Knowledge Enclosures, Capitalising Education and the Economic Power of "Mute Compulsion"

Abstract

Over the past three decades, there has been the progressive enclosure of knowledge as intellectual property, the insertion of the logics of competition into higher education sectors, and in a number of countries the instituting of regulations to create education markets. This has enabled new actors to enter the sector, profits to be extracted, and the social relations of the sector to be transformed. Many researchers have commented on these developments. However, the theoretical resources, drawing on a Marxist relational and dialectical understanding, have been seriously wanting. This is in part because Marx was writing about the production of commodities in industrial capitalism in Great Britain in the 19th Century, whilst the enclosure and capitalisation of education are part of the new services sectors. Classical Marxist readings also continue to place education in the ‘hidden abode’ that for Marx was the site of social reproduction. However, it is clear that to understand recent developments in education and its role in economic production, we need a way of thinking differently about where it is located, and what we mean by economic production and social reproduction, how to theorise work and labouring in the services sectora, and what new, renovated or refined categories we might need to think about the new dynamics of contemporary capitalism in the context of knowledge economies. In this panel papers will engage with the recent work of Soren Mau’s – "Mute Compulsion" (2023) – and use his re-reading, renovation and updating of Marx’s work - to develop a rigorous analysis of the enclosure of education sectors, their progressive subsumption and transformation into capitalist markets. In doing so, the papers will put Mau’s work into conversation with state and capital driven transformations of ‘education’ sectors and ask about what this means for knowledge, power and politics.

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