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Justice as a commodity

By John Passant - posted Monday, 13 August 2012


A large number of students in my first year tax course were functionally illiterate. They did not attend classes, were resentful of having to attend let alone participate in tutorials and had the social skills and graces of new born giraffes. They hated working in groups, even though that is what will happen to many of them when they begin work in the public service, or even in law firms working to a partner.

Thornton's book gives life to these lived experiences, experiences I would wish on no one.

There is one thing missing from Thornton’s book, and that is any sense of an alternative to the barbarism that has taken over our law schools and Universities. Thornton is a social liberal and as such eschews the idea of real resistance.

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For me the answer is struggle, the idea that unionists in universities can resist the seemingly inexorable descent into the fires of neoliberal hell. As we look around the world we can see rebellion against neoliberalism in many Arab countries, in Europe and we got glimpses of that in the Occupy movement.

But the lack of struggle, the 30 year class war the one percent has waged against us has been so successful that here in Australia there is, apart from the occasional outburst, little sign of struggle. Even at the ANU, where the Vice-Chancellor has sacked 13 of the School of Music's 32 staff, the lacklustre response of the unions and its members has consigned those jobs to the scrap heap of history. Encouraged, the Vice Chancellor will be sharpening his axe for the next brutal attack.

Until the education sector realises that it is through class struggle, through strikes and other resistance to the vicious Vice 'chainsaw' Chancellors and the governments of whatever persuasion that stand behind them, working life in neoliberal universities will only worsen and worsen. That is, if you still have a job.

And that ironically is a problem for capitalism. Neoliberalism is an ideology destroying what is best for capitalism - thinking, creative, curious staff and students questioning within limits how things are now done. We are creating a world of automatons to teach robots.

If there is hope, it lies in the proles. What neoliberalism is doing is turning all workers at universities into proles and making them the snake oil salesmen and women of a degraded education. In that reality, when it hits the consciousness of staff, lies the antidote to neoliberalism in the Universities and the destruction fo critical though it is wreaking across Law Schools.

Privatising the Public University: The Case of Law is a great read for those wanting to understand the degeneration of legal education in Australia specifically and the neoliberalisation of universities more generally.

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This is a review of Privatising the Public University: The Case of Law by M Thornton (Routledge 2012).



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About the Author

John Passant is a Canberra writer (www.enpassant.com.au) and member of Socialist Alternative.

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