Negotiating Neoliberalisms Nascence, Corralling Competing Camps, and Ten Tenets

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF SCIENCE (NON-THESIS OPTION) IN RURAL SOCIOLOGY

John Gunn

Graduate Student in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology

The College of Agriculture, Auburn University, Alabama

334.863.0933 or jrg0028@auburn.edu

Introduction

This capstone paper after four years of graduate school is partly presented as an

admission of having prior understandings of neoliberalism derailed or at least acknowledged

as being incomplete.1 When I returned to graduate school in the spring of 2013, I had been

reading about neoliberalism for perhaps a decade. I read supposedly top scholars with

neoliberalism right there in their titles while deployed to Iraq (Harvey, 2005) (MacEwan,

1999). Books by Naomi Klein, Chomsky, Zinn, and other social critics lamented how

neoliberalism, among other things, would be our ruin. I had a view of neoliberalism which

placed it as taking hold in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I also thought the term was

essentially capitalism on steroids with corporate interests shoving aside government. What I

found, however, were competing camps among scholars using/studying neoliberalism.

The first portion of this paper considers neoliberalism as a construct and examines the

current camps writing about the term. Some scholars suggest neoliberal or neoliberalism is

1
These four years having also consisted of a Ph.D. program in Adult Education, working with veterans at
Auburn University, some adjunct teaching at AUM, work on several homes, etc.
jumbled jargon with no utility. However, I see one camp, what I label as the Foucauldian

Frame if a name is needed, as being on quite solid and serviceable ground.

I have also come to believe that some features of neoliberalism are not necessarily

new. That is the second main portion of my paper. I identify two more durable, already

existing practices in line with what is often identified as neoliberal thought. 2 First, boosters

in the postbellum American South surely engaged in economic development to attract mobile

capital. In the post-world War II period, much of that recruitment was done via an

entrepreneurial state where interurban and interstate competition was widely embraced. The

rise of quasi-public entities to carry out the early smokestack chasing and later waves of

economic development also enters in this modern period.

Secondly as to neoliberalisms nascence, I attempt to synthesize aspects of the Morrill

Acts of 1862 and 1890, the Hatch Act of 1887, and the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 with

conditions in late capitalism where neoliberalism seems to dominate - not just in the economic

realm but also across society. A slight dip into higher/adult education beyond just a land-grant

lens is also attempted to buttress my belief that education for business outcomes, economic

development, career advancement was relatively widespread well before neoliberalism

entered the lexicon.

2
A third look back to Karl Polanyis The Great Transformation from 1944 might be a proper third example of
how neoliberalism is not new. Polanyis rediscovery among critics of neoliberalism is indisputable. His
situating the rise of the modern state with the rise of a market mentality among subjects certainly predates when I
once understood neoliberalism to have been birthed. I need to better study Polanyi (and economics, the
historiography of liberal thought, ) before trying to work his insights into my ongoing struggle with
neoliberalism.

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 The third and final portion of my paper examines ten tenets of neoliberal thought. To

identify neoliberal tendencies in our everyday world is I believe the start of a critique and thus

change. 3 My conclusion tries to identify a path past neoliberalisms negatives.

Neoliberalisms many meanings across competing camps

Some scholars are quite dismissive about neoliberalisms usefulness as terminology

due to the definitional struggle around its meaning. A catchphrase that is often negative, ill-

defined and asymmetrically applied to multiple distinct phenomena, neoliberalism can

admittedly appear to be a conceptual trash heap (Boas & Gans-Morse, 2009, pp. 144-145,

156). It is a rascal concept that is promiscuously pervasive, yet inconsistently defined,

empirically imprecise and frequently contested (Brenner, Peck, & Theodore, 2010, p. 184).

Terry Flew accepts that neoliberalism is often just a pejorative term used to describe the

latest iteration of the dominant ideology (2015, p. 318). Nobel Prize-winning economist

Joseph Stiglitz has labeled neoliberalism as a grab bag of mere market fundamentalism

(Amable, 2010, pp. 3-4).

Accepting that neoliberalisms meaning may be muddled, the construct is one that

scholars are increasingly exploring. Reading the word in news and similar outlets appears to

be more common now. Situating neoliberalism into various camps or groupings seems

helpful even if there is disagreement on just how many exist.

Fourcade-Gourinchas and Babb, in studying how neoliberalism arrived in four

3
Much of my graduate work in adult education influences this capstone paper for rural sociology. To wall off
readings is difficult but also seems somewhat limiting especially in how I try to communicate ways to advance
alternatives to neoliberal logic. Critique popularized and presented plainly is what I hope to focus on in the next
chapter beyond graduate school. Reading or writing about critical pedagogy is probably far easier and safer than
putting it into practice. Still, projects are percolating. Placing aspects of autoethnography and advocacy into this
paper is perhaps ill-advised. I apologize if it makes this paper too long to labor through and needs carving out.

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countries, find two schools of thought one with neoliberalism being a by-product of power

relations and the other based in an economic view that markets work better than statist

policies (2002). Centeno and Cohen see three groups, namely that neoliberalism is placed in

either an economics, politics, or culture perspective (2012). Carolyn Hardin similarly sees

three existing orientations although they are three different ones. She believes there are

Foucauldian, Marxist, and epochalist forms. She then goes on to stake out her own position,

using corporism as her label for the privileging of the form and position of corporations

(2014). 4 If three camps are not enough, Terry Flew doubles this up to six. Offering that

neoliberalism is an oft-invoked but ill-defined rhetorical trope, he leads his list with an

all-purpose denunciatory category. Another is just the way things are (2014).

On top of these competing and sometimes confusing perspectives, one misunderstood

feature of neoliberalism is that an active, arguably even aggressive, state is present (Peck,

2010, pp. 52-54). The state often seems to encourage, perhaps even discipline if Foucault is to

be considered, subjects to stay secured to a market-orientation (Biebricher & Johnson, 2012,

pp. 204-205) (Bloom, 2016, pp. 10-13). The state acting to protect and structure the market

so that it can achieve welfarist goals also seems to be in line with the neoliberal ideal

(Turner, 2008, p. 163). Instead of the night watchman in classical laissez-faire liberalism,

mostly there to monitor the situation and rarely/minimally acting, the state under

neoliberalism is expected to help sustain or even create competitive, free markets (Amable,

pp. 9-10). Peck and Tickell have compared the states institutions as hardware upon which

neoliberal software in installed and then synced across systems (2002, p. 389).

