i am super biased here because i am an academic and would like to continue to be one *but* i do feel there comes a point where you have to ask yourself what the point of ‘the economy’ is if it doesn’t support education or healthcare or the arts or housing or food or water and utilities - ThreadSky

ninamarkl.bsky.social • 152 days ago

i am super biased here because i am an academic and would like to continue to be one *but* i do feel there comes a point where you have to ask yourself what the point of ‘the economy’ is if it doesn’t support education or healthcare or the arts or housing or food or water and utilities

Reposted from Nina Markl 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

not an original observation but i was just explaining that the UK higher ed sector is in a bad financial position to my mum (who’s lived in austria all her life) and it is actually a very strange thing to explain that the ‘education sector’ is struggling

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bryannthomas.bsky.social•151 days ago

The aqueduct?

gameboardgames.bsky.social•151 days ago

Reminds me of Canada,sadly! Some of the highest costs of living and highest real estate prices in the world with some of the lowest wages in the 1st world and you can't even find a doctor. Eventually,our 19th century design of an economic system will have to be improved or things will get far worse!

richpuchalsky.bsky.social•151 days ago

I am sort of academia adjacent, but also an anarchist. The function of the academy isn't really education, it's certification for jobs. It's hurting because of deskilling (i.e. the people running our societies would increasingly prefer a less skilled/productive and more controllable labor force).

ninamarkl.bsky.social•151 days ago

also true

mrgoyette.bsky.social•151 days ago

Yes, and also these services get slowly privatized, the profit motive causes them to work less efficiently in terms of service provided ('efficiency' gets used in contradicting ways by populists). It gets to the point where the right argues that gov should not provide any services. They 'dont work'

chrismurray.bsky.social•151 days ago

Sixth largest economy in the world.
1 in 3 children in poverty.

I don't wanna be controversial but I think maybe capitalism doesn't work *quite* as well as we keep being told it does.

mariawolters.bsky.social•151 days ago

Yeah. I fled the hierarchies of German academia twenty years ago, but now I am making my way back - at least education won’t cost a kidney for almost all of our students.

phronimoss.bsky.social•151 days ago

It has never been easier and cheaper to get an education, but it's never been harder to separate the wheat from the chaff in the world of information if you don't already have the faculty of discernment that formal education used to provide.

witwarrior.bsky.social•151 days ago

And what is the point of entrusting the nation’s wealth to a government that seems dedicated to keeping the population in fear and want?

freedomforall.net•151 days ago

The point of the economy is to concentrate wealth and power amongst the winners. It's a terrible system and it destroys everything good about life on the way. It won't change until we change it.

ninamarkl.bsky.social•151 days ago

agreed

freedomforall.net•151 days ago

We can change it. This is what frustrates me more than anything. Money is not real, just a construct used to funnel power to the few. I learned that when working in investment banking - a career I spurned once I realised how toxic wealth concentration is. It has been so since the early Roman empire.

mrgoyette.bsky.social•151 days ago

We need solidarity

Populists have been very effective in driving wedges in working class over the last 100 years

It's the thing which the West's 'worshipped heroes' have in common, from Churchill up to Trump/Musk

mrgoyette.bsky.social•151 days ago

Outside of the racism, this is the reason why Henry Ford thought Hitler was so great. He was magnificent at keeping the poor fools working in the factory.

freedomforall.net•151 days ago

Not just amongst the working class within nations, but international solidarity is required to face the challenges of equity: otherwise racist tropes and fear of others is too easily stoked.

fredgorski.bsky.social•151 days ago

Exactly! Economists never pay attention to education or healthcare except when 1) heigher levels of them are good for business; or 2) government efforts to do so are bad for business. Turns out wealthy people are lol about the prospective of new technology annihilating the need for human labour

fredgorski.bsky.social•151 days ago

so now 2 is what’s on their mind and that’s why they’re backing up extreme right efforts to gain power all over the world.

freedomforall.net•151 days ago

Yes you are right. The game is up, but the public haven't grasped that yet, so more suffering gets inflicted as the price they have to pay for choosing ignorance.

fredgorski.bsky.social•151 days ago

I don’t know how it is where you live(?) but here in Brazil they try convince people that they can be entrepreneurs themselves and totally refuse labour laws b/c, as the argument goes, they lead to slavery. The truth is the opposite but people are buying it so far. Of course religion here plays

fredgorski.bsky.social•151 days ago

a big role here because evangelical churches embrace the economic discourse and sell people the prospect of achieving prosperity in this life by joining and following the congregation.

mairsrambles.bsky.social•147 days ago

Not to worry, I'm sure the voluntary sector will somehow step in and deal with ALL the resulting problems, although not with any extra funding of course🤪

mokojumbee.bsky.social•151 days ago

I recommend Rosenberg’s recent book, “Whatever it is, I’m against it”. It’s the best thing I’ve ever read about the crisis in higher ed.

stolas.bsky.social•151 days ago

"We have all this money!" can we use some of it to like... feed people? "Hell no, COMMIE!"

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