ON THE ROLE OF BOURGEOIS HIGHER EDUCATION IN REGULATING THE SOCIAL-CLASS STRUCTURE OF CAPITALIST SOCIETY

G. G. ANTONOVA

(Presented by the scientific seminar of the Department of Scientific Communism)

At the present stage of the general crisis of capitalism, the social policy of the bourgeoisie has a complex and contradictory character. The Basic Document of the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties emphasizes that capitalism, compelled to adapt to the conditions of the struggle between the two systems and to the demands of the scientific and technological revolution, possesses certain new features¹.

An important place in the social policy of state-monopoly capitalism today is occupied not only by the working class, but also by broad social strata, including a large part of the intelligentsia and white-collar employees, upon whom the tendency toward proletarianization acts and who are becoming part of the wage-labor force. Of increasing significance for it is the regulation of various spheres of social life, in particular, of the social-class structure of society².

Some idea of the essence of its class orientation may be obtained from the example of the use of higher education

for regulating the social composition of the intelligentsia and of white-collar employees.

The intelligentsia and white-collar employees occupy a special place in the social-class structure of capitalist society. The increase in the number of persons now being drawn into highly skilled mental labor, caused above all by the scientific and technological revolution, leads to the working class beginning to play an ever greater role in the formation of the intelligentsia. The heterogeneity of the intelligentsia and white-collar employees is increasing; their various strata either adjoin the leading classes of capitalist society—the proletariat or the bourgeoisie—or occupy an intermediate position between them. Under conditions in which the intelligentsia and white-collar employees are turning into an anti-monopoly force, the bourgeoisie has a growing need to regulate the formation of their various strata, in order to impede this process.

The justification for the necessity of such regulation is presented quite broadly in West German sociological literature. In studies by Soviet and foreign authors, what is usually emphasized is the special, as compared with other countries, flexibility and maneuverability of the social policy of the West German bourgeoisie, conditioned by the particular historical circumstances of its existence.

We do not set ourselves the task of criticizing the general methodology and methods of sociological studies relating to this range of problems. Proceeding from the need to examine sociological theories in connection with the conditions in which they arose and with the class interests they express, we shall concern ourselves with the authors’ interpretation of the results obtained.

The change in the social composition of higher education is closely connected with the question of its role in capitalist society, with the influence of the scientific and technological revolution upon it, and with capitalism’s adaptation to contemporary conditions. Although, compared with other capitalist countries, the representation of the working class in higher education in the FRG is not very large—with the number of students doubling from 1958 to 1965, it rose from 3.2 to 8.3%³—according to statistical data, 23% of students come from needy families that live by selling their labor power.⁴

The importance of higher education as an institution for training specialists is increasing; for this purpose it must take into account the need for personnel, orient itself toward the required level of knowledge, and change the content and structure of education, etc.

In connection with the fact that graduates of higher education enter, for the most part, the ranks of wage labor, its role in the process of forming the consciousness of the intelligentsia is increasing. It must form a definite social orientation among future specialists, preparing such cadres as, regardless of their origin, could not become politically dangerous for the bourgeoisie.

Thus, higher education must help resolve the contradiction between the need to expand the population’s access to education and the interests of the ruling class. In this respect, the conclusions drawn from an analysis of the relationship between social origin and motives for obtaining education, attitudes toward education—

³ “Problems of Peace and Socialism,” No. 9, p. 73, 1969.

⁴ H. Steiner, Changes in the Social Structure of Contemporary Capitalism (in German), p. 85, Berlin, 1967.

by various strata of the population are used by the bourgeoisie to secure its interests in the training of highly qualified personnel.

Among the many works by West German sociologists that analyze these questions, the studies of S. Grimm, M. Schmidbauer, and H. Koerdt stand out: they are written on the basis of surveys of workers and students, and they attempt to show the influence of various factors on the inadequate representation of workers, minor employees, and other low-income strata of the population in higher education, as well as their behavior within it³.

Characteristic in this respect is the very formulation of S. Grimm’s research problem—the clarification of the reasons why workers, as the author believes, make insignificant use of their right to education⁴.

The author comes to the conclusion—without revealing the formal character of this right—that workers, for the most part, have a negative attitude toward higher education, and he links the emergence of such an attitude to the spread among them of a consumer psychology, to the recognition of things as the chief symbol of prestige. As an argument for the greater attractiveness of the occupation of the skilled worker, he points to a certain leveling in the wages of workers and employees.