Two ideas often associated with neoliberalism merit mention. As is true in many

4
Hardin is hardly the only social critic to lament that individuals in todays world are starting to be viewed as
corporations while corporations are obtaining rights once reserved for individuals
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instances of the state, local governments in more populated places may tend toward being

governed/controlled by elites and other powerful interests. Institutions may then perform as an

urban growth machine in determining exactly how development and other instances of

commerce proceed (Logan & Molotch, 1987, pp. 50-98). Under neoliberalism, new flanking

mechanisms and modes of crisis displacement (may) insulate powerful economic actors from

negative consequences or even critique (Brenner & Theodore, 2002, p. 374). 5

More on the entrepreneurial state will follow. As an initial introduction and to

provide context for a later portion, competing communities under neoliberalism may task

government-employed or simply government-aligned entrepreneurs to engage in internecine

warfare so as to capture jobs and other prizes. Large, often transnational, corporations are able

to reduce risks and cut costs in a climate where local and state governments partner up on

various ventures (Goodman) (Eisinger, 1988). A shift away from managerialism in local

municipal governance from approximately the 1960s and earlier towards a more

entrepreneurial approach has been identified in both the United Kingdom and the United

5
From best places to live, retire, do business to jockeying for position via media glow about
how awesome a locale is, a neoliberal emphasis on metrics and competition seems present in this
community (Malecki, 2004; McCann, 2004). Local schools in Auburn are seen as solid and thus
become a recruiting tool for younger couples alumni or otherwise. The real estate community surely
benefits from high rankings of local schools. The local public school system is attractive to parents
who may commute elsewhere to work. For instance, somestate workers in Montgomery commute
down I-85 so that their children can enroll in Auburn City Schools. Auburn University is routinely
touted as attractive for affluent alumni as a place to come home to. Opelikas admirable historical
preservation effort has some less pure purposes in making that area an attractive place for capital and
customers. These promotions and rankings appear to be examples of commodification of place that
David Harvey often references. With clear errors I believe in claiming how competition from China
hurt some local industry, recent reporting in the Wall Street Journal gushed over how the City of
Auburn was carrying out its economic development efforts. How Auburn University and other college
towns can help their communities better avoid economic upheaval and even prosper in the current
climate drove the reporting (Davis, 2016).

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States. With some exceptions, cities in the United States were early adopters of

entrepreneurialism (Harvey, 1989).

As to my position on the proper labeling of neoliberalism, one seemingly solid

interpretation is that it has sought to reinvent society and state in ways that were

commensurate with the ethos and logic of the market. Among the multiple ways

neoliberalism is interpreted, an ethos of competitiveness is almost always found (W.

Davies, 2015, p. 298). Peck and Tickell situate neoliberalism as an ongoing ideological

project that is larger than its local institutional parts (2002, pp. 381-382). They build off

Harveys urban entrepreneurialism construct where interurban competition is difficult,

perhaps almost impossible, to resist lest a locality fall behind other cities (1989, pp. 6,12). I

believe the difficulty in dodging a competitive ethos is also applicable to many citizens as

they carry out various activities in society.

Returning to Foucault via Wendy Browns analysis, the economized state, at times a

combination of city and larger governments acting in concert with quasi-government and

private actors, is operating in a realm where market competition becomes generalized as a

social and political principle. Rather than natural or given competition found in classical

or neoclassical economic liberalism, neoliberalism needs an enterprising and cooperative state

to work alongside, prop up, and advance markets (Brown, 2015, pp. 60-65).

Within this empowered state, however, politics and citizenship are reduced in

importance as economics is elevated. Neoliberalism as the pursuit of the disenchantment of

politics by economics is how Davies describes this phenomenon (2014, p. 4). Economics in

such a form essentially cannot be doubted. Neoliberalisms grounding on ubiquitous markets

can act as a handy shield when politicians and policy initiatives are challenged. The state and

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aligned-actors simply encouraging subjects to stay secured to a market-orientation is likewise

useful for some interests and political goals.

With markets elevated, a form of state-phobia in the wake of the New Deal, World

War II, and the Cold War is protected (Binkley, 2014, p. 159). To protect and structure the

market so that it can achieve welfarist goals seems to be in line with the neoliberal ideal

(Turner, 2008, p. 163). Absent this pervasive logic that markets have more and more answers,

the citizenry might expect more from their leaders.

I especially value Wendy Browns view of neoliberalism as a stealth revolution in

that many people, certainly so as to a lay audience but also as to even scholars of various

disciplines, seem to be unaware of just how pervasive it has become (2015). A later portion of

this paper encourages identification of neoliberal tendencies as a strategy in at least tempering

harms and possibly even creating alternatives. If people are unaware of neoliberalisms reach,

the Foucauldian Frame being my label, then resistance and reform is impossible.

Neoliberalisms nascence?

Scholarship on neoliberalism, the growth machine, and the entrepreneurial state

seems often relatively fresh or hot in todays academic circles. Facets of each may,

however, be found in the past. David Harvey (2005, p. 87) claims, Competition between

territories (states, regions, and cities) as to who had the best model for economic development

or the best business climate was relatively insignificant in the 1950s and 1960s. He may,

hoever, be unfamiliar with the history of industrial recruitment, financing industry, and

bashing labor unions in the American South.

Blending unabashed boosterism while deftly avoiding apologizing for the Souths

secession and slavery, the Atlanta Constitutions editor Henry Grady is among the leading

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historical figures of the post-Reconstruction South urging on industrial development (Ayers,

1992, p. 21). Gradys worry was that the South was essentially a colonized economy. He

makes his case with a compelling story of how a Georgia funeral supplied only the hole and

the corpse. The carriages, casket, clothing and other materials came from the north. Gradys

frequent laments about lost opportunities stirred the resentments of a defeated people

whether people sympathetic to, or just caught up in, the Confederacy and Civil War.

Gradys gospel of Southern thirst for capital and economic growth found a receptive

audience especially in the South but also in the North. Grady was engaged in a balancing act

between justifying or criticizing the Civil War. He and other boosters usually tried to avoid

angering the still powerful planter class, who often resisted industrialization and other

bourgeois pursuits. Simultaneously, they courted northern industrial interests.

As to this delicate dance, Sheldon Hackney suggests arguments for a changed way of

life were cultural treasons which could not dissolve in the syrup of romanticism and

nostalgia (2005, p. 27). Whatever combination of a romanticized Old South and an

optimistic vision of the South meeting (or even outpacing) the rest of the nation actually

occurred, it does appears some Southerners became quite territorial and competitive. As to

how the embrace of industrialization might be viewed as cultural treasons to a segment of

political and economic elites in the South, antebellum critiques of capitalism and the free-

labor system were perhaps posed largely as a rear guard effort to justify slavery (Genovese,

1994). C. Vann Woodwards chapter on the divided mind of the New South is also

recommended reading to understand how industrialization was a quite a new way of life for

the region (Woodward, 1981).

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 Whether from a worry that they would lose their own labor pool and/or position of

power, the planter regime in the post-bellum period undeniably moderated initial efforts to

bring the South toward a more industrialized economy. In fact, the Prussian Road theory of

Southern industrialization suggests that only when the planters were threatened by populism

and fusion politics (yeoman farmers and other white people of modest means joining ofter

with black voters) did the Bourbon or Redeemer planter class find common cause with

industrialists, bankers, railroad men, and business boosters (Bartley, 1982, pp. 152-155)

(Wiener, 1979, pp. 209-221).

Efforts to recruit northern industry to the South as the 19th century waned became a

common practice. 6 Even if still primarily a colonial, often extractive with absentee owners,

economy, cheap and tractable labor and other advantages continued to aid Southern

boosters in recruiting cotton mills and other industry from northern locations (Woodward,

1981, pp. 306-312). Despite depressions and dissent, these few flurries of disquietude

flowing mostly from the bookish kind whom practical men could easily ignore, by the

1920s the Atlanta Spirit and perhaps even bolder Babbitry was broadly embraced across

the South (Tindall, 1967, p. 109). Nevertheless, the neo-Whigs or business progressives

of the early 20th Century still largely followed a laissez-faire approach where bare-bones

infrastructure, low wages, quite limited regulation, and low taxes alone were relied on to

attract capital (Schulman, 1991, pp. 10-11).

