Schooling as Labor: A Marxist Analysis of Schooling

• Main Authors: Lin, Por-Yee, 林柏儀
• Other Authors: Ku, Chung-Hwa
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/98251640447812618404

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 社會學研究所 === 95 === This dissertation was inspired by the Marxist educational theorist Glenn Rikowski’s “labor power theory”, seeing schooling as producing labor power for capitalism, to research the relationship between schooling and capitalism. From the Marxist point, I find that schooling is the key mechanism of producing commercial use-value of labor power, and will produce more surplus-value in the wage-labor process. I use Marxism to analysis schooling as a kind of labor, and naming it “schooling-labor” to propose a “schooling-labor theory”. Because capitalists chase higher profits for accumulation and labors compete with each other for education or working opportunities, the schooling-labor would be a forced and alienated activity, consists of two mechanisms of exploitation for capitalism: (1) improving the surplus-value rate, and (2) causing “insufficient reproduction”. The content of schooling-labor is mediated by the State to satisfy the accumulation of capital and social legitimation at the same time, so under different social elements and different distribution of power, there are “open spaces” to be mediated, and may result of different crises. I find that the competition and authoritative control in the process of schooling-labor make the ideology work to maintain the alienated schooling-labor and wage-labor. Moreover, for countervailing the tendency of “decreasing profit rate”, schooling-labor would turn into situations consist of alienation, competition, stratification, extension, and inflation; but however, there are also “counter-tendencies”, including anti-system movement, education reform, and class struggle. After all, I use the theory to analyze the phenomenon and cause of “competition for education opportunities” and “expansion of higher education” in Taiwan, and I find that the expanding higher education in Taiwan could not solve the problem of educational need and competition, but caused the privatization of education, the “public-private polarized higher education system”, and reproduction of class. Finally, the dissertation points out that because the uniformity between schooling-labor and wage-labor, the objective worse situation, and the power of collective actions, there are possibilities to manufacture the class consciousness of “students and workers” to engage in reform or revolution.