Cecilia Rikap, Hugo Harari-Kermadec

Abstract

Universities have historically contributed to the reproduction of capitalism. However, they have been historically conceived as a separate sphere or institution detached from the Market, thus only indirect participants of capital’s accumulation processes. Our aim in this article is precisely to contribute to acknowledge this transformation by further developing a theoretical explanation integrated to a Marxist analysis of contemporary capitalism. In particular, following Levín, we distinguish that a portion of world’s social capital has monopolized the capacity to plan and profit from innovation. The wide gap in terms of innovation capacities between individual capitals leaves those non-innovative with no better option but to subordinate and let go part of their surplus. It is in this context that we will suggest that universities integrate direct capital’s accumulation structures. To do so, we will conceptually distinguish between two sides of universities’ transformation: (1) the adoption of capital enterprises’ characteristics resulting in exchanges of their products (teaching and research results), where we will identify different degrees of bargaining power to decide the conditions of those exchanges, and (2) the transformation of academic labor, adapting itself to capitalist production processes. Considering the former, we argue that universities’ adoption of individual capitals’ features can be better understood as a differentiated process. We suggest three types of differentiated market-university, according to the different enterprises in Levín’s typology. Our concluding remarks include further research questions and nuance the general transformation of the University as an economic actor offering some clues for developing countertendencies.

Keywords

Higher education and research commodification, innovation monopoly, quantification, universities’ hierarchy

From: Capital & Class 2020 44 (3)

Editor: Wang Yi