The explanation of the inadequate representation of the working class in higher education by its failure to understand the value and importance of education is connected with the socio-psychological interpretation of the social process in S. Grimm’s work. Treating social relations as interpersonal, the author passes over the conditions that shape attitudes toward education.

What is at issue here is above all the economic and socio-political conditions that are reflected in the ideas and aspirations of workers. The objective aspects of the life of the proletariat that influence its decision to continue education include insufficient material means to cover the entire sum of expenses connected with obtaining an education. A certain improvement in the life of the working class, observed recently, still cannot eliminate this obstacle. S. Grimm writes that there has been a decline in the number of scholarship holders in connection with the rise in the population’s standard of living; at the same time, according to West German statistics, only 15 percent of students of working-class origin study at their parents’ expense.

Here we encounter not simply facts of unwillingness to study or an acknowledgment of the complete impossibility of obtaining an education, but a broader phenomenon in which the alienated character of the entire existence of the individual in capitalist society is reflected. The individual is conditioned and determined by quite concrete

class relations; her life is subordinated to one or another branch of labor and to the conditions connected with it⁵.

The social conditions in which the working class lives dictate the norms and modes of its life activity. They produce in the worker standard notions of himself and of his class, and thereby, to some extent, level the personality.

In the statements of workers cited in S. Grimm’s book, precisely this class limitation, arising from the conditions of their life, comes through: “It is thrown in my face: why are you, a worker, sending your child to school... Many advise against doing this... Many reason as follows: I am a worker, and you [the child] too must be a worker”⁶.

At the same time, attitudes toward education reflect the deepening of the causes of mass dissatisfaction with the existing situation, which today concerns not only the sphere of material consumption. In the above-mentioned work by O. V. Salkovsky, The Social Policy of the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat, written on the basis of materials from the FRG, it is indicated that the center of gravity of class antagonisms is shifting ever more definitely from the sphere of distribution to the sphere of property relations⁷.

It should be said that the deepening of dissatisfaction is also manifested in an awareness of the narrowness of the limits of the intellectual development of the individual under the conditions of state-monopoly capitalism. Moreover, the example of the development of science and education in the socialist countries exerts a great influence here. The creation of conditions for the development of the personality is connected with changing the very character of social relations—relations that would make possible the manifestation of the interests of the individual, and would be interested in this. In order to assert itself as a personality, the proletariat must destroy the conditions of its own existence that have existed up to now, as K. Marx and F. Engels pointed out⁸.

Here, on the contrary, one can observe the use by the ruling class, in its own interests, of existing traditions and habits characteristic of various strata of the population, including the working class.

This consists, in particular, in the effort to differentiate higher education in order to preserve the monopoly of the upper strata on scholarly education and, at the same time, to satisfy their needs for specialists. In projects for the reform of higher education, emphasis is placed on making use of the utilitarian attitude toward it on the part of certain students who represent in the higher school the low-income strata of the population and the working class.

In the reform plan developed under the leadership of one of the leading West German sociologists, R. Dahrendorf, it is proposed to divide the process of study in the higher school into two stages—the first designed as a three-year course, the second as a six-year one⁹. With regard to the technical school, this tendency is especially clearly traceable. Here, too, the necessity of differentiated training of engineers is justified for re-

the solution of current production tasks, and engineers for carrying out research work and managing production”¹⁰.

Formal inclusion in one or another group of instruction does not depend on social origin. But it proceeds from the existence of different social orientations, determined above all by position in society, and it consolidates them.

The introduction of different forms of higher education may prove to be one of the ways of solving the quantitative and qualitative tasks of training specialists. The increasing specialization of intellectual labor (in the case of engineering, this is expressed in the emergence of various specialties: research engineer, engineer-organizer, etc.) finds its expression in the differentiated training of specialists. But it inevitably acquires a class character, which is masked by references to inadequate abilities or to a narrowly pragmatic evaluation of studies and professional activity by students coming from the ranks of the working class and the lower strata of employees.

