The educational system functions to serve the needs of the capitalist society in which it resides. Its objective is to produce educated and competent workers, including managers and military personnel; in addition, knowledgeable, sophisticated members of the capitalist class. The subjects and training cover a vast complex field that assures the owners of a qualified work force that can do everything that is necessary to produce, distribute and market commodities for sale and profit, in line with existing technologies. And of vital importance is the fact that initially a working class is produced that has been subtly brain-washed and seduced into social and political acceptance of capitalism. The majority of students, when their formal education has been concluded, embrace the wages system without question. Their labour power is ready to be marketed. They, in turn, are willing to conform with docility and eagerness to all the standard norms of capitalist society which, in effect, will maintain their rulers in power in contrast to their own commitment to subservience. Although they have been informed of revolutions in the past, they enter into their new careers with a tacit acknowledgement that the existing society is the beginning and end all for them, and for everyone else; imbued with personal ambition which is devoid of a proper understanding of the social nature of their new environment. Sure, capitalism may always need improvement—but never elimination. This latter, they are not taught—nor ever will be within the boundaries of their formal education.
We do not imply that there has been some malevolent conspiracy at work engineered on an in-depth discerning level by the capitalist class and their agents. In most instances, both the rulers and the ruled are unaware of the economic causes and social consequences of the system they uphold. The superstructure of society, in this instance the educational system, is determined and conditioned by its economic base—the dynamics for its existence. Capitalism is a social organization wherein a minority own and control the means of production and distribution for the purpose of capital accumulation through the realization of profit based upon large-scale wage labour. The educational system is locked into this process in every conceivable manner, both directly and otherwise. There has never been a practical need for the capitalist class to properly understand their own system, notwithstanding the fact that Karl Marx in Das Kapital had most thoroughly accomplished the analysis. Capitalism, regardless of manipulation, follows its own pattern, and conditions the education of the working class to conform to all of its many requirements under the tutelage of the exploiters and their agents. This immense task is by no means an easy one, cut and dried, without its problems, complications and financial burdens. It is always an ongoing operation, subject to continuous reformation which revolves around the "quality" of the education supplied together with its costs and sources of revenue.
Political indoctrination
Political indoctrination commences with millions of school children, throughout the land, starting the day by reciting in unison the patriotic litany:
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
To quite literally add injury to insult (which such trivia is to a young, uncluttered mind) it was reported in a news item on January 2, 1983, in the Arizona Daily Star, and I quote:
Each year, 1.5 million school children in the United States are physically punished under the authorization of principals and other school administrators. This figure does not include informal slappings or beatings meted out by teachers, coaches, bus drivers and other school employees. The schools most inclined to punish are those in Florida, followed by those in Arkansas and Mississippi. In Florida, one out of eight public school students receives corporal punishment in a typical year. The national average is one out of 28. Black school children are victimized most often; one out of three is punished nationwide in a typical year.An award of commendation goes to Hawaii's board of education, which refuses to allow corporal punishment.
I presume that this treatment prepares the recipients somewhat for the brutality of capitalism that they will eventually encounter in later life.
The state, which exists to preserve, maintain and administrate capitalism, bears the responsibility for the bulk of the educational system; in addition, there are schools, colleges and universities that are either privately or parochially endowed, in many cases receiving added subsidizing from the government. It is therefore surely obvious that such a structure can never be expected to allow or instigate any teachings that will directly challenge or threaten its position. All educational reforms will ultimately prove of prime benefit to the rulers, because to the extent that the educational system is successful in producing competency and political acquiescence within the working class, so to that degree profits will be generated and protected to the highest maximum possible, subject to general market conditions and the prevalent militancy of the workers. This does not imply that the education received by workers cannot be used by them for their own interests. In fact, the mandatory exposure that they receive, especially in subjects exclusive of the social sciences, provides the basis for their ultimate comprehension of the socialist case.