If locals wanted to entice investors south with anything beyond those four foundations,

they did this with minimal, if any at all, involvement of state or local government. An

exception in some southern states were promotional activities brought under the umbrella of

6
In some instances, involvement of former Confederate figures with these new enterprises, or at least as the
recruiting process progressed, provided useful to both Northern investors and Southern boosters.
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either the governors office or a development board set up by legislative act (Cobb, 1993, pp.

64-69). Although individuals and small extra-governmental groups might occasionally try to

assemble capital for factories or other ventures, formal programs at either the state or merely

local level to direct public or state-backed money to industry were slow to develop. Wealthy

lumberman Hugh Lawson Whites election in 1926 as mayor of rather small Columbia in

south Mississippi set into motion the first formalizing of such a government effort. Despite the

Depression, his Columbia Plan proved successful enough to propel him to higher office.

When White was elected as Governor of Mississippi in 1935, his Balance Industry with

Agriculture or BAWI legislation became the first statewide approach in the South to

recruiting industry via subsidies and policy prescriptions (Lester, 2008).

Other southern states, Tennessee for example, were also trying subsidies through

industrial bond issues in the 1930s. Tennessee actually provided three times more subsidy

money than Mississippi. However, state courts repeatedly struck down Tennessees efforts as

unconstitutional. The addition of state-sanctioned and state-supervised municipal bonds

to finance plant construction was for some Mississippians as socialistic as aspects of

Roosevelts New Deal (Cobb, 1993, pp. 5,33-35). 7

After all the changes of the New Deal, the war footing in the early 1940s created even

more change. Part of this change related to a new generation, many of which were veterans

challenging the old guard conservatives. Machine politics and courthouse cliques not only

had to contend with former servicemen but also a new crop of bankers, developers, and

7
I feel like Im neglecting the love-hate relationship the South had with the New Deal. Theres much I could add
here but will save it for another time. The Report on Economic Conditions of the South from 1938 was brutal
about how the South lagged. It described the South as the nations main economic problem. Theres some really
good work lately on how the quite powerful Dixiecrats mucked up Social Security and other programs so as to
maintain labor and racial arrangements.
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professionals. State government jobs also became less about patronage and more about

professionalism (Bartley, 1995, pp. 20-22). Military bases and arms production sites from

World War II and into the Cold War also changed the South (Schulman, 1991, pp. 136-146)

(Frederickson, 2013).

This shift toward industrialization was also occurring as agricultural mechanization

finally found widespread adoption, partly due to difficulties in finding low-wage farm labor in

a much more mobilized society, in the South. Debt peonage systems had also crumbled.

Furthermore, various laws such as restrictions on one planter enticing laborers away from

another, emigrant agent restrictions, vagrancy laws which were designed to keep labor on

the farm, fell away by World War II (Wiener, 1979, pp. 981, 988-992).

From approximately 1945, in the wake of a big push in the form of economic

priming flowing out of the New Deal and World War II, a new era for the South begins.

Around or shortly after 1945, the big push economic priming of the Depression and World

War II had created preconditions for a new era for the South to begin (Bateman, Ros, &

Taylor, 2009). Numan Bartley suggests the protection of white supremacy and social stability

was what southern state governments existed for in 1940. Soon, or at least by 1970, their

central purpose was the promotion of business and industrial development according to Mr.

Bartley (1982, p. 162). 8 In Alabama, elites certainly had to juggle those seemingly contrary

purposes of industrial recruitment and race relations in the post-World War II period.

8
In that interlude, however, there was a First Great Melding between economic conservatism and racial
conservatism in the American South. Again, heres another facet to the story thats worth remembering if this
paper is ever expanded. The late Glenn Feldman came through AU in the early 1990s and was perhaps Dr.
Wayne Flynts most-accomplished student. Glenn, a UAB history professor, died unexpectedly in October of
2015. He was just 53. I have several of Glenns books on my shelves and think theyre gems. How neoliberalism
and race collide here might make for another good topic.

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In an effort to emulate Mississippis more direct approach to the subsidization of industrial

prospects, the Cater Act of 1949 set up processes for forming municipal industrial-

development corporations which could finance construction and equipping of facilities to be

eventually leased to private firms. The Wallace-Cater Act of 1951 allowed municipalities to

directly act without the middleman of development boards referenced above (Permaloft &

Grafton, 1995, pp. 42-43). 9 Via bonds, most of which would presumably receive favorable

tax treatment as they were issued by a municipality, borrowing not only benefitted those

seeking to entice industry but also those in line (presumably the well-connected and well-

heeled) to buy the bonds and receive steady income on money advanced. Almost half of the

states had an industrial bonding program by 1962 with nearly all having the same by 1968

(Rork, 2005, p. 41). 10

As to neoliberalisms perceived hostility to organized labor, many southern states,

Alabama certainly included, resisted organized labor as modernization of the economy

9
The Wallace behind the Wallace-Cater Act was none other than The Fighting Judge from Barbour County
George Corley Wallace (Carter, 1995, pp. 77-78).

10
Boosterism via bond practices have a long tradition in Lee County. The United States Rubber plant in
Opelika was built in the early 1960s with $20 million in bonds from the City of Opelika (Cobb, 1993, p. 41). The
competition to win this industry was quite fierce and predated neoliberalisms perceived emergence. It eventually
became known as Uniroyal to locals. It was the site of much labor turmoil in the mid to late 1970s. It
eventually closed and is still used by some locals as an example of the evils of organized labor. This facility
might make an especially fine case study for future research as several workers remain available for interviews.

Alabamas megadeal to land Mercedes in 1993 is considered one of the first large-scale competitions for
industry and is often cited as the beginning of high-stakes playing of one state/region off another (Gardner,
Montjoy, & Watson, 2001). The location in Vance (between Tuscaloosa and Birmingham) was secured with
$238 million in subsidies in 1993 with several subsequent incentives being awarded. Despite the significance of
Mercedes, history shows boosterism and competition date back a century or more.
Even now, many other plants here in the Auburn-Opelika area, were/are heavily subsidized. State and local
media usually paint quite an optimistic picture. How politicians engage in credit claiming around efforts to
bring businesses in seems clear even if Mayhews term relates to old practices of Congress members delivering
pork and programs to the folks back home (1974, pp. 52-63). Prestige recruiting of certain firms may be
especially useful to the hegemony. Deals seem to rarely have clawbacks if businesses do not perform as
promised or just anticipated.
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progressed into the latter half of the 20th Century. With isolated efforts to hinder unions in the

World War II period, the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 allowed southern state to pass right-to-

work laws which made organizing and maintaining a union difficult. These right-to-work

laws and other indications that southern leadership was disinclined to support organized labor

soon appeared in both marketing materials and informal assurances provided to industrial

prospects. Buttressing the anti-labor spirit came from examples of plants being shut down

when a union vote occurred or even was considered. In some instances, the clergy, the press,

and law enforcement helped state and local leaders resist organized labor (Cobb, 1993, pp.

101-110). Some Alabama/Southern history also touches on how factory owners and boosters

were almost always presented as heroic in the media (Feldman, 2013, p. 27). As the Souths

signature prejudice, by the early 1970s anti-unionism may have even replaced racism

(Hlsemann, 2001, p. 224).

I now turn to how the land grant complex and history of American education knocks

the neo out of some uses of neoliberalism. The Morrill Acts of 1862/1890 and subsequent

federal legislation establishing and bolstering the extension system out of these land-grant

institutions need notice. 11 Even if neoliberalism clearly now values what markets may value,

economic outcomes were arguably the main motivation for land-grant legislation (Key, 1996).

I use land-grant complex in the spirit of Wendell Berry and Jim Hightower. This paper has

not the space for a proper fleshing out of their criticisms but each worries about how

agribusiness and other corporate concerns have captured schools of agriculture and related

11
Regarding the land-grant system, Auburn Universitys own Dwayne Cox has written on the period in
examining Auburn University presidents in the early New South era. Their actions were generally in line with
what Bartley and other scholars of the period describe (2008).

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disciplines (Berry, 1996; Hightower, 1978).12 Rather than broad education functions,

economic concerns and the needs of businesses were arguably motivations for the

establishment of the land-grant system (Aronowitz, 2000, p. 44).

I think it important to also acknowledge the intrusion of business interests or

industrialists as to higher education, whether as to governance or just as to partnerships, is

hardly a new development. Neoliberalism may have made things much worse but the reach of

business interests into higher education is hardly new. Thorstein Veblens biting, arguably

arrogant, critique of the ruin businessmen (which he labeled as captains of erudition as

contrasted to staid and steady scholars motivated by simply a pursuit of knowledge) were

causing as they gained control of academic institutions is a century old. The Higher Learning

in America: A Memorandum of the Conduct of Universities by Business Men certainly

predated the emergences of neoliberalism by several decades. As to adult education,

especially training, I believe it safe to suggest Veblen would view almost all of its focus as

belonging to the lower and professional schools rather than the university (2015, p. 50).

Finally, Henry Barnard, the first United States Commission of Education serving from

1867-1870 saw education as a tool to bolster support of capitalism and laissez-faire economic.

Horace Mann, the Father of the Common School Movement originating in Massachusetts in

the period before the Civil War, viewed public education as a safety valve against class

conflict and an alternative to political action (Stubblefield & Keane, p. 100).

12
The state, largely the federal level but also with various states or even local governments acting in
concert, was also quite involved in higher and K-12 education in bringing together industry and
academics as relates to the Cold War and defense (Hartman, 2008).

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 Ten tenets (or traces) of neoliberalism to name

As the above portions offered, aspects of neoliberalism are not especially new. That

said, I do believe neoliberal currents have been clearly building up and carrying society along

over the last three or so decades. I believe many citizens do not understand they are caught up

in these currents. To demonstrate their reach, as well as the stealth Wendy Brown identifies,

I explore various tenets which are often associated with neoliberalism. I also provide space for

what might just be labeled traces of neoliberalism. Even if perhaps not outright tenets, of

whatever definition of neoliberalism one uses, these traces seem at least to hint at features of

neoliberalism present in our daily lives.

Separating neoliberal wheat from just run of the mill capitalist chaff is difficult. I have

no doubt anyone familiar with scholarship on neoliberalism might quibble with how I arrange

these tenets or traces. Some could probably be divided and combined. That caveat offered, I

think these ten categories might be especially useful for an exploration or introduction of

neoliberalism. The utility might especially be there for an audience engaging with the

construct for perhaps the first few times it is tackled.13 They are in no particular order.

#1 Individualism - Individual preferences are undeniably elevated under

neoliberalism. Todays citizens tend toward a focus on their needs and away from any societal

concerns (Cassell & Nelson, 2013, p. 249). 14 The more entrepreneurial among us may

celebrate such a posture. The disposed and downtrodden, however, may already feel such

13
I continue to come up with an elevator pitch (which seems like neoliberalism-based jargon about how
hurried we are now) to explain my research interest. Across this campus and community, few people seem
familiar with what neoliberalism is.
14
Thatcherism is sometimes used interchangeably with neoliberalism by some critics, especially those in the
United Kingdom or who might have matriculated through their institutions. Margaret Thatcher supposedly once
said, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no
government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first.
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alienation that putting themselves out there in a hyper-competitive world oriented toward

feeding labor into the economic system. Education with a Freirean or critical theory

orientation can provide a path for such students to develop forms of class solidarity or critical

consciousness (Martin, 2008). Still, some adult learners may have witnessed instances of

winner-take-all capitalism and watched the mediated loop tape reinforcing the normalcy of

the neoliberal consumer society to the point where they have decided to emulate the habits

and behaviors they see in those people cashing in or just surviving (Bone, 2010, pp. 733-734).

Instead of Tocquevilles belief the United States was a nation of joiners, Robert

Putnam says we are bowling alone and otherwise isolating ourselves from our fellow citizens

(2000). Under Zygmunt Baumans liquid modernity view of life where society is fragmented

or fractured, there is reward in being fluid or flexible. Solidarity turns to slush in such a

society (2006). No less than David Harvey reminds us how social relations and habits of the

heart have changed under the neoliberal framework (2006, p. 146).

#2 - New nature of work - In a time of underemployment or in a gig economy

where work is precarious, employers are now often looking for laborers who can walk in

ready to perform. More and more labor has been casualized in that workers in some sectors

are essentially fungible. This is not just true at the industrial or clerical level. Pressures to

replace presumably higher paid workers are as old as capitalism. Cost-cutting by outsourcing

and other alleged efficiencies is impacting education, industry, the non-profit sector, etc.

Austerity does seem to run downhill.

Harry Bravermans deskilling thesis where skilled labor is replaced with technology

that semi-skilled or even unskilled labor can operate/monitor has seemingly held up and

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perhaps especially so as neoliberalism has taken root (1974). 15 Even if labors power has

been dialed down, especially in the private sector, machines do not go on strike. Many

machines can be moved or delivered to where labor costs are low and regulation is limited. As

a recent example of this reality, threats of fast food workers to seek higher wages and better

conditions is resulting in self-service kiosks being touted as a proper response.

Some employers are looking at various work-ready measures, some which try to

reveal personality or other psychological traits in an applicant, as a tool in todays hiring. This

may be most often true for less precarious positions as such a worker can presumably be less

easily discarded than one possessing interchangeable or fungible talents. Attitudes of

prospective employees are in some instances seen as important, or perhaps more so, than

skills or knowledge. A diploma, degree, or certificate might get an application past a hiring

screener but not much farther. Some solid and stable laborers in a glut of available labor have

often become portable knowledge workers who are expected to self-fund their lifelong

learning to even remain on the market. Possessing a portfolio to promote their proficiency is

also advisable for some careers (Lakes, 2011, p. 329).

This trend is also present in higher education with increasing uses of contingent

faculty and canned content (Hayes & Wynyard, 2002). Educators who may have been

telling students how more education and training can help people weather unpredictable labor

markets, new technology, outsourcing, budget bumps are perhaps now seeing such advice

may not have been all that accurate in their own careers (Stanley, 2002, p. 1172). Vagabond

educators exist when neoliberalisms discourse and common sense is dominant. At the

modern research institution, using adjunct faculty and similar interchangeable talent for

15
Braverman and Taylorism could be a fourth way to show another condition associated with neoliberalism is
not all that new. Marxist critiques certainly can enter here.
Page 17 of 40
teaching loads is becoming quite common. The real faculty is all too often expected to

commercialize research and/or master grantsmanship.

