24 NEOLIBERALISM: EDUCATION & RESISTANCE IN THE NORTH WEST lan Parker W hy is neoliberalism such a big
deal in higher education today? Because for capitalism to maintain its grip, it needs not only to drive a mass of the population into poverty but also to educate the population to believe that poverty is their own individual problem rather than a function of this miserable economic system. Attacks on trade union organisation in the universities should be understood against that context. The destruction of trade unions in the higher education sector is part and parcel of the neoliberal agenda of the three main political parties, with the 'reforms' being pushed through by the Conservatives now, and in alliance with the Liberal Democrats in the last government, having been instituted by Labour a decade back. The case of Damien and Jenny Markey at Bolton University illustrates this process very well, and also shows how neoliberalism which trumpets the 'freedom' of the individual in the marketplace relies, as capitalism always does, on an apparatus to strike fear into those who resist it. Neoliberalism is not 'soft' power, replacing old-style repression with friendly persuasion, even if it does harness women's labour to 'feminise' the workplace and bring emotional pressure to bear on workers to play the game, the bosses' game. Neoliberalism, as the classic experiment in Chile from 1973 under Pinochet proved, requires brute force and increasing secrecy, not only because of the 'secrets' of its operation but, even more so, because making people shut up about what they know is a way of enforcing obedience. Stories in the press that George Holmes, Bolton University's vice-chancellor was given near on a million pound loan by the university to buy a house, and was paid for travel to Lake Windermere where he moors his private yacht, led the university authorities to find a culprit, which, very conveniently for the university, was Damien Markey, secretary of the local University and College Union (UCU). The Times Higher Education Supplement, which was one of the newspapers which broke the story, made it clear that Markey was not their source, as did the Bolton News?. Damien was pulled out of an internal review in the university and immediately taken into a disciplinary hearing, accused by a 1 https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/ ucu-furious-over-bolton-sackings-for-alleged-pressleaks/2019335.article 2 http://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/ news/11882630.University of Bolton staff sacked_over_claims_they_leaked_information_ to_the manager who had been appointed to the role that morning, of leaking information to the press and then sacked. As for Jenny Markey, also an employee of the university and Unison union member, her crime was to be Damien's wife, obviously guilty, and so also sacked a few days later. For sure, these two union members are now on the breadline; from having two full-time earners in the household to look after their three children, the Markeys are on welfare benefits, but this punishment is designed to serve as a message to anyone else who might speak out, who might speak about the public secret of grotesque disparity of salaries in the universities, of which vice-chancellor Holmes is just one example. That is why the Saturday demonstration in Bolton protesting against the sacking of the Markeys was such an important show of resistance. Many lecturers and support staff in Bolton who support Damien and Jenny were afraid to attend, but many did come out that day. There were speakers outside Bolton Town Hall from Salford, where the university is also clamping down on the trade unions. The UCU has been forced to take this protest seriously with more than a petition, and regional full-time organisers were present at the protest, conveying messages of good-will from the union leadership. That's something, and better than the UCU response to some of the other local disputes in recent years. Joint union action is what will take the response to the Markeys beyond the immediate charitable support to keep them going until Bolton University is beaten back and reinstates them. While the demonstrators marched through Bolton, students at the University of Manchester occupied a building in the Business School, days later succeeding in smuggling in thirty more students and food supplies past the university security staff. The local UCU has issued a statement of support for the occupation. The demands of the students, organised as 'Free Education MCR', include free education, against the use of security legislation to demonise Muslim students, workers rights in the university - of lecturers and support staff - and accountability. This last demand, for accountability runs crashing up against the undemo cratic management structures university sector. In Bolton University that lack of democratic accountability enabled the vice-chancellor to spend, spend, spend, and in the University of Manchester - the student occupation is explicitly set against the prospect - it will involve the imminent appointment of Peter Mandelson as next Chancellor of the University; Mandelson who, under the Labour government commissioned the 'Browne review' which recommended the introduction of student fees, which Labour then happily implemented, which the Liberal Democrats promised to repeal but then went along with as a price for being in coalition in the last government, and which the Conservatives will now increase beyond the means of most workingclass students. The transformation of capitalism into 'neoliberalism' is not merely a return to the old classical liberal political economy of the nineteenth century; it is return to the days before the days of the welfare state, but with a twist, which is that each individual is targeted so that they come to believe themselves to be responsible, or find other individuals to blame. One of the first analysts to coin the term was the historian and philosopher Michel Foucault, who described it as a process by which we are 'individualised' to the extent where the idea of 'society' itself appears absurd. And there is a crucial double-aspect to this shift to neoliberalism, which is that it is not merely a return to old liberal economics with a twist, but that along side economic compulsion there is a political project to educate people to accept their subjection. Neoliberalism is a lesson in austerity that is being implemented in the universities to silence radical lecturers and support staff and to teach students how to be obedient 'good citizens' It is no coincidence that the announcement of the failure of the Markeys' appeal against dismissal4 came the day the Conservatives triumphed in the general election. The Conservatives, no longer held back by the handwringing agonising of their erstwhile Liberal Democrat coalition partners, are intent on pressing ahead with neoliberal reforms', stripping back the welfare state while ensuring that higher education is an education for the masses about what they cannot and should not dare to change. But the lesson of these protests is also that collective resistance is still alive, and that new forms of rebellion against neoliberal capitalism today continues a tradition of Marxist critique and rebellion against old classical liberal capitalism in the North West, and beyond. 3 https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/foucaultinterview/ 4 https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/ news/bolton-throws-out-appeal-for-employeessacked-over-alleged-press-leaks/2020128. article