Exploring Marxist Theory: Why is School a Drag?
After thinking about how school becomes like work (in my SI paper) it occurred to me
that Marxists might consider the alienation of life and work as the critical reason why school is
not fun. Structural Marxists might be interested in the idea that school is compulsory until the
age of sixteen. Theoretically, public school is a public good, provided for free, so why is
attendance compulsory? If education is free and valuable (even essential) then why do we have
to make it mandatory? Why do we need to coerce people to send their kids to school?
Alternatively, why would anyone want to home school their children?
Public school has become an alternative to child labor, which is now regulated by the
state. Presumably, the state is defending the class interest (as opposed to the individual selfish
interest) of capital, which requires an educated, trained labor force. As small-scale competitive
capitalism is superceded by large-scale monopoly capitalism workers can no longer be trained at
home or at work. The discipline of machine-driven production is mind-numbing and must be
imposed upon a reluctant laborer. The habit of obedience to unreasonable demands and the
compulsive attention to meaningless tasks requires extensive training. The assembly-line mass
production system of public education (as captured by Pink Floyd in their video for "The Wall")
parallels the factory system of commodity production and thereby prepares the students for a
future as commodity producers who are, themselves, commodities. Actually, it is their labor
power that is the commodity and, as we already considered in applying Marx, education is a
system through which the future value of labor is enhanced and, at the same time, evaluated
(graded) in order to indicate potential future value. As education continues beyond the
mandatory age the students are encouraged to specialize in preparing for particular types of
labor, including professional, technical, and managerial occupations.
Those who fail to specialize are reduced to common labor, or service work, or machine
minding. Perhaps it is this bleak alternative, as my daughter says, "flipping burgers at Burger
King," that inspires students to persevere and to search for some less painful way to sustain
themselves as adult workers. School provides both a means of transcending the most mundane
and unpleasant labor and also a rationalization for imposing such tasks on others. If they only
had studied more diligently they would not be reduced to working in the fast food industry or
cleaning the houses of professional women. Perhaps this ideological function of education is as
important as its economic function. Education not only disciplines the would-be worker but also
legitimates the hierarchy of meaningless labor, in which physicians and lawyers and corporate
executives earn fabulous sums while those who serve these professionals or managers (clerical
and service workers) earn poverty-level wages with limited benefits.
Education also promotes consumerism. College students tend to think of themselves as
consumers, who buy useful credits that can be accumulated in efforts to earn a degree that can
then be parlayed into a better job. In this view the teacher is like the fast food worker, who
prepares the product for the hungry student. The problem, however, is that the student does not
always get the service that he or she desires. When the education was compulsory and free (in
high school) there were still complaints about boring classes and too much homework, but
college credits are expensive, which makes the student resent the fact that they are paying for the
privilege of being bored.
Here we seem to be facing one of the contradictions of the experience of higher
education. Students who view themselves as consumers fail to realize that they are not
consumers but producers. Furthermore, the product is not "useful credits" but accumulated
expertise and discipline in the manipulation of objects, including self and others. Ultimately, the
student is the product, and the packaging of the product for future employers is the final stage in
the process. The preparation of the resume, the rounds of career fairs and job interviews finally
lead to that moment when the former student can sell his or her labor power to the highest
bidder. This is the culmination of years of education and training. The student can now sell (or,
if sufficiently wealthy, buy) labor power in order to earn the money required to maintain the
consumer lifestyle that he or she desires or requires in order to live that life that comes after
school and after work. Ultimately, the student might accumlate enough wealth to retire. Then
the real fun begins, after 18 years of education and 35 years of work, you might then have earned
the right to relax and enjoy life, whatever that is. If you have consumed wisely you may still
have the abs of steel and (with chemical assistance) may still be able to pursue the play and
leisure activities that you enjoy so much today.