As the teaching assistant strike at the University of California extends into its fifth week, it seems that education has increasingly merged with activism. In fact, J. E. Elliott argues in our podcast interview that the development of the humanities in particular has moved so far in this direction that activism has become the explicit focus and attraction of majoring in the humanities for college students. As he lays out, such activist-oriented education is not a form of resistance but a result of the corporatization of the university, which involves not just links between corporations and universities but also the way in which college education has developed into a mass market commodity. The expansion of higher education, in promoting the admission of larger proportions of the population into college, has diluted the elite character of the college degree, making it into a more purely professional qualification and forcing colleges to devote more effort into justifying the value of their degrees for the job market. Because the ideals of inclusion and of merit are inherently contradictory, integrating more students into college has devalued the degree credential and therefore colleges must design their programs with an eye toward different segments of the higher education market. Consequently, the humanities at U.S. universities have evolved to establish “Brand English” to compete with “Brand STEM” and “Brand Business” by promoting social activism as its main distinguishing characteristic.
Without the traditional literary and intellectual canons, the focus of humanities education has shifted toward promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, which have become in many respects code words for identity politics, socialist-inspired redistribution, and college for all as entry into the job market. But because these three policies are partisan positions that have been enshrined as overarching truths (or in Elliott’s terms, “truth-posits”) for higher education, college humanities have to a large extent abandoned genuine debate about the origins and consequences of different ideas in favor of activist promotion of such ideas. The strike itself foregrounds the focus on equity without, however, considering the consequences of such a policy.
The initial offer before the strike from the University of California was an immediate 7% salary increase and an annual 3% salary increase thereafter (plus free tuition, subsidized housing, over $4,000 in childcare subsidies, 8 weeks of paid pregnancy leave, 5 weeks of paid family medical leave, transit subsidies, health insurance, and retirement benefits). Such an offer is a reasonable one by most measures, yet the initial demand by the United Auto Workers representing the graduate student instructors was for a 125% salary increase from $24,000 to $54,000 per year. This demand is an attempt to redefine the entire paradigm for thinking about compensation. Rather than thinking about comparisons with graduate student instructors at other universities or with salaries for non-student instructors, the UAW position is that graduate students should be paid at a level that covers their costs, primarily the high cost of housing in California. Both the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle have been generally supportive of this perspective, indicating that graduate student instructors are underpaid. Yet as the University of California has made clear, graduate student instructors are paid for a contractually established maximum of 20 hours per week for the 33 weeks of the academic year, which works out to $36 per hour. The initial demand of $54,000 per year would amount to over $80 per hour for the work they perform.
But in a new paradigm of paying everyone according to need, it would be irrelevant how many hours graduate student instructors were working. Instead, following the Marxist maxim of “from each according to ability and to each according to needs,” they should be paid according to their need for affordable housing, regardless of the quantity or quality of their work. This would set graduate student instructor pay at an hourly rate that would be twice that of current adjunct faculty, over twice that of all staff, and higher than most tenure-line faculty. While such a policy might be conceivable in Marx’s dream of a “higher phase of communist society” in which “all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly” (Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program), over a century of socialist experiments have demonstrated the destructive consequences of eliminating incentives for work. Rather than inaugurating a higher phase of communist society, the practical consequences of such an increase in graduate student instructor salaries would be choices between increased tuition, increased tax dollars for higher education, or the canceling of courses, resulting in either a reduction in student admissions or the inability of students to enroll in the courses they need to complete to graduate. In all these scenarios, the losers would be California students and taxpayers, who would not benefit from guaranteed salaries or stipends that would match their housing costs. In the end, the class war that is being waged is not between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie but between the new class and those living outside of government-sponsored guarantees.
The views expressed here are my own and do not in any way represent the views or positions of the University of California.
Pretzel Logic
(or You Can’t Always Get What You Want…and You Don’t Get What You Need.)
Having grown up across the street from a GM assembly plant and 100 feet from the local UAW office, I found David Pan’s characterization of the UAW’s position as Marxist in its negotiations with the University of California on behalf of striking grad students and post-docs very intriguing. I often witnessed the UAW “shop stewards” hassling members of the American Communist Party who would stand by the exit gates next to the UAW office trying to hand out copies of the Daily Worker during shift changes. Then there is the well-known history of Walter Reuther’s own anti-communist campaigns and his success in gutting the UAW of any communist influence, despite the critical role the communist movement played in the formation of the UAW in 1937. Given this, I wanted to learn how, when and where the UAW returned to its historical roots. It turns out that the current aspersions of Marxism in the UAW’s negotiations are more the result of a sense of personal outrage at their demands than any attempt on the part of the UAW to constitute itself as a revolutionary party.
By the late ‘30s, workers in the GM plant in Flint, Michigan, faced a situation in which they were not allowed to negotiate their working conditions; the employer wielded absolute authority; there was no job security; the industry was dominated by monopolistic relations; exploitation in unpaid work was rampant; and wages did not cover the cost of living. Fast forward to California and the UoC strike, and it doesn’t sound like much has changed. What also hasn’t changed is the argument here that the employer has a privileged place in dictating the terms of employment. Just like auto manufacturers or mine operators would argue that their industry was too vital to the national economy to be subject to the “free market” — as recently as the Great Recession, GM had to be bailed out based on this reasoning — Pan’s argument appears to fall in line with the belief that the University is too vital to the national Bildung to be subject to the tawdry concerns of the living standards of those who work on its behalf.
