Monday, May 30, 2005

Marx for the Computer Age

David Brooks, of all people, wrote this updated Marxist manifesto for the new economy. Obviously, it's a parody, but he has some great points about academics, and our role in the information economy. To wit, we may be "leftists", but we're also the gatekeepers to the unequal society that so many of us bitch about. The "uneducated lower class" will never be educated or move up, because who can afford to go to university anymore? Tuition is through the roof! Besides, we let the public schools crumble years ago because we thought it would be easier than pushing inner city kids to work harder. So, the irony is that the last Marxists anywhere in the country (and for the record, no I am not a Marxist, or "Marxian") are the ones who fundamentally maintain a class system that is more rigid in this country than it's been since the Gilded Age (according to The Economist).
Best line:
"The information society is the only society in which false consciousness is at the top. For it is an iron rule of any university that the higher the tuition and more exclusive the admissions, the more loudly the denizens profess their solidarity with the oppressed. The more they objectively serve the right, the more they articulate the views of the left."

1 comment:

Rufus said...

It is strangely addictive, isn't it? Claire's father passes them on to me because I read them whenever we're over for dinner. It would be interesting to get the editors of the Economist and Bizarre together for a cocktail party, wouldn't it?
P.S.: I love the blog you two do!