pluralistic spirit that this economic revolution should occur.

 

A healthy tree has many branches

 

By Cesare Vagge & Gaspard van der Woude (PINE UCM)

 

Editorial

Sweet UCM,

In the midst of winter, the cold days and the even darker nights, The Bell rings again. To accompany you as the light and sun gradually return from the shadows, we have put together a wide variety of different articles. Reflections on university, privilege and ideology may enlighten your thoughts, while poems and stories will soothe your soul. However, for this issue #11, our Winter Edition, we present to you our cover theme on ‘Home’. You may wonder – why ‘Home’?

Some will say home is where the heart is. Others will say home is nothing but a construct, largely a body of ideas and thoughts you shape in your head. While some may shed a tear when thinking about home, others might grin from cheek to cheek. Today, in a globalized and interconnected world, our conception of home seems more important than ever. Waves of refugees flee their burning homes, hoping to find home in our societies. In the wake of crises worldwide, movements and groups of people attempt to rebuild their homes by redefining its most intrinsic values. Our conception of home defines who we are and how we interact with others – it stands at the spotlight of our identity. The various reflections, photographs and commentaries in this issue attempt to deal and shed light into the ever present question of home.

On a final note, I would like to give a big thank you, and call out for a big round of applause. Thank you to all those who have contributed to this issue, and who continue to make of The Bell what it is today. To all writers, contributors, and board members, thank you for your work and dedication. May we continue to work together so The Bell can continue to ring loud and clear through the corridors of UCM.

I wish you a happy reading and may the force be with you,

Sergio Calderón-Harker || Chairman 2015-16

Staff Column: Crisis and Opportunity in the Grassroots Education Reform in Argentina

At the turn of the 21st century, the Argentine economy entered a downward spiral that climaxed in December 2001-January 2002 with the onset of a long-term and unprecedentedly large-scale financial collapse. As the consequence of an overzealous implementation of neoliberal economic policies undertaken during the 1990s, this crisis had devastating effects on Argentine citizens and society. Unemployment, inflation, inequality, crime, insecurity, instability and discontent all skyrocketed to unprecedented levels. Periodic protests also emerged across the country as citizens from diverse walks of life merged to voice their grievances and frustrations toward political authorities and elites who they felt were both responsible for the crisis and largely unable to deal with it.

Among the myriad sectors devastated by the massive economic crisis was the Argentine public education system. Once upon a time, Argentina had built an exemplary model of inclusive universal public schooling characterized by some of the highest levels of educational opportunity and achievement in Latin America. Unfortunately, under pressure from powerful transnational actors such as the IMF and World Bank, over the course of the 1990s the Argentine educational system was quickly seized by a wave of widespread marketization and privatization initiatives. As the logic of educational governance shifted to promoting and subsidizing private schools, a weakening of political commitment and shrinking revenues led to a profound deterioration of public school facilities.  

In 2014, I received a multi-year grant from the Spencer Foundation (Chicago, U.S.A.) to study how people have worked to both navigate and transcend the educational crisis in Argentina by engaging in grassroots processes of collective action and mobilization. More specifically, I have been looking into the struggles, strategies and successes of a community-based schooling movement that emerged in the urban megalopolis of Buenos Aires during the early 2000s. As a sociologist, I am especially interested in understanding how people exert their agency in times of macro-structural flux and uncertainty. During fall semester 2015, I orchestrated a PEERS project at UCM centered on this project, and I have been very fortunate to work with two very bright and motivated students: Elisa Garrote Soto and Sergio Calderón-Harker. Their insights have been invaluable in shaping my thoughts on what has turned out to be a very complex and utterly compelling sociological topic.