In the name of defending the intellectual priorities of the University, Pan attempts to identify certain demands of the strikers with the words of Karl Marx. It appears that challenges to the economic model of the University and demands for recognition of the social conditions of its employees is itself a socialist-inspired plot. This recalls the typical Cold-War red-baiting that used to occur during times of worker strife. At the same time, if you believe, as Pan does, that the University has been subject to corporatization, then why fault its employees for challenging their status in that situation? Apparently, Pan believes that in their activism, the strikers exemplify the power struggle of the New Class. So what you have here is a Marxist inspired protest with Gouldnerian characteristics: a socialist New Class movement. Let’s examine this pretzel logic more closely.
The parallels between the demands of the UoC strike and the “Critique of the Gotha Program” are spurious at best. Pan more than insinuates that the demands for wages to cover housing, living and medical costs are an unjustified utopian aspiration. Apparently, in using UoC’s own communication and data on this matter, Pan believes the UoC’s offer is reasonable “by most measures.” What those measures actually are he does not say, but they don’t appear to be defined by whether the compensation actually meets immediate needs. Instead Pan, is promoting the University’s own arguments that its offer is very generous and better than compensation for similar work offered at other comparable institutions. As those of us who have gone through the system know full well, this at best is a very low bar. The recent strike at the New School and previous unrest at Columbia, Brown, NYU, Indiana, just to name a few, is indicative of the on-going sense of exploitation that is being felt by the grad student and post-doc cohort. This was only highlighted even more when UCLA advertised for a non-paying adjunct teaching position, defending itself with the same reasoning that was used on summer interns, resume building. Apparently, the fact that the private sector no longer finds it acceptable to not pay for work has not been registered by University management.
According to Pan, conceding to the UAW’s demands will create a radical shift in the compensation paradigm for the university system, namely, that grad students would be paid more than some junior faculty. But is that where the problem lies? In addition, the UAW’s position — that the contract meet the needs of its members — does not reflect the workings of the free market, but a socialist inspired plot that is taken from the handbook of Karl Marx: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Apparently, needs should not be a basis for determining compensation. So the satisfaction of needs is no longer a characteristic of the free market but a socialist inspired precept. What further offends Pan is that it doesn’t take into account the quality or quantity of work. This then begs the question, what do you do with those whose needs do not match their abilities? But let’s put that ethical question aside for now and look at the obvious, namely, that the quality and quantity of people’s work is often shaped by their financial anxiety.
Intentionally or not, Pan’s argument is a defense of an elite intellectual class, while lifting his nose at those whose “activism” identifies a motley crew allowed in through the golden doors of higher education by diversity, inclusion and affirmative action. Their behavior aligns more with that of the rabble; it questions all qualitative hierarchy; and makes all compensation in University work indistinguishable. This is nothing more than a socialist-inspired redistribution of wealth. After all, they are only part time employees not expected to work more than 20 hours a week. Does anyone really believe this? If so, then let’s have them punch a clock. Better still, pay them as piece workers. Perhaps Peloton instructors are the model; they get paid by the number of butts that Zoom into their classes. (I wouldn’t be surprised if an administrator hasn’t already thought about putting spin bikes in a lecture hall.)
As to be expected, the University argues that agreeing to the UAW’s demands would break its budget and it’s a contract it can’t afford. As an economic powerhouse in the state, this is quite dubious. It’s not an institution the state is going to abandon. Nevertheless, Pan believes that it would lead to higher taxes and tuition. This is an old familiar trope feeding off consumer fears. Even more so, higher compensation, according to Pan, would be detrimental since it would remove the incentive to work. This, of all the arguments, really is beyond the pale. Unlike Pan, a tenured member of the faculty whose job and compensation is relatively secure and therefore has no incentive to produce, I don’t understand where the de-incentivization in higher pay lies. Does he really believe the more you pay people the less they will work? That the only way to “incentivize” people is to make them struggle for existence, to sacrifice all personal time to make ends meet? At this point, if I were Pan, I would be looking over my shoulder for the sound of rattling chains and be wary of Marley’s Ghost. (Given Pan’s attitude to diversity and inclusion, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were Bob.)
All in all, the UAW’s demands for equitable pay are for Pan another example of an attempt at a socialist experiment, none of which in his view has ever succeeded. Here we see some more red-baiting. On this point, the near collapse of the on-going capitalist experiment 15 years ago and the freeze up of markets in March 2020, staved off only by the intervention of the government as the market maker of last resort, doesn’t factor into the equation. However, in itself, a redistribution of wealth perhaps wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it began with the $4.1 million, six-year, guaranteed salary paid to the UCLA basketball coach, not including bonuses for tournament wins and titles. You’d think the salary itself would be sufficient incentive, but it appears UCLA felt that here more comp was needed for him actually to produce what he was hired for.
As we take the pretzel apart, you hear in Pan’s argument echoes of the “strawberry statement,” the same moldy fig complaints about standards and activist students I used to hear from my teachers in graduate school. Student activism is the perennial bogeyman, only this time it’s put at the doorstep of the diversity policies of the University. It appears to forget the campus activism of the last 80 years: the ‘ban the bomb” movement; the Free Speech movement; the Civil Rights movement; the anti-war movement; the student movement; the anti-nuke movement; the South Africa divestment movement; and so forth. But the contortions continue when Pan inverts the power relation, abandons the Marxist simile, and objectifies the protesters as the New Class. Their strike for a living wage is now a manufactured capitalist crisis with the intent on leveling everyone; their articulation of needs distorted into an argument of entitlement; their demand for a guaranteed state contract as state employees another usurpment of the free market. To me, the strike appears like a classic struggle between a managerial class which controls the means of production and those who only have their labor power. As for their activism, I seem to recall the words of another young post-doc who said, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world…the point, however, is to change it.”
It’s sad to see the commodification of education linked to the proletarianization of the lumpen professoriate proceeding with unchecked momentum along so many vectors. Ironic that claims grounded in social justice serve as drivers. Doubtless, a specter is haunting academia—the specter of woke neoliberalism.