#3 - Instrumental and interminable learning That economic imperatives

surrounding work and training dominate much of current adult education work, at least

outside of some programs and spaces where there is a strong critical pedagogy tradition,

seems certain. Consideration of how to promote democracy and practice social justice work

run a distant second to the vocational aspects of adult education involving technical and

instrumental knowledge (Alfred, 2016, p. 32). Adult education has, in the least generous light,

often taught people to obey, to work, and under no circumstance to feel (Fleming, 2012, p.

128). From an actual and unabashed Marxist perspective, Bowles and Gintis inform us that

education and training has been a longstanding priority for the capitalist class (1976, p. 281).

Lifelong learning is celebrated from at the United Nations (UNESCOs Institute for

Lifelong Learning is one example) and many successful multinationals. The Bernard Osher

Foundation and other similar efforts promote programs for older students that range from

more practical job skills to simply the idea of loving to learn. An Osher lifelong learning

effort is housed here at Auburn University. I consider myself a lifelong learner and think it a

most commendable orientation to being human. However, lifelong learning under

neoliberalism seems somewhat inhumane.

Failing to keep ones skills and knowledge current, probably even a little ahead of the

average in some competitive areas, can end poorly for a person living under neoliberalism. In

a risk society, such being what both Ulrich Beck or Anthony Giddens have explored, one

cannot stop learning - not only in relation to work but at times just to life more generally

(Edwards & Usher, 2001, p. 279). In a responsibilisation view of lifelong learning as an

Page 18 of 40
obligation, if a person fails to take advantages of available opportunities then any resulting
16
failures (or perhaps even just plain bad luck) are their own fault (Kopeck, 2011, p. 255).

Demands from such a view of lifelong learning leads to massification (burgeoning

numbers) of higher education with older students perhaps especially pressured to keep current

on everything from diplomas to certifications to compete for scarce jobs in a tight economy

(Servage, 2009, p. 31). The term lifelong learning has also come to mean far too often

upskilling so as to keep the populace supposedly ready to compete and win on the global

playing field.

Social justice is essentially absent from the dominant construction of much

adult/higher education (Findsen, 2007, p. 545). Instead of educators asking why they and their

students are having to hustle or what happens to those who cannot keep up, I fear than many

are willing or at least silent collaborators. Such a posture about learning may also exacerbate

existing inequalities. Under neoliberalisms logic, individual people, because of their personal

circumstances or cultures or politics or , fail instead of society (Harvey, 2006, p. 152). 17

Education is often presented as the path out of poverty. Education under neoliberalism

does not ask who controls the jobs and holds power/wealth. The grit narrative, a form of

bootstrapping generally imposed from those occupying privileged positions, tells poor

youth that they must push past barriers they face. Programs on resilience despite disruptions

are another version of how education adapts to serve market fundamentalism. If there is in fact

16
Where neoliberalism is perhaps best resisted is in community efforts in adult education -especially that done
out of labor unions or social justice organizations. At least in a union-supported worker education project, when
students might not advance as much as they might have wished, adult educators who are involved can more
easily and safely turn that conversation into a critique of economic, class, and/or structural conditions (Schnee,
2009).
17
For the record, I do not dismiss agency. People who can overcome, work around barriers exist. Some
citizens, however, may not be as capable, lucky, free of other responsibilities, etc.
Page 19 of 40
a job training charade which encouraged students to develop a servile attitude with a

perma-smile, then some educators are leading the game (Lafer, 2002, pp. 172-173).

#4 - Consumerism and Commodification - As the idea of education has shifted

from being a public good, some students embracing a neoliberal view may start to become

customers looking for deliverables. 18 With this customer orientation and under free-market

logic, if students cannot translate their education or training into a good job then the school,

teacher, or trainer may have failed (Saunders, 2014, pp. 212-214).

Credentialism was referenced previously in connection with the demands of lifelong

learning. Obtaining various credentials and knowledge in general is, however, also related the

commodification of learning. Knowledge might not always be commodified, but some clearly

is. In a neoliberal economy, it seems more likely that a commodification perspective can and

will grow (Kauppinen, 2014).

Raewyn Connell suggests universal commodification is reflexive under

neoliberalisms ethos (2010, p. 27). People essentially purchasing knowledge as a commodity

to be added to their own commodified selves gives them an advantage not only as to the job

market but also adds to their self-evaluation of their status in a neoliberal world (Crowther &

Martin, 2005, p. 9). That homo economicus, first situated in Foucault and later Wendy Brown

among others, would view learning from a cost-benefit perspective hardly seems unlikely.

18
I also believe another concept from Foucault, the biopolitic, applies: An entrepreneurial attitude towards
ourselves and others permits the appearance of some qualities of human beings as a form of capital or human
capital. It is something for which investment was/is necessary, it represents a specific value and is the source of
future income. As a consequence, since in education this form of capital is being produced, the choice for
education is a deliberate, entrepreneurial choice: one expects that the choice will be a valuable investment and
that there will a high return. But this capitalization of life is also at issue in social life. An entrepreneurial
attitude places someone into a position in which she thinks about norms, relations and networks as social capital
that could contribute to the development of human capital or that could enlarge the productivity of someones
knowledge and skills. (Simons, 2006, p. 532)

Page 20 of 40
Adult educations andragogy is built on a view of education stressing individual motivation

and a practical view of what education can do for a particular student. Such is not necessarily

negative but it seems limiting as to the extraordinary possibilities for education.

The commodification of knowledge also applies to how the state and institutions

approach knowledge. A form of branding occurs as to how a community may tout its

creative class and knowledge-economy. Boosterism around Auburn University is a tried and

true tactic for this locale. In fact, the City of Auburn and State of Alabama have essentially

partnered up with the university. 19 That there is an Auburn Research and Technology

Foundation 501C3 non-profit which controls the Auburn Research Park seems to be known by

few people here. The Vice President for Research & Economic Development at Auburn

University, Dr. John Mason, serves on the Board of Directors. Other university personnel also

hold positions. The research park is described in their own literature as a partnership between

the State of Alabama, Auburn University, and the City of Auburn. Questions I have about

management/governance and citizen control seem to illustrate neoliberalisms uncomfortable

relationship with democracy and accountability to citizens.

That there is a Vice President for Research & Economic Development at Auburn

University also seems notable. The economic development was added rather recently to the

title. I have attended a Faculty Research Symposium and reviewed their web presence. The

emphasis on commodified/commercialized education seems crystal clear. Whether Auburn

University has administrators inclined toward abandoning the old-fashioned pursuit of the

common good in favor of a narrower focus on the well-being of their own institutions is

unknown (Schrecker, 2012, p. 44).

The city of Auburn also has a non-profit corporation set up to govern the Auburn Training Connection
19

which will deliver tailored training to local industry.

Page 21 of 40
 As to cooperative extension, I have noticed that every county director has at least a

couple of specialties on their respective meet the staff and directions webpage. Only one

county director of the fifteen or so pages I have clicked through does not list Community and

Workforce Development. This may merely be indicative of the need to justify ACES funding

and create goodwill among local boosters. As is true in many things, work and economic

development is not necessarily a negative.