My project tells the story of how a diverse but unified network of educators, parents and activists from various districts of Buenos Aires responded to a situation of profound crisis by working to develop an alternative system of community-based schools, usually referred to in Argentina as escuelas de gestión social or escuelas cooperativas. Although there is no single universal model for this kind of school in Argentina, they generally emphasize ‘progressive’ principles of social justice, autonomy and democratization. While these kinds of schools have existed in various forms in Argentina for several decades, they experienced notable growth in the years following a massive politico-economic crisis in 2001 and subsequent national restructuring of education in 2007. Representing less than one per cent of students in Buenos Aires, such numbers may not seem to be very monumental. Nonetheless, from a sociological perspective the rise of community-based schools is representative of some meaningful changes in the relationship between school, state and society in Argentina. More specifically, it is constitutive of a break with the past and a re-imagining of the future.

Drawing on a qualitative analysis of interviews, organizational texts, state-level policy documents, and media reports, I argue that the climaxing of a large-scale politico-economic crisis at the end of 2001 created an enabling structure of opportunity that facilitated the development of community-based schooling in at least two ways. On the one hand, the crisis created the socio-cultural conditions for a group of previously disconnected actors to build empowering forms of solidarity around shared sets of experiences, grievances and interests within the education system.  At the core of these solidarity-building practices was a profound disdain and critique of the neoliberal approaches to educational policy-making which had dominated Argentina since the late 1980s. In this regard, people sought to build new kinds of educational spaces and projects whereby progressive values of democratization, cooperativism and social justice could be brought to life. On the other hand, the crisis generated a major ideological rupture in the Argentine political system that in turn created an opportunity for grassroots actors to introduce new kinds of curricular and pedagogical projects into the educational system. In short, during the aftermath of the crisis of 2001, many of the dominant neoliberal ideologies and practices from the past lost their legitimacy, thus opening up concrete possibilities for progressive actors to insert their agendas into the arena of educational governance and policy-making. This ‘success’ is evidenced by formal state-level recognition of community-based schools in a reform of the national education system undertaken by the government of Nestór Kirchner in 2007.

Under situations of macro-structural crisis, people often experience uncertainty, frustration, anxiety and despair. Yet, as illustrated by the rise of the community-based schooling movement in Argentina, by engaging in organized and enduring forms of purposeful collective action, people can and do find ways to transcend such traumatizing and disorienting moments. Moreover, through solidaristic collaboration and commitment to collective action, people can also find ways to turn crises into opportunities.

Dr. Kai Heidemann

DumDum Doodle on Crises

Censorship Crisis

In the midst of a time of European economic turmoil, Syrian civil war and the resulting waves of refugees, “free speech” is probably not the first crisis that comes to mind. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that free speech is coming under threat more and more. However, this threat to free speech does not appear to be coming from the same sources as the past in the form of oppressive governments and the like, but rather from those who claim to censor others in the name of protecting those who are discriminated against. Some have come to call this “progressive censorship.”

“Progressive censorship” essentially occurs when people deem something to be offensive or discriminating, and to protect those particular individuals who come under threat, these offensive texts are censored. This has become a particular problem in the United States, especially at universities, where students have courses changed or professors fired because they might have said something which they felt offended them. On top of that, there has been a massive increase in the importance of political correctness in the daily lives of people, where people are constantly scrutinized, either for not using more delicate terminology or for not being avid protectors of those prone to discrimination.

The crucial problem with censorship is defining what is acceptable and what is not, the act of drawing a line. This constantly changes, and is never the same between two groups of people. Different cultures, life experiences, and so many more factors will for sure change where each person or group draws this line. You are therefore stuck in this perpetual and endless war to define what should be protected under free speech, and what should be censored because it is offensive. A possibility that people have largely brushed past for whatever reason is this: why not just abolish the line altogether?

Drawing a distinction between the acceptable and the non-acceptable is too complicated to be enforced practically. There will always be disagreements regarding what should be censored, so accepting that everything can be written, or acted out, solves this problem. Of course, this does not mean that a text glorifying the holocaust will suddenly be considered acceptable. The people writing the text will still be under enormous scrutiny (as they should). But by having a text like that published as its writer intended, it opens up the possibility of a dialogue. That is after all what free speech is for. Besides (as obvious as this is, it appears people need to be reminded of this sometimes), not everyone who makes an offensive joke actually believes what they are saying!