Subjects such as reading, writing, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy, mechanics, geology, accounting, languages, law, medicine, computers, business administration, engineering, architecture, pharmacy, military science, aerospace, agriculture are all essential to the pursuit of profits and are approached scientifically within the confines of budgetary allowances. But the social studies such as history, economics, sociology, political science, theology, anthropology, are handled with biased restraint and the investigations are by no means impartial. Evidence unfavourable to the existing scheme of things is either suppressed, ignored or perverted.
Weeding-out process
The whole curriculum, from start to finish, is conducted within an atmosphere of competition and stress together with a weeding-out process which segregates those with supposedly superior talents from those less fortunate. This is accomplished through the use of tests, examinations, and grading, all of which have a direct bearing upon ultimate occupations and potential earnings. Such an environment prevents the pleasurable pursuit of education as a primary end in itself. The young find themselves involved in an intensive training programme, presented under the guise of education, which will ultimately affect the price of their labour power and in many instances can prove disastrous health-wise.
In an article on February 5, 1978, in the Arizona Daily Star, it stated that:
Why are child suicides increasing in Japan? Last year more than 700 children and teenagers took their lives there. Japanese authorities offer two reasons: (1) the country's fiercely competitive educational system in which the road to success in later life is linked to passing difficult examinations to leading universities; (2) the reaction of some children to the mounting pressures of excessively regulated lives.
A further quote in the same article stated:
The educational pressures in Japan are unremitting and not only cause ulcers in children but in many cases lead to suicide. Prof. Masayoshi Namiki recently told an international medical convention that he had come across 19 children, none older than 14, with ulcerated stomachs, "dramatic evidence of the unnatural life-style our children are forced into under the pressures of our educational system".
An article in the Wall Street Journal dated June 10, 1980, entitled "Why Are They Cheating?", written by a member of the Journal's Washington bureau which covers education, states:
In addition, statistics show that the rate of campus homicides, suicides, illegitimate births and drug abuse has been steadily increasing for more than two decades, says Edward Wynne, associate professor at the University of Illinois and editor of a magazine called Character. Cheating is just another indication of a "change for the worse", he says.
It is common knowledge that drugs and violence are two of the major problems to be found within the school system today—coupled with large numbers of students who are leaving school with an inability to properly read and write or perform well in simple mathematics. The International Reading Association in Newark, Del., estimates that some 20 million English-speaking, native-born American adults read or write so poorly that "they have trouble holding jobs or suffer loss of self-esteem." In the Wall Street Journal on January 22, 1981, Samuel Halperin, director of the Institute for Educational Leadership at George Washington University, was quoted as follows:
Schools can't teach drug abuse, sex education, driver's education and still teach reading, writing and arithmetic well. And you can't buy that much these days with $2.39—the average hourly amount spent last year on each public-school student.
The perpetual conflict within the educational system is the attempt to produce the desired results, at a budget price, within a competitive, stressful environment harmful to both students and teachers. The teachers themselves, in similar fashion to their students, have been graded and selected to perform at certain levels in different categories. Their own education has been, in many instances, limited by economic and material circumstances beyond their control. They find themselves frustrated by rigid guidelines that apparently do not bring out the best in their students, especially those who come from broken, badly poverty-stricken homes. In addition, just like their fellow workers, they are forced to eke out a marginal existence finely honed to a limited wage. And when they sometimes are forced to rise in protest and strike, they are criticized and condemned for having acted in a supposedly anti-social manner, ignoring the needs of their pupils.
Direct relationship with business world
The educational system abounds with a never-ceasing variety of seemingly insoluble problems which relate to the economic considerations of a cost-conscious administration where the individual needs of the student rarely, if ever, get priority. Instead, education receives the same approach as that given to commodities which have to be produced in a given period of time, at a certain price, for a particular market, with a quality-control that leaves much to be desired. In a Washington (AP) news item on February 1, 1978, Kenneth Clark, in an address sponsored by the US Office of Education, and I quote:
attacked the system of "tracking" in which talented students are steered to elite high schools or courses while the majority of young people are considered "educationally expendable". Clark said American high schools neither facilitate upward mobility nor promise equal opportunity."In fact, under the guise of democracy in selection and the maintenance of standards of merit, they are very effective instruments for the maintenance of racial and class distinctions and the resulting discriminations and inequities," he said.
