Dilemma of Academic Capitalism
“Elephant in the room” of academic capitalism poses a dilemma because, even though it is considered natural and will certainly remain on the academic stage of higher education.
“The elephant in the room” is an English metaphorical idiom to describe a big and obvious issue that people are reluctant to talk about, for fear of causing personal, social, or political embarrassment. In higher education today, one such elephant is academic capitalism.
The argument is that as the knowledge-based global economy strengthens and the government budget for public higher education shrinks, higher education institutions need to embrace academic capitalism in their operations.
Some may disagree, but adopting academic capitalism has enabled universities to survive and develop, while the nonacademic community also views this as a given. On the other hand, however, this move has undermined the traditional scientific norms.
Academic capitalism
The term “academic capitalism” certainly carries some prejudices, but this article attempts to view it as an idea that is neither bad nor good.
Referring to Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades’ analysis of the issue (2004), their theory of academic capitalism sees groups of education actors (teachers, students, educational staff, and professional academics) using state resources to generate distribution of knowledge that links higher education institutions to the new economy.
I don't know why this adoption of academic capitalism is referred to as a theory. Wouldn't it be more fitting to call it a tactic, given how they utilize state resources, such as land, facilities and funds to build a knowledge network between universities and businesses that offer mutual benefits?
Today's society seems to consider this tactic as inexorable. In fact, examined more closely, the prima donnas of academia’s stage appear to be universities and businesses, while the taxpayers and the state, as the primary funders, are being sidelined as mere backstage crew (Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004).
With academic capitalism being accepted as the norm, the boundary between for-profit and nonprofit educational institutions has become increasingly blurred.
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An interesting case that may illustrate this took place between Texas A&M University and the University of Phoenix. In 1998, University of Phoenix founder and entrepreneur John Sperling and his wife donated funds equivalent to Rp 54 billion to Texas A&M University to develop a technique for cloning their dog, Missy.
Here's why it was controversial. Sperling generated the money commercially via the University of Phoenix, a for-profit educational corporation, which was then transferred to a nonprofit educational institution to finance research called the Missyplicity Project. It can be said that the research was done at the behest of a for-profit education businessman.
The outcome of the project was later successfully commodified as a cloning business. Succeeding developments saw a number of scientists at Texas A&M University found Genetic Savings & Clone, Inc, a business entity external to the university. As publicly known, they had obtained their education and engaged in their research using the tax-financed state budget.
So the question is, are their researches for-profit or nonprofit? What was the taxpayers’ role on this academic stage? Were those researches orders from corporations?
In addition to the commodification of knowledge, universities can also commodify the dissemination of knowledge. In fact, this also happens in Indonesia, given the fact that state universities admit students through non-regular enrollment procedures that generally entail admission fees. This admission policy, which collects funds that reach up to hundreds of millions of rupiah through tuition fees and institutional development fees are openly implemented by a number of reputable state universities nationwide (Kompas, 22/5/2022).
The fact that there have been relatively few complaints from the public shows that the non-regular admissions policy is widely and well received, even among academics. So the “elephant” of academic capitalism has been taken for granted and is supported by the state as well as the wider community. We are all reluctant to challenge it. In fact, backstage, the norms are actually fading and being painted in new colors.
Shifting norms
In the scientific tradition, the Mertonian norms introduced by American sociologist Robert K. Merton is used as a general guideline. Rochman Achwan has discussed it already in "Kolonisasi Ilmu” (the colonialization of science) (Kompas, 17/5/2022). These norms, abbreviated as CUDOS, are built on the ideas of communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism.
The idea of communalism asserts the common ownership of scientific discoveries and must be shared publicly. Progress in scientific discoveries is determined by the level of open communication and the spirit of sharing. This first idea in today's knowledge culture was deemed so important it was discussed specifically in Article 4 of the Reimagining Our Futures Together (UNESCO, 2021) report and presented on 13 May 2022 at the “Knowledge Commons and Digital Futures” webinar by the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) professors’ forum.
The idea of universalism states that scientific discoveries must always be objective and free from criteria imposed by an individual or a group. This is manifest, for example, in the publishing tradition of bestari (vastly knowledgeable) partners.
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The idea of disinterestedness is defined as the detachment of academics and their beliefs from their various claims to truth. Academics are expected to act for the benefit of science as collective property, not for personal gain or interest. In practice, this idea is the most difficult to implement today.
The idea of organized skepticism means that skepticism should create a spirit of knowledge that will lead to demand for evidence or a verification process, so that experiments and their results can be replicated or reproduced. Claims of scientific discoveries must undergo a critical and prudent process of skepticism before they are accepted. This is to ensure that the scientific discoveries are robust and reliable.
However, with the increasing acceptance of academic capitalism, these norms have been fading gradually, which leaves a dilemma. The tradition of communalism, in particular, is not in line with capitalist logic. As Philip Moriarty (2011) criticized in Science as a Public Good, higher education in the
United Kingdom actually has a science protection policy so that scientific discoveries can be claimed as proprietary goods.
Moriarty said communalism and disinterestedness were two general criteria that distinguished the academic tradition of science from commercialized science.
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, information about the virus was made common, owned and accessible to everyone. This explains why vaccine development was rapid, before some countries started to embargo or limit knowledge about viruses and vaccines.
Likewise, applying disinterestedness becomes complex in academic capitalism. How can higher education institutions can ensure that grants from various corporations to nonprofit universities to carry out research related to their businesses will not compromise their level of disinterestedness?
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Sociologist John Ziman in 2000 compared the norms that underlie the culture of knowledge in the industrial world with those in the academic world. Ziman formulated the PLACE norms to contrast CUDOS.
PLACE stands for proprietary (meaning knowledge can be owned by a person, group, or corporation, so it is no longer communal); local (they no longer have to contribute to general knowledge); authority (based on managerial hierarchy, not on individual researchers, in contrast to disinterestedness); commissioned (on order, so they no longer have to contribute to general knowledge and do not have to be prompted by mere curiosity); and expert (scientists are considered experts, not skeptics).
Then, how do academics perceive traditional norms? Macfarlane and Cheng (2008) found that academics still championed communalism and universalism, but disinterestedness was the least popular norm. It is understandable that upholding disinterestedness is difficult in the logic of capitalism. How to ensure that the opinions expressed by nonprofit public universities are not influenced by corporate funders?
On the other hand, how can it be guaranteed that the statements issued by institutions are not just to satisfy the public? Will public institutions dare to express unpopular opinions? In the current political climate of populism, the expected answer to the second question becomes difficult to deliver.
Indeed, this “elephant in the room” of academic capitalism poses a dilemma because, even though it is considered natural and will certainly remain on the academic stage of higher education, it is still difficult to abandon the previous norms and replace them with new norms. At the same time, there is no real evidence that academic capitalism has significantly accelerated scientific developments.
Iwan Pranoto
Iwan Pranoto, Professor of Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB)
This article was translated by Musthofid.
