Surviving Capitalism (Not) : “How money corrupts academic world”

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, December 28, 2015

“How money corrupts academic world”

Click here to access article by David F. Ruccio from Occasional Links & Commentary.

He makes his point of how the rich are shaping higher education by focusing on two illustrations: what has happened to two major public universities in Kentucky.

I was wrong: it’s not just a Koch problem. The problem is much larger. It’s the selling-off of higher education to the highest bidder.

In Kentucky, the two major public universities—the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville—have been undermining the idea of the university since at least 2003, when BB&T Corporation and the BB&T Charitable Foundation pledged $2.5 million to the University of Kentucky Gatton College of Business and Economics to "support a learning laboratory on capitalism, a speaker series, an annual student paper competition, and annual fellowship and research grant awards."

I have always argued that the control of all institutions of indoctrination--media, education, and entertainment--is vital to the continuing hegemony of capitalists over their nations and the world.