#5 - Governmentality - Foucaults governmentality is built off the belief that

modern societies rely on the populace self-regulating and self-governing themselves. That is

contrasted with how a powerful state will mandate, by physical or less direct measures, certain

behaviors. 20 The hegemony is never simply domination imposed from above. Instead, it

is maintained through the winning of the consent of subordinate groups by the dominant

one(s). A major means for winning this consensus involves the universalizing of the dominant

groups interests as the interests of society as a whole (Jay, 2003, p. 7).

Education, whether K-12 or adult, is a key part of citizens learning what is expected of

them as it crafts both their will and abilities. Various discourses, practices, and institutions

help to construct a truth that serves the interests of the state (Servage, 2009, pp. 27-33). A

busnopower rationality is seen in some higher education of today where a managerial

discourse or logic that ties into governmentality (Suspitsyna, 2012, pp. 55, 61). Kak and

Pupala correctly point out that adult education faced this demand of delivering adaptable

20
I find this exact language worth sharing. Foucaults theory of governmentality describes the ways in which
the state and its citizenry relate through systems or flows of power. The state does not always exercise coercive
power, nor do state and citizenry always come to fully rational agreement with respect to governance, as
proposed in a social contract theory of governance. What Foucault argues instead is that much of governance
operates through discourses, institutions, and practices that construct truth such that citizens conduct
themselves in a manner that serves the needs and interests of the state. This truth determines how it is possible
to think and act and, conversely, what is unthinkable, impossible, inactionable, or deviant(Servage, 2009, p. 33).

Page 22 of 40
knowledge workers well before the larger academe took up the burden (2011, p. 152). 21

With education at the more entrepreneurial, neoliberal university all the way down to

our community colleges sometimes centered on workforce development and economic

development efforts, the educator who openly questions aspects of late capitalism and

neoliberal though is probably at least swimming against the tide. Gathering in grants and other

activities is probably hard enough in calm waters. To confront or possibly even question

capitalism carries career risks while endorsing the interests of industry might help one climb

the ladder (McLendon, Hearn, & Mokher, 2009). For the average educator, those mere

mortals not tied to Rural Sociology and similar superior disciplines, to not self-regulate ones

behavior is perhaps done only through conscious effort. Then again, Friedlands Who Killed

Rural Sociology? and his warnings about knowledge productions pushes and pulls may

apply to our field (2010).

#6 Performativity, plus managerialism and metrics Todays educators must

increasingly contend with the evaluation, often by non-educators, of effectiveness. Stephen

Ball describes performativity as a technology, a culture and a mode of regulation where

both material and symbolic rewards or sanctions deliver various judgements, comparisons

and displays of whether a teacher or larger program are measuring up (2003, p. 217)

Problems, real or imagined, may bolster this approach. For instance, the Obama

administrations response to student aid abuses involved implementing performance measures

21
The discourse analysis of the United States Department of Education (USDOE) Suspitsyna completed supports
claims about the transformation toward an economic mentality and away from any type of Habemasian public
sphere of democratic deliberation. In examining various speeches about higher education from January 2005 to
December 2007, half of what was uttered was coded to be about the economy. A fourth related to affordability,
access and accountability. A fifth focused on social roles like serving democracy or promoting the American
Dream the latter surely encompassing some economic facets. The remaining was on the roles and expectations
of stakeholders. Overwhelming, the publicly presented discourse from the USDOE was dominated by concerns
about the economic role of colleges and universities and their accountability, affordability, and accessibility.
Page 23 of 40
such as graduation rates (Schram, 2014, p. 430). If a school fails to meet certain targets under

such a system, student aid is at risk. The problem is that these measures may come to

dominate a school or programs focus. Given austerity budgets, the student aid spigot being

turned off could very well doom some institutions. That many of the abuses were occurring at

for-profit schools aggressively recruiting students during an economic downturn will be

subsequently discussed. 22

Under a regime of standardization and measuring outcomes, a form of new

managerialism is emerging where the state seems to be taking a positivist posture where easy

evidence trumps wisdom. In performance-based budgeting, for instance, legislators and others

holding the purse strings may require objective proof of certain outcomes. Accountability

audits and justifying funding become routine under neoliberalism. That taxpayers and

benefactors deserve transparency, accountability, responsive and cost-effective results from

what they are funding is now gospel (Hall, 2005, pp. 180-182). 23

Under new public management and public choice theory, stakeholders demand

quality - or at least the appearance of it. Thus, reputation management and other efforts

around public relations or essentially brand protection becomes more common in our

educational institutions (Tolofari, 2005). This public choice theory and related constructs

emerges from James Buchanans work at the domestic center of neoliberalisms rise in this

22
The new administrations direction might actually dial down performance measures at public institutions if in
fact the Betsy DeVos-led USDOE is friendly to for-profit education enterprise.
23
Some educators, perhaps especially those engaged in basic adult education programs like literacy work, may
fight back or just adapt by creative reporting. Like the feudal lord who tells his tenants to grow beans, the
savvy serf might manage to sufficiently demonstrate compliance when in fact he or she mostly grew wheat. To
scout what funding is available and then plug their programs into those funding streams is a survival strategy
(Quigley, 2001, p. 56). I understand some academic deans may rarely read but most will always count.

Page 24 of 40
 24
nation, namely the University of Chicago.

With the new managerialism in a culture of performance in higher education, a

hierarchical mode of authority takes hold. The de-professionalisation of faculty often

follows (Besley & Peters, 2006, p. 817). Faculty and staff are reconfigured as economic

units. This shift is presented as inevitable and thus resistance is futile. Resisting faculty and

staff can then be painted as silly or even disloyal if they resist what is fated. What some might

then do, when faced with such a response, is to understandably turn away from more

intellectually-oriented work or civic-minded service and instead focus on what can be more

easily managed and measured (B. Davies, Gottsche, & Bansel, 2006, p. 307).

#7 Commercialization of knowledge - Marx long ago compared academic labor

producing surplus value for a proprietor to the worker in a sausage factory (N. Smith, 2000).

As to adult education, a field that is often quite instrumental and frequently tied to the needs

of business, once neoliberalism is embraced then such a knowledge worker may easily morph

into a combination of proprietor or entrepreneur. Producing trained students as a product

meets some demands of a neoliberal world. In that orientation, such a useful educator

becomes essentially a product.

Henry Giroux, a prolific (and unfortunately somewhat pedantic) voice against

neoliberalisms excesses, has written numerous articles and books about the rise of academic

entrepreneurs and commercialization of higher education in general (2005a) (Giroux, 2002,

2004). 25 For perhaps especially a lay audience, Jennifer Washburns University, Inc. from

24
Olssen and Peters have an exceptionally solid summary of how Buchanan and his collaborators changed the
public sector under neoliberalism (2005).
25
For the record, I believe Girouxs jeremiads are difficult to digest especially for a Joe or Jill Sixpack out in
Bucksnort, Alabama. Modulating his message would benefit him greatly. Truly, the trouble with many social
Page 25 of 40
2005 remains relevant. This trend toward commercialization is not necessarily new, however.

John Dyers Ivory Towers in the Market Place from 1956 shows how evening colleges and

part-time programs emerged as not just another source of revenue for schools but also a place

for adult strivers to seek education in the increasingly complicated post-World War II period

(Dyer, 1956; Washburn, 2005).

