ADAM DAVIDSON-HARDEN

16. NEOLIBERALISM, KNOWLEDGE CAPITALISM AND THE STEERED UNIVERSITY: THE ROLE OF OECD AND CANADIAN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DISCOURSE

It is fitting that the terms ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘knowledge worker’ were likely first coined by the business management thinker Peter Drucker (1969; 1998). Drucker attempted to prophesy the future of capitalism for the good of its protagonists – corporations – in order to help them anticipate the demands of a changing economy and adapt to be profitable. Given the fact that epistemology has puzzled philosophers for millennia, we can be confident that the use of the term ‘knowledge’ in capitalist discourse has been limited in its scope and depth, that is, confined to understanding knowledge as an input and a good which enhances pro- fitability. It is not the purpose of this chapter to examine competing epistemologies in order to compare them with the discourse of the knowledge economy as it relates to education. Rather, I seek to unpack the thematic and conceptual thrusts behind the knowledge economy discourse as it is found in both national (principally Canadian) and international policy levels (using the OECD as a case example) in order to interrogate their use in shaping education, and particularly public universities in Canada. To aid this unpacking, I will employ an eclectic mix of Marx-inspired political economy and critical theory (Morrow, 2006; Schugurensky, 2006; 1999), Foucault-inspired neoliberal governmentality (Peters, 2001a; 2001b), as well as critical pedagogy perspectives to interrogate the knowledge economy in the context of neoliberalism. This particular work, in addition to its theoretical emphasis, is also founded upon tenets of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995) since it is (in the case of the government of Canada and the OECD) discourse, in the form of texts and policy recommendations, that I am interrogating in particular, in order to elicit the particular flavour of neoliberalism in its knowledge economy phase. I will argue here that talk of the knowledge economy represents, at its root, merely an extension or transformation of neoliberal capitalist discourse which works to deepen a perception of education seen through the lens of ‘instrumental rationality’, following the insights of critical theory (Marcuse, 1968), and also to cultivate the behaviour of faculty and the policies of universities to conform with market models, needs and demands, a trend I interpret using the idea of neoliberal ‘governmental rationality’ (or ‘neoliberal governmentality’), building on Foucault’s work (1983; 1991). As such, I locate it as an extension of neoliberal social and economic policy discourse, still the hegemonic policy discourse of our times. With its programmatic focus on shaping state-funded education to suit the needs of capitalism and particularly scientific and technological innovation with commercial

M.A. Peters et al. (eds.), Govermentality Studies in Education, 271–302. © 2009 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. DAVIDSON-HARDEN and market applications, the knowledge economy represents a new wineskin for an older ideology of tying national competiveness and prosperity to specialized industries that are held up as keys to prosperity. When it comes to universities, the idea of governmentality helps us to explore how ‘we’ as faculty and teachers, as well as administrators in public education settings, ‘fit’ into the vision of the knowledge economy or knowledge capitalism, which, building on a critical theory perspective, conceives education as an instrumental good toward the principal and paramount end of accumulating capital for national competitiveness in a global economy. Within a framework of political economy, Schugurensky’s conception of ‘heteronomy’ (1999; 2006) as a constraining envelope of increasing demands from the market and government on universities is useful to understanding the larger picture of decline in state funding over time during the growing ascendancy of neoliberal policy. The chapter will proceed by first laying out a synthesized theoretical foundation for analysis rooted in neoliberalism and mentioned above, followed by an exploration of the use of the knowledge economy discourse in the hands of key international organizations as well as the Canadian government and other a few other Canadian stakeholder organizations, including the Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences. Having accomplished this, I will end with a brief discussion of implications for public universities, as well as faculty and administrators.

UNDERSTANDING NEOLIBERALISM Since neoliberalism plays such a strong role in my analysis, it is necessary to start with this much-used concept in order to lay a proper foundation for an appreciation of how the knowledge economy is situated as an extension of neoliberal discourse for education. Indeed, the term is, one might say, too often used without a necessary mapping or genealogy of its roots and significance. The specific term neoliberalism has been in use for at least a half-century (Friedrich, 1955), as prominent European economists began to articulate their own particular version of a policy founded in the tenets of economic liberalism, yet suggestive of new trends in thought (Peters, 2001b). This latter body of thought of course stretches back to founding thinkers of the 18th century such as Adam Smith, whose theories foreshadowed the massive industrial development in the 19th century which was to propel capitalism far beyond the domestic economy that Smith, for one, idealized. Similarly, economic liberalism has been historically associated with conceptions of liberalized trade or free trade, also a common term in the 19th century. The idea that capital and investment ought to be free from as much intervention and regulation as possible, stands as a kernel conception behind economic liberalism. However, as alluded to above, within a thinker like Smith’s paradigm there were articulated necessary constraints on capital; in his case an idea of free markets was decidedly restricted to the national economy where investors were expected to re-invest in the productive capacity of a particular nation-state (McMurtry, 1999, pp. 42–44). As capitalism exploded beyond national barriers to become truly global, economic liberalism as key modus operandi for nation-states transformed until eventually it little resembled

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