Not allowing free speech, no matter how offensive the contents may be, is denying yourself the opportunity to actually discuss and tear apart awful reasoning. That is what some of these movements don’t seem to understand. One such example is the case of UN Women, where Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkesian spoke out against online harassment. Obviously I don’t disagree with the fact that online harassment of women is as common as it is ridiculous. However, in this particular case what the two were asking for was the censorship of all those they deemed were harassing them. This sadly includes the people who criticize their beliefs, many of whom are also quite right in their criticisms. Aside from the fact that asking the UN to ban critics and harassers is one of the most grand examples of a first world problem (maybe the UN is better off trying to help women in countries where stoning is still in practice), it does prove the point of free speech: to create dialogues. Maybe not being so open to dialogues is an indication that your beliefs are not so convincing. Usually, when someone does not want a dialogue to happen, this seems to be the case (see: any dictatorship that has ever used any form of censorship).

I just find it both sad and hypocritical that the people who would have once been censored because the standards of the time would consider their own movements offensive are now working so hard to limit free speech. It is as though they have forgotten how important it was for these movements to be allowed to express their opinions which were very controversial at the time. Of course, the immediate response to that line of reasoning is always: “But what they defined as offensive at the time was wrong, we are a progressive movement that believes in equality and our grounds for calling for censorship are right.” While this really boils down to a much deeper philosophical debate about our understanding of right and wrong, it is not a stretch to point out that we of course think that our values are truly correct, and that it is rather naïve to think that our beliefs are timeless.

What’s more is that “art” becomes a victim if these censorship sprees as well. Movies, books, etc. are all supposed to be above the issues of political correctness. It seems as though people are tackling the problem the wrong way. Instead of treating the cancer, people are trying to hide the symptoms whenever they appear. Racism, sexism, and just being a dick in general aren’t issues that will be solved by silencing the outlets used to express these beliefs.

Nick Papaconstantinou

Staff Column: Crisis Coming? Bring it on

The fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld once said that his favourite piece of furniture was the garbage bin. Because that’s where innovation starts. The same is true of crises. Nothing seems more enjoyable than to have everything sorted, ordered and stable, so you can relax and take in the harmony of things being in their proper place. Nothing seems more satisfying than having everything go exactly according to plan, so we can all go about our daily lives, in a shack by the sea, sitting back, sipping tea.

But before you’ve taken your second sip, some crisis comes along, and it all falls apart. Bummer. Crises mean the goals we have set become harder, if not impossible, to reach. The economic crisis meant that we were suddenly less rich than we thought we were, and had to adjust our lives accordingly. The refugee crisis means that, whether we like it or not, we will have to make room for new people in our societies, and make an effort to welcome them, costing time and money we had intended to spend in other ways. But crises are not only global, they can be personal as well. When you thought you wanted to be an economist, and you suddenly realize you hate it, you need to invest time to rethink who you are and change your future plans. How do you explain that to your parents? When your relationship falls apart, in a moment it hits you that a way of living that was familiar and comfortable has to end, and you will have to start again. That is scary.

And so the natural thing to do is resist the crises that come along, try to solve the problem, get it over with, and carry on from where we left off. That way, we don’t have to change, and can resume the march forward. After the economic crisis, it did not take long for exotic investments to once again be sold, and bought. Many seem to hope that in a year or so the Syrian refugees will have all gone back home. And maybe you should give your love interest a second chance. After all, it did work before.

But history is not linear, and crises are not just blips in an upward trajectory. For Hegel teaches us that all development happens in 3 stages. First there is a thesis, an initial state of seeming calm and order. Then there is the anti-thesis, a moment where that initial thesis turns out to be flawed and unsustainable. It is only because the anti-thesis reveals the limitations of the thesis, that a third phase, the synthesis can arise, a new state that takes the good of the thesis, but rids it of the flaws that the antithesis revealed. However, this new state is not the end. One day too, it will be shown to be inadequate by a new antithesis, and so history goes on, revealing our flaws, but always providing a new way of living that transcends them. That is painful; reorganisation means partial disorganisation. But such is the nature of progress in the universe we live in.

