By Josh Heuchan
Education was made "free" in the 1970s because an increase in participation rates was critical to the continued expansion of capitalism. There was considerable structural change in the economy, with a transfer from more traditional industries, like manufacturing, to information-based industries which required a differently, and more highly, skilled work force. Further, rising expectations (associated with the welfare state ideology and various left struggles) were recognised by the state, which had to ensure there were possibilities for increased participation in the education sector.
The higher education sector is very much a cornerstone of any analysis of society and of capitalism. The reforms to higher education have not existed in a vacuum.
Capitalism is international. Even if, given a social democratic model, the government attempted to introduce a progressive taxation system, capital has the power to withhold investment, move investment to another sector or even move to another country so as to avoid any situation which would compromise its profit level. The Labor Party has acted in a way that is consistent with most other governments in capitalist economies: that is, it has sought to provide favourable conditions for capital to operate in.
In terms of the No Fees for Degrees campaign, it is important that the left present an analysis of the education sector which situates the student in an economy which is increasingly globalised and neo-liberalised.
There also appears to be a tendency amongst some of the left to regard universities, historically at least, as somehow unrelated to the labour market.
Witness this gem in a recent National Union of Students broadsheet: "Universities were originally established as places for critical learning — places where people learnt to analyse society and suggest ways for changing for the better. They existed for the benefit of society, and not for the welfare of individuals."
Such statements are really quite removed from reality. There was never a time when the economy and education were divorced.
Tertiary education is now explicitly a means of value-adding — that is, the extension of the process of production of the commodity labour-power, what Left Alliance has described, albeit in a somewhat limited analysis, as the process of "pumping out people to become wage slaves".
The left generally regards tertiary education as existing outside the direct processes of capital formation, as functional to but extraneous from the relations of production. Many on the left regard the university as peopled by those engaged in reproductive rather than productive work, and regard tertiary students as mostly destined for such work as well. The working class, in this narrow conceptualisation, exists elsewhere.
The contention here is that this is changing, that privatisation changes universities themselves into profit-making centres. They become inserted directly into the process of capital formation and accumulation. Thus universities must now be considered as commensurate with factories, sites of production as well as reproduction. The vice-chancellors, recast into corporate managers, gleefully note that the "export earnings of education now rival those of the wheat industry".
From the analysis presented above, and by virtue of the extensive restructuring of education undertaken by the ALP, it can be argued that both students and academics can directly impact upon the accumulation of capital. Moreover, it can no longer be supposed that universities turn out the "middle classes", because not only is the middle class being recomposed, but the middle classes are now increasingly ensconced in the production process itself.
Tertiary education continues to be a sphere for the innovation of the means of production and the reproduction of the conditions of worker exploitation, but it is also now a sector of production. This must necessarily transform the way the student left conceives its role, strategies and tactics, which can now no longer be distinguished from the struggle against the rule of capital.
In this context, strategies which are oriented toward eradicating the repressive and fragmenting effects of competition on the working class (and hence, students as well as the unemployed), and tactics which take seriously students' and university staff's capacities to interfere with profit-making, must be considered as the most effective ways that the student movement can play a role in transforming social life.
Organising strategy
Despite the partial success of campaigns such as the ANU occupation (after all, they still got up-front fees), we should not raise such campaigns to a mythical status. Indeed, all campaigns offer possibilities for new ways of responding to attacks by the ALP, be it the ANU campaign, the "free" education campaigns of the 80s, the Macquarie occupations of '92, the Austudy/loans scheme campaign or the militant display by students at the Hotel Nikko.
Whilst the No Fees for Degrees campaign has the potential to mobilise a mass of students into militant action as well as involve a mass of students in organising such a campaign, the politics of such activism should be at the forefront of our concerns. One may well ask the point of mobilising students into action if such action merely situates itself in the illusory appeal of the short-term aims of social democracy.
The rally held on March 23 at Wollongong was easily the largest education demonstration in NSW for several years, with a turnout of more than 2000 people. However, the lack of solidarity apparent at this event raises questions about the possibility of the No Fees for Degrees campaign being sustained.
The rally began with a number of speakers in the Duck Pond area of the campus and marched to the admin building — the daytime residence of various corporate managers.
As soon as we reached the building, the Wollongong SRC president made an announcement that there would be "no occupation of the building as Wollongong students are against it" and that such action would jeopardise the SRC's relationship with the vice chancellor. "Go and occupy your own campuses", was the suggestion. This served to depoliticise the whole event.
Firstly, it failed to make the connections between this particular vice chancellor and the AVCC's role in the current attacks on education.
Secondly, it split the solidarity of the rally by constructing a situation whereby two irreconcilable positions emerged. Other options were foreclosed. When the proposal to occupy was lost, the rally dissolved, with students being encouraged to "have a drink in the bar".
The reasons for this debacle lie in how the Cross Campus Education Network (CCEN) organised the rally. In the lead-up to the rally, there were problems in attendance at the CCEN (both in continuity and numbers) which increased confusion about decision making process and responsibility. Left Alliance consistently brought up the issue of how the day was to be organised and structured, whether or not there would be an occupation or sit-in or some other form of action, and what the exact aim of the rally was. These issues failed to be discussed in depth.
Also, a few members of Wollongong SRC took a particularly parochial view of the NDA. They felt decisions should remain in the hands of the SRC rather than a cross-campus group.
All of these factors contributed to the fragmentation of student solidarity on the day. The problems experienced on March 23 in NSW could have been avoided with better communication between left groups and a general commitment to the CCEN as the appropriate forum for the organisation of mass student actions and, perhaps more importantly, as the site for political debate and discussion.
Whereto now?
Political education, left consolidation and struggle can in no way be effective unless the left as a whole develops a cohesive frame where points of unity are identified. The No Fees for Degrees campaign offers such a possibility for the left.
For the left to be effective in initiating and supporting militant defensive struggle against the neo-liberalisation program, it must move beyond the fragments, beyond sectarianism. Whilst single issue movements and different left organisations have an important role to play, intervention into a general debate on how society as a whole should be reconstructed warrants a move beyond the fragments. It can only be effected by a united left (and a united left strategy for achieving our objectives).
The political practice of alliance politics — around specific struggles and broader strategies — should not reduce to the imperatives of party-building. Rather, broader goals — the formation of a critically engaged, politically active and self-organised population — should be seen as the crucial element in building a strong opposition and working towards a united left.
In the face of domination by the right, there is no excuse for the left to remain eternally fragmented and disorganised. If there is to be an effective resurgence of opposition out of the No Fees for Degrees campaign, we must form a commitment to seek a principled, democratic unity and initiate processes in which sustained levels of struggle can be obtained.
Left student activists are thin on the ground, and many students can't yet tell the differences between us anyway. Some of us remember the historical reasons for these differences; some of us only got involved recently. I'd hope that we are able to collectively discuss the situation now without forgetting history and difference, but also without forgetting areas of potential solidarity.
[Thanks to Angie Mitropolous, Hazel Blunden, Heidi Norman and Adam Bandt. Josh Heuchan is a member of Left Alliance, the National Organisation of Feminist, Socialist, and Progressive Students. These comments arise from debates within Left Alliance but are not a position of Left Alliance.]