One might well ask, whose needs are being served here? Those of the students who have been discarded along the wayside, or those of the prospective employers who eventually will be presented with a selected so-called "cream-of-the-crop", the result of a weeding-out process accomplished on a cut-rate budget basis.
There is an interdependence, a direct relationship, between the educational system and the business world. The capitalist class are forever watchful that their source of future wealth, the embryonic working class, receive adequate preparation for the jobs that lie ahead, notwithstanding the prevailing shortcomings. Beyond this point, at the university level, business and higher education in many instances are inter-locked in associations that virtually incorporate the educational machine into the production process. The Associated Press, in an article on December 14, 1982, states:
Scores of universities have entered research contracts with big business, in partnerships that both sides believe will help America regain pre-eminence in world markets such as automobiles and electronics.
And further:
Industry-funded research centers are springing up at Princeton University, Carnegie-Mellon, Stanford University and elsewhere. For business, it means a valuable source of brainpower. For cash-trapped universities, it means millions of dollars, new facilities, and a way to keep top faculty members in the thick of developments in their fields.
Starting with first grade children, a concept called "career education" has been used which in theory is supposed to permeate all academic subjects at all levels of education, from kindergarten through junior college. Typically, simple field trips are made into stores, etc.; workers are observed at their jobs, and high-school students sometimes have mock interviews with prospective employers in order to develop their job-finding skills. In an article in the Wall Street Journal dated November 26, 1976, it was stated:
Career education began taking hold five years ago when Sidney Marland Jr., then US Commissioner of Education, coined the phrase and gave the concept top priority. Since then, according to the American Institutes for Research, some 9,000 of the country's 17,000 school districts have launched programs.
The article further states that endorsements have poured in from numerous big organizations which have included the US Chamber of Commerce and several blue-chip companies. For those who support capitalism, such a program no doubt seems practical and worthwhile (although many teachers have been critical and have not jumped on the band wagon). However, to the socialist such exposures to the existing system that are obviously done in an uncritical, prejudiced manner, without an in-depth economic evaluation of the exploitive nature of present-day society, are a flagrant one-sided approach to reality.
Education true and false
It would be Utopian thinking to expect the educational system under capitalism to be different from what it is, or to anticipate anything radical in the way of change. It is a creature of its environment, tailored to the needs of the ruling class that it serves. A vast conglomeration of facts and misrepresentations have been assembled, masqueraded under the banner of "education". This knowledge, liberally interspersed with falsehoods, is crammed into minds that assimilate a proportion, become bored with much that is offered and quickly forget a great deal after examinations are over. Frequently, the unhappy student seeks escape in various unhealthy pursuits.
True education, whereby the pupil is taught in an environment without stress and competition, where time is not at a premium, where financial considerations are non-existent, where individual needs are in harmony with society's, has never been given an opportunity to work its potential wonders. Education, properly organized under these conditions, will become delightful— pleasurable, without undue burden. The process will be a continuous one that will not commence and finish at a given age, but rather will be recognised as a never-ceasing quest for individual improvement throughout the whole of our lives. Blueprints cannot be supplied until socialism has been established, but it should be obvious that education will not be prostituted to the needs of a class minority or the demands of a market place—because neither will exist. All healthy individuals will be able to satisfy their desire for knowledge unhampered by economic restrictions or barriers. The whole of society will in a sense become a perpetual seat of learning wherein schooling, travel and the productive process can become beneficially interrelated. In socialism, assuming intelligent organization, the world itself can become the classroom.
Samuel Leight
(World Socialist Party of the United States)
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