Crises are anti-theses. They are the moments in history that tell us that what we are doing is not working. They are the moments when we are challenged to rethink our way of life, and take a step forward, into the unknown of the synthesis. They present opportunities for introducing new ways of living together, new technology and new developments of your own identity. To go back to where we were before, would be to take a step back. And times of peace are empty pages in the history books. So next time a crisis comes along, resist the urge to hide under the bed and hope it goes away. We should face our crises with excitement. Of course they are painful, and they cause much misery. And of course we should seek to alleviate it. But in doing so, we should always remember that the thinking that got us into a crisis will not get us out, and that dark passages, as much as bright days, are all part of the Masterplan.

Teun Dekker

Why the Refugee Crisis is a Media Crisis

These days, you can’t escape the refugee crisis. As soon as you switch on the news, it is there. But who talked about a humanitarian catastrophe in Eritrea during the financial crisis? Or during the Ebola crisis in Western Africa? It is only since exponentially growing streams of refugees arrive at EU shores that the media has made us talk about a refugee crisis and directed some proper attention towards catastrophes in origin countries – evidence of how powerfully paper headlines and TV broadcasts shape our political discourse. It is striking, however, that we hardly get to hear the background stories. Newspapers tell us how many asylum seekers arrive in Italy every day, TV broadcasts follow the rapid erection of Hungary’s fence – but where can we learn about the origins of the crisis and alternative ideas to tackle it? Where can we read interviews with refugees who live among us today and will live with us tomorrow? The media won’t leave their safe harbor of breaking news from Western perspectives. This problem has in fact been lingering for a longer time, but now it needs more attention than ever: we are not talking a distant issue, on the contrary, we are directly confronted with refugees. Thus, I’ll borrow a cardinal trick from the media, and proclaim the “media crisis”.

CNN, the BBC, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel – you name it. Major Western media do not discuss that weapons manufactured and sold with permission of France and Germany kill in Syria and Iraq. They overhear the claim that the EU should open its borders because closed borders forced refugees into dangerous dependence on exploitative smugglers. They do not ask why so many Western governments do not support the depleted budget of the UN World Food Programme that aims to supply refugee camps in origin countries. They do not provide first-hand insight in the refugees’ life stories that could lead worried EU citizens away from xenophobia and closer towards empathizing with them. In order to find such invaluable alternative bits of information, if at all, you need to dig embarrassingly deep into the pages of Western media.

MM/JRS, 2011, CC BY-NC 2.0

But how come one-dimensional breaking news from Western perspectives are prioritized over reflective background stories? Journalist Wolfgang Bauer argues that origin countries like Syria closed their borders on Western journalists. That may explain lacking reports on everyday life in Syria, but not the disregard of alternative political ideas and perspectives of those refugees who already arrived in host countries. The core of the problem lies elsewhere: Renowned journalist and former Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk reveals in his book People Like Us – Misrepresenting the Middle East (available in the UCM Reading Room) that media coverage is largely preselected by news agencies such as Reuters or The Associated Press. For they send their innumerable reporters to even minor events all over the globe much faster than established quality newspapers that may employ one correspondent to cover a region as huge and complex as the Middle East. The journalists of quality newspapers often merely edit the news provided by the agencies. However, these report breaking news rather than background stories – because breaking news typically present those exceptions to the rules of everyday life that readers are assumed to find noteworthy. Since news agencies select the information for Western media, news are biased by the Western perspectives that readers may identify with most easily. As all major Western newspaper depend on the pool of pre-selected news if they do not want to run behind their competitors, they all foremost present the world through short-sighted Western eyes.

