Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

On Autonomy and the Technological Abolition of Academic Labour

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Education and Technological Unemployment

Abstract

As the global higher education sector is re-engineered through real subsumption inside the logic of competition, academic labour is increasingly proletarianised through the desperate search for relative surplus value. As a result, universities become more capital intensive, by investing in technology and organisational development. However, as more constant capital or means of production are set in motion by an individual labourer, there is a pressure to economise on labour power or to discover new markets. The conditioning of academic labour through precariousness, performance management and so on amplify overwork, self-exploitation, ill health and ill being. However, just as capital drives towards the technological abolition of academic labour, it also depends completely upon that labour for its own reproduction and survival. This is a crucial moment of weakness for capital, and resistance depends upon a movement beyond the fetishisation of such labour to explore the possibilities that exist beyond the binary of employment /unemployment. This chapter argues for struggles for the abolition of academic labour through moments of solidarity with other communities seeking to reconstitute their own lived experiences on post-capitalist terms. A critical issue is how to uncover and reproduce cooperative practices across the fabric of society, in order to widen collective spheres of autonomy .

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Amsler, S. (2015). The education of radical democracy. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Andreotti, V., Stein, S., Ahenakew, C., & Hunt, D. (2015). Mapping interpretations of decolonization in the context of higher education. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 4(1), 21–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Belfield, C., Britton, J., Buscha, F., Dearden, L., Dickson, M., van der Erve, L., et al. (2018). The relative labour market returns to different degrees. Institute for Fiscal Studies, Research Report. https://bit.ly/2LRIzOF. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • Boyd, D. (2017). The radicalization of Utopian dreams. https://bit.ly/2ydLX4a. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • Canaan, J. (2017). The (im)possibility of mass intellectuality: Viewing mass intellectuality through the lens of the Brazilian landless movement. In R. Hall & J. Winn (Eds.), Mass intellectuality and democratic leadership in higher education (pp. 69–80). London: Bloomsbury Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • CASA. (nd). http://actualcasuals.wordpress.com/. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • Clarke, S. (1991). Marx, marginalism and modern sociology: From Adam Smith to Max Weber. London: Palgrave.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Derrida, J. (2002). Privilege: Justificatory title and introductory remarks. In J. Derrida (Ed.), Who’s afraid of philosophy: Right to philosophy 1 (pp. 1–66). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • DET. (2016). National strategy for international education 2025. https://bit.ly/1NGwZ48. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • DfE. (2017). The higher education and research act. London: HM Stationery Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dyer-Witheford, N. (2015). Cyber-proletariat: Global labour in the digital vortex. London: Pluto Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Emejulu, A. (2017). Another university is possible. Verso blog. https://bit.ly/2JW5Jpq. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • Engels, F. (2009). The condition of the working class in England. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • FLOK Society. (nd). http://commonstransition.org/flok-society/. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • Gabriel, D., & Tate, S. A. (2017). Inside the ivory tower: Narratives of women of colour surviving and thriving in British Academia. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gorz, A. (1982). Farewell to the working class: An essay on post-industrial socialism. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haiven, M., & Khasnabish, A. (2014). The radical imagination: Social movement research in the age of Austerity. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, R. (2015). For a political economy of massive open online courses. Learning, Media and Technology, 40(3), 265–286. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2015.1015545.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall, G. (2016). The Uberfication of the university. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hall, R. (2017). Performance information and data-driven academic anxiety. In G. M. dos Santos Ferreira, L. A. da Silva Rosado, & J. de Sá Carvalho (Eds.), Education and technology: Critical approaches (pp. 185–205). Rio de Janeiro: University Estácio de Sá Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, R. (2018). The Alienated academic: The struggle for autonomy inside the university. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hall, R., & Bowles, K. (2016). Re-engineering higher education: The subsumption of academic labour and the exploitation of anxiety. Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, 28, 30–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, R., & Winn, J. (Eds.). (2017). Mass intellectuality and democratic leadership in higher education. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, K., Schwedel, A., & Kim, A. (2012). A world awash in money. Bain & Company, Insights. http://www.bain.com/publications/articles/a-world-awash-in-money.aspx. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holloway, J. (2015). Read capital: The first sentence, or capital starts with wealth, not with the commodity. Historical Materialism, 25(3), 3–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hudis, P. (2017). The vision of the new society in Marx’s capital. Paper for panel on 150th anniversary of Marx’s Capital, Left Forum, 3–4 June 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huws, U. (2014). Labor in the global digital economy: The cybertariat comes of age. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jappe, A. (2014). Towards a history of the critique of value. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 25(2), 25–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2014.906820.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jappe, A. (2016). The writing on the wall: On the decomposition of capitalism and its critics. London: Zero Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, R. (1980). ‘Really useful knowledge’. Radical education and working-class culture. In J. Clarke, C. Critcher, & R. Johnson (Eds.), Working class culture: Studies in history and theory (pp. 1790–1848). Hutchinson: Birmingham.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lapavitsas, C. (2013). Profiting Without producing: How finance exploits us all. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lorey, I. (2017). Labour, (in-)dependence, care: Conceptualizing the precarious. In E. Armano, A. Bove, & A. Murgia (Eds.), Mapping precariousness, labour insecurity and uncertain livelihoods: Subjectivities and resistance (pp. 199–209). London: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Lucas Plan. (nd). http://lucasplan.org.uk. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • Lukács, G. (1990). History and class consciousness: Studies in Marxist dialectics. London: Merlin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marcos, Subcommandante. (2004). Our word is our weapon: Selected writings. London: Serpent’s Tail.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marginson, S. (2016). Higher education and the common good. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. (1974). Economic and philosophical manuscripts. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. (1975). Letter to Arnold Ruge. In Marx and Engels Collected Works, Vol. 34. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. (1991). Capital, volume 3: A critique of political economy. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. (1993). Grundrisse: Outline of the critique of political economy. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K. (2004). Capital, volume 1: A critique of political economy. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1998). The German ideology: Including theses on Feuerbach and introduction to the critique of political economy. New York: Prometheus.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGettigan, A. (2013). The Great university gamble: Money, markets and the future of higher education. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGettigan, A. (2015). The Treasury view of HE: Variable human capital investment, Political Economy Research Centre Papers Series 6. https://bit.ly/2JFaiFF. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • McKinsey and Company. (2017). Education. https://bit.ly/2JPcsyv. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • McMillam Cotton, T. (2016). Lowered: The troubling rise of for-profit colleges in the new economy. New York: The New Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mészáros, I. (2015). The necessity of social control. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyerhoff, E., Johnson, E., & Braun, B. (2011). Time and the university. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 10(3), 483–507.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newfield, C. (2010). The structure and silence of Cognitariat. EduFactory webjournal, 0, 10–26. http://firgoa.usc.es/drupal/files/Newfield_0.pdf. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • OfS. (2018). https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • Pasquale, F. (2018). Tech platforms and the knowledge problem. American Affairs, II(2). https://bit.ly/2x8rbCv. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • Pusey, A., & Sealey-Huggins, L. (2013). Transforming the university: Beyond students and cuts. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 12(3), 443–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • The Edufactory Collective. (nd). https://bit.ly/2sZZyqI. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • HM Treasury. (2015). Fixing the foundations: Creating a more prosperous nation. London: HM Treasury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rhodes Must Fall Oxford. (2018). https://rmfoxford.wordpress.com/. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • Roggero, G. (2011). The Production of living knowledge: The crisis of the university and the transformation of labor in Europe and North America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sievers, B. (2008). The psychotic university. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization, 8(3), 238–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Southwood, I. (2017). Against currency, against employability. In E. Armano, A. Bove, & A. Murgia (Eds.), Mapping precariousness, labour insecurity and uncertain livelihoods: Subjectivities and resistance (pp. 70–81). London: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform capitalism. Bristol: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tiqqun. (2001). The Cybernetic Hypothesis. https://bit.ly/2JSrN4l. Accessed June 15, 2018.

  • Wendling, A. (2009). Karl Marx on technology and alienation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

    Richard Hall

Authors
  1. Richard Hall
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard Hall .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Michael A. Peters

  2. Zagreb University of Applied Sciences , Zagreb, Croatia

    Petar Jandrić

  3. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Alexander J. Means

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Hall, R. (2019). On Autonomy and the Technological Abolition of Academic Labour. In: Peters, M., Jandrić, P., Means, A. (eds) Education and Technological Unemployment. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6225-5_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6225-5_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-6224-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-6225-5

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation