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 As small-scale competitive capitalism is superceded by large-scale monopoly capitalism workers can no longer be trained at home or at work.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.