How can we tackle the media crisis? Aspiring journalists can do so through their own writing, and all of us through our manner of news consumption and political participation. Background pages of established papers as well as, for example, the refugee section of Humans of New York make for a good starting point. Most importantly, let us not only look twice at issues in the public eye, but beyond, to matters not reported at all. Because that’s the pitfall with the media crisis: it lies in the unseen, the unheard, the unsaid.

Niklas Elsenbruch

On the Long Road to Freedom

Refugee Boy, William H. Johnson, ca. 1935-1939 CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Names have been removed from this article to protect the anonymity of the individuals that we interviewed.

With the European refugee crisis provoking intense debates and the Netherlands alone set to take in over 7000 more asylum seekers after already accepting 2000 in May of this year, we decided it was time to talk to some of the people right at the heart of the issue — the refugees themselves.

The word refugee alone is one which carries with it an array of responses, many of them negative. With this in mind we wanted to ask them about their experiences before the troubles in their own country began, the problems they faced during their journey away from the familiar, and lastly their feelings now in their new home.

When we arrived at the home they share together with other refugees from many different places, we were warmly welcomed and offered drinks as if we were old friends. When we first got to the accommodation they share in Maastricht, we found there was a group of young guys, probably around 16 years old, originating from a range of different places such as Syria, Palestine and Afghanistan. However, when they heard the purpose of our visit, those who felt uncomfortable with the topic of discussion removed themselves and we were left with two Syrian boys from Damascus with only a handful of English words between them at their disposal. Initially they were shy and prudent with their answers, and explained that they were worried that anything they might say could jeopardise their situation in Europe. In spite of this, after an hour or so they warmed up and laid their trust in us.

Many people have the misconception that people from Syria have not seen many of the things we are lucky enough to take for granted such as the internet or TV and other similar luxuries. This, however, is entirely wrong. When we asked one of the guys about his life previous to being a refugee and the troubles he faced, he spoke of an incredibly normal life. A life with his parents and an education, a proper house and a car, a smart phone and Facebook friends. “When everything is fine in a country, why leave? Why go to another country?” He spoke calmly and in earnest.

Our next question was one of a less positive nature in that we asked how it was that they knew that they had to leave Syria. They explained that with Facebook, YouTube, TV and the radio, it is so easy to have the world in your hand and it wasn’t long before they heard word of an uprising against the Syrian government. “On the TV we heard ‘Freedom’. Freedom, freedom but we didn’t know what this freedom meant,” one said. They both added that eventually the conditions in Damascus reached a boiling point and the safety of them and their family could no longer be guaranteed, leading to their decision to leave.

The passage they took to leave Syria was not one that we dwelled on for too long, mostly because it seems to make the boys feel uncomfortable. So we glossed over exact details, mindful that many refugees have had experiences and done things that many of us in the West would not understand. One spoke of how his family arrived in Egypt as their first port of call after leaving their home in Damascus. Their reception in Egypt was not a fond memory. Many locals told them to go back to their own country. We glanced at each other thinking: ‘Surely this was the reception that they received also in Europe?’ Calmly, with no hint of resentment or malice, the boys explained to us that while they did often hear that kind of comment here in Europe, they rather expected it. They thought in another Arab country such as Egypt, with commonalities in religion and language roots, their plight would be recognised, and they would be accepted (or at the very least understood). Instead, they were treated as second class citizens and knew they would not be able to stay there for long.

In Maastricht, on the other hand, they thought that their different culture and different language would result in their being shunned by everyone. They said they had prepared themselves for a negative response and expected to just try to blend in, learn the language and complete their education. Fortunately, their experience in Europe was far more positive than they had feared. “There are many differences here in Europe. The system here is different. But I have to thank the people of Europe for welcoming me,” one said.

We were under no illusions that their time in Europe had been incredibly easy — clearly it hadn’t. However, the feeling of relief was evident in their recollection of events. Laughter and kindness is clearly not in short supply in their household. After we said our goodbyes, we took some time to digest what we had heard that evening, reflecting on how different life is only metres from the refugee accommodation. It made us realise that many of the things that we consider to be hardships pale into insignificance compared to what many of these refugees have gone through  —and these two boys have experienced more hardship than most individuals who are twice their age.

By the time this issue is published at least one of these guys will be reunited with his family and the other will be meeting his parents again not long after. No one knows what the future will hold, but one thing is clear: these young people have already endured a very difficult journey and they have not reached their final destination yet.

Nisha Dillon & Andrés F. Caicedo Sierra

University? What Crisis?: Why The University is Not Facing A Crisis

This article is in response to the ‘New University’ Movement (NUM) which has been growing over the past year. I want to discuss some of the ‘problems’ which the movement has raised and discuss why I don’t see it as a systematic problem with ‘the University.’ My reference points for this article will be the posters which have been around, the leaflet from their ‘Alternative Opening of the Academic Year’ and an article which was written for this magazine last year. One point which I will not touch on here is the issue of staff wages and/or working hours. This is mainly because I do not possess the required information to discuss this issue and am thus not comfortable talking about it. The ‘New University’ collective have made no secret of their opinion that the university is facing a crisis. Personally, I find their promotion around the building somewhat over-the-top – verging on propaganda. However, that is a minor issue and not the purpose of this article.

When I think of the New University Movement, two concepts immediately spring to mind: marketisation and democratisation. The latter point seems to me as a misguided thing to be campaigning for and to have at the core of the movement. Don’t get me wrong, I love democracy as much as the next person. My problem is basically that at UCM we are lucky to be in an educational institution which is remarkably democratic and values the opinion of its students. This movement then seems slightly misdirected – I mean we have it pretty good: two students provide representation in the Management Team, the Academic Council is a large presence in the Board of Studies, course evaluation forms are integral to the development of courses and the students are offered the chance to attend General Assemblies. There are plenty of outlets for students to voice their opinion or to pass them through a representative. We shouldn’t underestimate how valuable our opinions are. I perceive it as a trust issue. I fear that many people have lost trust in so many people (perhaps even in society) and so feel the need to shout about their woes. I think a more constructive approach would be to look at the current democratic means within the UCM structure (and other university structures) and to take advantage of them. P.S. have some trust in management.

How about commercialisation/marketisation of the university? Firstly, I find the term marketisation empty as it really doesn’t suggest anything particularly meaningful. Applying concepts of the market to education is a more complex issue than stating that the university has become/is becoming marketised – this is empty jargon. Furthermore, I question whether there is anything inherently wrong with a free-market education movement. The assumption by the NUM is of course that it is wrong. This is indeed inseparable from that argument that ‘capitalism is bad’ which I have grown to find tedious and unimaginative.

Finally, the argument that students have only become interested and driven to studying subjects and skills which will aid them in the labour market is, for me, a personal attack. I’m a Philosophy major. The belief is that there is a systemic issue with the university, however, I, for one, have never felt this. As a sole Philosophy major I know I’m not in the majority of UCM students. Does the fact that one person (me) can spend their time in higher education pursuing something which they find inherently interesting and intrinsically beneficial not completely undermine the claim that the university creates this problem. If the issue is systematic, then no person should be free from that problem. Perhaps, in pursuing my interests in philosophy and ethics I am ‘fighting the system’.

I don’t think I’m fighting the system. I’m studying what I want. I have no real worries about my chances in the labour market. I’m motivated, interested in what I’m learning, benefiting from what I’m learning and confident that this will serve me well. Perhaps, I’m naïve. Perhaps, I’m just proving that there is no systematic problem.

On a final note, I understand that the NUM is not solely focussing its aims at UCM, however I think it is important to mention some of its shortcomings when applied to UCM. The fact that they are interested in improving the university is also something I do not oppose; I’m all for improvement and progress. I’m just not certain that the points that they imply are in crisis really are that bad.

Finn O’Neill