"This seminal work . . . establishes a persuasive new paradigm."--Contemporary Sociology No book since Schooling in Capitalist America has taken on the systemic forces hard at work undermining our education system. This classic reprint is an invaluable resource for radical educators. Samuel Bowles is research professor and director of the behavioral sciences program at the Santa Fe Institute, and professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts. Herbert Gintis is an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute and emeritus professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts.

Out there in the so-called real world the education system is being crushed by the demands of capitalism and, in turn, is crushing those who pass through it, reducing them, diminishing them. The dream of the economic functioning unit. How do we break this? We need alternatives but not just one or two. We need the freedom and education to generate a trillion possibilities. An education system that is as broad as it is deep, that brings back a different type of thinking and a new use of fiction. This book signals the return of the dialogue and the conversation as the ground out of which new realities are born, the root out of which new alternatives are nurtured and explored.

In today’s vernacular, Marx ‘outed’ capitalism well over a century ago; however, his explanation has been both ignored and misinterpreted by not only his detractors but also by many socialists and even a considerable number of Marxists as well. Today we are experiencing the full impact and suffering the repercussions of capitalism’s inherent need to grow and become, more than ever before, a fully internationalized and integrated system of socioeconomic control and domination—the global system that many commentators have suddenly remembered Marx and Engels (1848) presciently forecasted in the Communist Manifesto.

Leslie examine every aspect of academic work unexplored: undergraduate and graduate education, teaching and research, student aid policies, and federal research policies.

The modern university has been viewed by scholars as an oasis of academic autonomy that stands above or outside society and its political conflicts. Clyde Barrow challenges that vision with his conclusion that corporations and government have been the dominant social forces shaping the goals and structure of the American university. In particular, Barrow’s thesis is that a “scientific survey movement”—a broad political coalition led by business executives, engineers, private foundation staff members, and government officials—successfully transplanted many of the values and practices of corporate and bureaucratic administration to colleges and universities. As a result, Barrow argues that universities are best understood as a part of the state’s institutional structure designed to regulate academic intellectuals through a combination of market initiatives, bureaucratic procedures, and state coercion. In this manner, an ideological system has been constructed which is closely connected to the needs of the economic and political system.

The authors call on the need to combine education with capitalism. Drawing on insights and findings from history, psychology, sociology, political science, and economics, they show how, if our schools were moved from the public sector to the private sector, they could once again do a superior job providing K&–12 education.

This book discusses pedagogical solutions that enable students to see how capitalist processes and economic inequalities intersect and shape our assumptions and behaviours. The contributors provide thoughtful reflections on the struggles and opportunities instructors face in teaching about these topics while competing against the invisibility of capitalist forces and prevalent social myths, such as “anyone who works hard can achieve”. This book will not only help instructors empower students to recognize economic injustice and its interaction with capitalist organization, but also develops and acts on transformative solutions. Through analysis of the classed dimensions of the current political, economics, and cultural climate, as well as presenting novel lesson plans and classroom activities, this book is of great value for college and university professors.