Universities as Autonomous Zones
Universities are contested, contradictory spaces in society: they facilitate the pursuit of justice and freedom, but also serve as an ideological support and resource supply for dominant, hierarchical systems. Although public universities receive taxpayer support, this does not necessarily make universities mere instrument of the state. They can and often do serve state interests, however. Political scientists help politicians determine how to win office or govern. Certain fields of science and engineering support weapons development. Computer scientists have assisted in the creation of tools and systems for state surveillance and cyber-warfare. And anthropologists, psychologists, and sociologists have been hired to advice the US military on counter-insurgency strategies in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. But, this does not imply that universities must serve such functions.
Universities also contribute greatly to capitalism, first of all by training the next generation of business managers, accountants, and economists. And much research conducted at universities is eventually privatized in a process that David Noble describes in Force of Production, after public monies are invested for years or even decades in certain technologies, corporations swoop in with patents to take advantage. This has happened with everything from machine tools, aerospace, and computers. But, this does not mean that universities must serve corporate capitalism.
Most all of America’s dominant institutions have been captured by neoliberal cheerleaders—the state, all economic industries, and mass media and entertainment. Contrary to the claims of the paranoid far-right, American elites are vigilant defenders of American capitalism and American exceptionalism. Perhaps one reason why the far-right is so vitriolic in its attacks upon higher education is because it’s one of the few institutions not captured by those elites.
Arguably, universities should be viewed as spaces to serve and prioritize civil society. According to Jeffrey Alexander, the civil sphere is the social sphere where most of us—except for state policy planners or CEOs—dwell. The civil sphere is constantly under-attack and is threatened with invasion by the “non-civil sphere”, namely capitalism and the state. Thus, universities could be incubators for experimenting with nonprofit ways to provide for human needs, for protecting and defending the Earth, for waging struggles for peace and justice, and for learning how to build strong, progressive social movements to usher in such a world. This would be a radically different kind of university. It would be a place where the market doesn’t drive decision-making and the state doesn’t look to it for new resources to wield its power.
Not everyone currently employed at universities would be apt to prefer such an orientation, but for those who understand that capitalism is incompatible with an economically-just society or that the state is a violent, repressive coalition of ruling elites, such an autonomous space would be welcome and crucial to fight for a better society. Universities have the ability to strengthen civil society, but only if not also fueling capitalist exploitation and statist domination at the same time.