Passed in 1980, the Bayh-Dole Act undeniably ramped up the commercialization of

higher education (Huff, 2006). Schools could potentially profit via patents and other

intellectual property advances. While Bayh-Dole generally does not directly impact rural

sociology or adult education to the extent it does other disciplines, the impacts on the larger

institution seems clear. More and more colleges and universities are forming various public-

private partnerships such as research parks with business incubators and other supports for

business ventures (Berman, 2012). Perhaps the most well know site for such an arrangement

is North Carolinas Research Triangle (McCorkle, 2012).

Industrial recruitment and incentive packages often involve promises of various

government resources to train (and in some instances actually decide who will be hired)

workers on emerging economic development projects. A business incubator may very well

require or at least expect educators to tend the flock. Education products, perhaps packaged,

tailored, and bundled to suit a particular client but also perhaps marketable for a wide

audience, may be requested from administrators who generally need to be kept happy.

#8 - Privatization - Partnerships with business/industry - The story about

universities in the 1980s and 1990s is that they will turn a trick for anybody with money to

invest; and the only ones with money are corporations, millionaires, and foundations. So

critics with valuable things to say such as Giroux seems to be that that err on the side of scolding rather than
solidarity. A more casualized critique might be more effective than what can come across as haughty harangues.
Page 26 of 40
said Lawrence Soley in pushing back against the idea that our colleges were full of long-

haired leftist rabble rousers. Soley is honing in on research work (1995, p. 5). Nevertheless,

thirty years after he wrote his warnings, conditions have seemingly worsened. Business

opportunities in education arguably abound as safety nets shrink and automation advances.

Shelia Slaughters academic capitalism construct in the new or post-industrial

economy fits framing recognizable by students of neoliberalism. She writes about a

reconfiguring of public spaces and how actors operate in these new market-based

arrangements (2004, p. 306). Henry Giroux, among others, has also written of how the private

increasingly colonizes the public as corporate culture expands (2002, p. 429). Educators

able to commercialize their output so as to benefit private entities may become privileged as

less productive faculty slots are eased toward adjunct status (Gaffikin & Perry, 2009, pp.

120-121).

Part of the push toward more privatization, or merely an increasing role for private

interests in the public realm, is clearly related to funding needs. In a time of austerity, even

staid state schools believe they must ramp up their development offices and build solid

endowment portfolios. Marketing efforts aimed at alumni or boosters may still yield good

results yet there is also a shift to where some donors actual become investors (Kyle, 2005, p.

133). As relates to commercialization, identifying a potential partner for a research endeavor

or other initiatives may become an important first step for what a seemingly effective faculty

or staff will deliver. Pork-barrel science where departments, business, governments and

even local economies are at the trough, seems to be welcome at most modern research

universities (Miller, 2003, p. 899). Part of that funding crunch may also flow out of the shift

of funding towards private profits and the needs of the entrepreneurial state. After all,

Page 27 of 40
educators on the public payroll engaged in economic development efforts to train or even then

select a recruited industrys workers are doing a task that that business, often a profitable

multinational, will not need to pay their own employees to perform.

To be fair, some commercialization by schools is presumably done out of a desire to

bring in revenue so that less lucrative or even loss-leading programs can be propped up

(Wood, 2006). What monies come in from various grants and commercial pursuits might, for

instance, be used to help offset the reality that critical pedagogy or transformative education-

geared professors and/or programs may struggle in paying their own way.

#9 - TINA There is no alternative to neoliberalisms new common sense -

Applying Margaret Thatchers infamous there is no alternative language to neoliberalism, at

least one and perhaps two generations have been born into what could be viewed as a

historical bloc (Torres, 2013, p. 84). 26 What Philip Mirowski describes as the Neoliberal

Thought Collective might not have a playbook or Hayekian encyclical yet neoliberal

solutions tend to fill the public space of perceived alternatives. Citing David Foster

Wallaces murketing where consumers are manipulated to erroneously think they are

immune to marketing and refuse to conform, Mirowski reminds us that neoliberalism is a

popular shared script. Neoliberalism even survived the 2007 economic meltdown relative

unscathed and is perhaps now even stronger (2013, pp. 332, 140-141).

An important part of getting a handle on neoliberalism is realizing how it is presented

as immutable in todays world. That capitalism is presented as the ideal is unsurprising even if

26
Margaret Thatcher made her there is no other way statement operating from her rather binary view of
socialism versus capitalism. Significant shifts away from democratic socialism in Britain occurred during the
years she was Prime Minister. Across the pond, the rise and reign of Reaganism was occurring during this
period. That neoliberalisms ascendency is often associated with the late 1970s and early 1980s is
understandable.
Page 28 of 40
perhaps the body politic is starting to question the way it operates, some outcomes, etc. A

capitalist economic arrangement is, however, often presented as essential to democracy.

Economics and politics are often decoupled, with neoliberalism seen by many citizens as a

form of new common sense lacking any alternative (Swanson, 2008). Henry Giroux argues

that neoliberalism is presented as historically inevitable so as to avoid being questioned and

then perhaps resisted (2005b, p. 14). When politics does bump up against economics, the

latter is positioned via rhetoric to win the day more accurately decades than day as to the

post World War II period (M. A. Smith, 2007).

#10 Competition with humans viewed as capital - As neoliberal thinking has

carved away societal safety nets, the neoliberal worker feels that vulnerability and often

responds by dialing up their competitiveness. Fear becomes all too real for many people and

many citizens now focus primarily or in some instances exclusively on what they can do as an

individual to try to weather lifes storms (B. Davies, 2005). Please recall that as this is

occurring, the global marketplace is presented as a playing field on which states must

compete. That view naturally leads to ideas of how the human capital in the state can be

prepared and then deployed.

Discourse around what an information or knowledge economy will require seems to

value nimble, flexible and enterprising workers. Governments and related entities engaged in

aggressive economic development see education as a form of bait or deal sweetener for

clients being incentivized to locate facilities where taxes, electricity payment ... can be

collected. In this realm, adult/higher education is put front and center. As earlier noted, there

is often money and other opportunities for the educator aligned to such a view. Activist

educators questioning such an arrangement will not be cashing in on that market. Those

Page 29 of 40
questioning such a view may risk being marginalized or even drummed out of the academy.

How to avoid those defeats, and perhaps even win at least a few battles, is briefly discussed in

this papers conclusion.

Conclusion

The above is I hope a decent summary of why neoliberalism may matter and what it

means. That it might not be all that new is possibly useful to apply a Marxist lens to how

capitalism adapts and soldiers on. So what it to be done?

Many in the working class, especially perhaps in rural settings, are being buffeted by

global forces. Globalization and neoliberalism, in fact, are sometimes used interchangeably.

The neoliberal thought collective seems to never sleep. (Philip Mirowski, 2014) It seem

quite able to adapt to and address threats. Education, done in the tradition of Freire and

Mezirow, could, however, I believe give that thought collective a serious challenge. Late

capitalism is vulnerable and will eventually fade into a new arrangement. The question might

be how to help shape the transition to whatever is next in way that is such is not just

accelerated but also better for the citizenry. This shaping will most likely be done outside of,

maybe even in opposition to, traditional education. I hope to do my part in the shaping.

Neoliberalism as a label is and will remain amorphous. I favor my Foucauldian

Frame when talking or writing about neoliberalism as its focus is on how people live under

neoliberal logic. That offered, neoliberalism as just a catch-all critique of late capitalism has

its uses. Any critique offers opportunity for laying out an alternative. One of the best ways to

create change is perhaps to makes neoliberalism less stealthy by putting a spotlight on its

subjects. Scholarship has a role here. That scholarship made into stories and otherwise

popularized is, however, where I see the greatest potential.

