"Devine, James" wrote: > > I wouldn't call profs part of the working class or proletariat. Maybe the > semi-proletariat. >
I would call the vast bulk of college & university faculty working class. (The very small number of tenured faculty in the core of elite universities might be seen as something like honorary members of the ruling class it self -- certainly members of this core move in and out of the kinds of government positions traditionally occupied by active members of the ruling class.) But for the most part faculty are not only dependent on the continuation of their wage for survival but, in case of losing their academic positions, are apt to have very poor employment prospects. > Alas, it seems more likely that tenure rights will go away > before they are extended to the (rest of the?) working class. > The attack on Churchill (not the actual killer, the old UK PM) > will mesh well with the current movement to abolish tenure rights. The budgets of 'higher' education have been under attack for decades now, and that attack seems to be accelerating. The illusion so many faculty are under as to their class status partly explains their weakness in meeting this attack, as well as the attack on tenure and academic freedom which is now intensifying. Carrol