Page 30 of 40
 Students who may feel mistreated and otherwise left out of the shrinking middle class

and where wealth is increasingly being concentrated may find motivation in expanding their

consciousness (Martin, 2008). I have occasionally even felt at least a little buffeted. Moreover,

I have watched as family and friends struggle. Trying to reach the alienated via a practice built

from critical pedagogy may be a difficult, exhausting endeavor yet it one where the work

seems worthy. Gramscis pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the mind has become a

treasured phrase in the last few years. Solidarity often seems just below the surface and within

reach of a wide swath of the citizenry across the globe.

I believe Wendell Berry tells us that faculty should be eager to open up a can of

worms. Opening up said can is presumably easier for faculty without mortgages, children to

raise, papers needing to publish, etc. 27 Lip service to the contrary, the present academic

industrial complex typically refuses to reward social engagement in any significant way

(Gunn & Lucaites, 2010). We sometimes seem to be in a time of esoteric specialization in

which more and more indigestible papers are read by fewer and fewer people and, on the other

hand, the mass consumptions, and regurgitation of gobbets of approved information (Hayes

& Wynyard, 2002, p. 110). Todays intellectuals (tend to) situate themselves within fields

and disciplines for good reasons. Their jobs, advancement, and salaries depend on the

evaluation of specialists (Ohmann & Radway, 2003, p. 65). This retreat of more and more

intellectuals to cloistered off campuses seems at least somewhat problematic. In the public

realm, where movements are birthed and nurtured, is perhaps where naming/shaming

neoliberalism is best done.

27
What follows is in no way directed to this papers initial audience. I have come to marvel at the pressures
professors face at the neoliberal research university. I genuinely respect those reading this paper and treasure my
time under your guidance and care. I am blessed to have been near you.
Page 31 of 40
 And that public realm is where I will be. Whatever next happens, I plan to take things I

have learned and put them before an audience of common folks trying to make their way

through a sometimes scary world. Popularizing what I have learned might have political

benefits. I believe movements are where real change occurs, however. The politics and

politicians will follow. I am of the opinion that change bubbles up instead of coming down.

I usually now self-identify as a Freirean with Gramscian goals when asked about my

educational philosophy. 28 Paulo Freire is, of course, the voice upon which much of critical

pedagogy is built. In the foreword to Freires classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Rev. Dr. M.

Richard Shaull wrote the following which sums up nicely the Freirean view:

Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration

of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about
conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and
women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in
the transformation of their world.

Regarding the logic of the present system in the above, it is what hegemony

represents in a Gramscian grounding. Education is central to (Gramscis) particular

formulation of the concept of hegemony. Hegemony refers to a social situation in which all

aspects of social reality are dominated by or supportive of a single class the role of

education resides at the very core of his concept of hegemony (Mayo, 2008, p. 419).

Continuing with Gramsci, he called for a war of position, in which aggrieved

populations seek to undermine the legitimacy of dominant ideology, rather than just a war of

28
Freire was a Brazilian educator partially influenced by both the economic depression of the 1930s and also
facets of liberation theology in the post-World War II period. Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist who died
just before World War II. There appears to be no direct evidence that Paulo Freire was familiar with Antonio
Gramscis writing. That they seem to almost always align is made all the more meaningful when I read their
work. Also, it is important to understand that much of what Gramsci wrote was penned in prison so as to get past
Mussolinis fascist censors. It is very difficult reading not only because of his codes but also in that he wrote in
small portions slipped out that were later cobbled together. Gramsci, like Polanyi, is currently hot in some
academic and political settings.

Page 32 of 40
maneuver aimed at seizing state power. To counter the hegemony of ruling historical blocs,

Gramsci sought to fashion oppositional coalitions capable of struggling for a world without

expolitation (sic) and hierarchy (Lipsitz, 1988, p. 149). For a Gramscian, education for the

masses is critical for executing this war of position. 29

Gramsci also wrote of traditional and organic intellectuals, with the former being

more inclined toward dominant power structures and generally more likely to be formally

educated and credentialed. The organic intellectual would usually be more oriented toward,

perhaps originating from, the working class or proletariat (Mayo, 2008, pp. 425-426). Among

the organic is where I want to mostly work. Rural sociology seems like an ideal preparation

for such a mission.

Those practicing a Freirean approach to education, especially in todays market-

dominated world, admittedly face perils and tough choices. For an example of such a choice, a

teacher in a consumer education class with group of disadvantaged students could focus on

instrumental learning (of) technical skills that create savvy and knowledgeable consumers

or instead go so far as to jam or disrupt, the negatives of a consumer society (Sandlin, 2005,

pp. 168, 177). In a world where everything, including even aspects of education, seems

commodified, to question this arrangement is admittedly somewhat revolutionary. Serving the

poor and dispossessed is also revolutionary in a society where celebrity and power is

worshipped.

Likewise, students feeling it necessary to ratchet up their credentials in a hyper-

competitive world may find solace and/or empowerment in understanding how pressures in

29
Although perhaps not necessary, most modern Gramscians are not necessarily trying to bring about the
downfall of capitalism and thus establish communism. Many favor social democracy brought about by a war of
position. Fewer still might be anarcho-syndicalists. War is just a metaphor for the struggle to accomplish
change.
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late capitalism impact their lives. While lifelong learning and learning organization are

not necessarily negative constructs to me, a Freirean might help students understand that

individual efforts, or lack thereof, might not always explain economic or social problems.

Instead of blaming the victim for their troubles, be it in obtaining a particular job or

increasing their earnings via adding on education, critical pedagogy practice might help a

student move past economic entrepreneurialism and actually question management, plus other

mechanisms of control (Kopeck, 2011, pp. 255-257).

In a world where decent work prospects for the newer generation seems shaky, to

question why a young person should resent or even resist retraining and other features of

workforce/economic development is still rather radical. Displacement especially seems

relevant to rural populations where many jobs have been offshored and opportunities seem

less available than in more urban locales. Working class work left in these rural settings is in

some instances difficult and dangerous. In other settings, the pay and working conditions are

hardly ideal. Going well beyond Marxs alienation of labor from direct enjoyment of their

toils, working in a catfish/chicken processing plant, for instance, is illustrative of the jobs

some rural residents can perhaps obtain.

Deskilling and less emphasis on extraction, such as in logging or fishing communities,

plus of course how manufacturing jobs have often been offshored due to wide open trade

policy, has hit middle-age men especially hard in some rural communities. Although reasons

are hard to reduce, some political observers say the new Presidential administration owes

thanks to these battered working people. As a middle-aged man, a burly white one even,

perhaps I am in a decent position to present and hear perspectives on their predicaments.

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 Protections offered by labor unions and a regulatory state are vanishing, with the

worker in a neoliberal economy left precariously poised. These precarious populations are

often told to partner with corporations and develop careers to fit in the new economy (Grace,

2007). Instead of such solutions, critical pedagogy poses questions about why this is so and

seeks to have students expand their own appreciation of forces impacting not only their lives

but also that of others around them. Thus, solidarity starts to replace competition. Other

features of neoliberalism are substituted out for a better approach to life. Market forces cannot

tell us all the answers. When they do, it is often the exactly wrong answer.

What is to be done? Educate!

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