A class line is drawn very distinctly in M. Schmidbauer’s study, which examines the interrelation of social origin, motives for obtaining an education, and attitudes toward it. Of the three main groups of motives (higher education is obtained in order to have a highly paid job; study is viewed as the realization of one’s abilities and is conditioned by interest in the chosen specialty; obtaining higher education is merely the fulfillment of a certain duty, dictated by one’s very belonging to a definite social group), students coming from the ranks of the working class and low-paid employees are guided mainly by the first—such is the conclusion the author draws on the basis of surveys¹¹.

In the very existence of the first group of motives there is reflected both the task of the higher school, which today is itself oriented toward graduating specialists, and the social position and origin of the students surveyed. They may show less interest in broad professional education, read fewer books outside the compulsory curriculum, and attend lectures on nonspecialized subjects less regularly, if only because they must, more than others, spend time earning additional income and do not have deep general preparation for study in higher school.

This group of students is more strongly affected by the need to obtain a highly paid specialty, and therefore future work and the acquisition of knowledge are regarded merely as a means to life and far less as an opportunity to realize their abilities and interests.

In the appearance of such motives for obtaining higher education there is also reflected, to some extent, the influence of consumer ideology, disseminated among the population through the system of public propaganda.

It is quite probable that students from among workers and employees, who are close to them in their position, will be oriented more toward obtaining higher education in a short period of time, which is not so burdensome materially.

The consequences of implementing the division of higher education may include the establishment of class control over the process by which the various strata of the intelligentsia and employees are replenished from among persons of different social origins. Specialists who, by their social origin, belong to wage labor will participate in production chiefly at the middle level.

Just as the creation and dissemination of “mass” culture is intended to replace the introduction of the broad masses of the population to genuine culture, so too the limitation of the amount of knowledge they receive—particularly in higher education—means the pursuit of the bourgeoisie’s class line, aimed at preserving the opposition between mental and physical labor, an opposition that increasingly comes into conflict with the tendency of social development.

The expansion of access for the working class and employees to higher education is of great importance for raising the level of their understanding of their fundamental interests. It is one of the paths toward broadening their spiritual world, creates the possibility of resisting capitalism’s attempts to impose a consumer ideology, and thereby promotes the development of revolutionary sentiments among the people.

1. The Tasks of the Struggle against Imperialism at the Present Stage and the Unity of Action of Communist and Workers’ Parties, of All Anti-Imperialist Forces. In: International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. Documents and Materials, p. 297. Moscow, 1969. ↩

2. The growing importance of regulating social life in the functioning of contemporary capitalism is indicated in the works of Soviet and foreign researchers, in particular in the work Imperialism Today, a collective work by scholars of the GDR. Moscow, 1968; and also N. D. Gauzner, Scientific and Technological Progress and the Working Class of the USA. Moscow, 1969; G. G. Diligensky, The Worker in the Capitalist Enterprise. Moscow, 1969; O. V. Salkovsky, The Social Policy of the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. Moscow, 1969. ↩

3. Among works dealing with this set of problems, the following should be named: R. Darendorf, Children of Workers in German Universities. Tübingen, 1965 (in German); S. Grimm, Obstacles to Workers’ Obtaining Education. Munich, 1966 (in German); M. Schmidbauer, Orientation in Study, Attitude toward It, and Academic Performance. Munich, 1968 (in German); H. Koerdt, An Empirical Theory of Obstacles to Obtaining Education. Cologne, 1968 (in German). ↩

4. Among the possible reasons for the inadequate representation of workers in higher education, the following are considered: financial insecurity, poor information about professions requiring higher education, the presence of social prejudices, and an inability to plan one’s own future and that of one’s children. Cited work, p. 56. ↩

5. K. Marx, F. Engels. Collected Works, 2nd ed., 1955, vol. 3, p. 77. ↩

6. S. Grimm. Cited work, pp. 58, 141. ↩

7. O. V. Salkovsky. Cited work, p. 196. ↩

8. K. Marx, F. Engels. Collected Works, 2nd ed., 1955, vol. 3, p. 78. ↩

9. The Bergedorf Protocols. New Paths toward the Reform of Higher Education, p. 51, Hamburg, 1967 (in German). ↩

10. F. Leongardt, The Policy of Higher Professional (Technical) Education. Stuttgart, 1967 (in German). ↩

11. M. Schmidbauer, cited work, pp. 43, 105. It should be noted that the last group of motives for obtaining education, characteristic mainly of representatives of the “upper strata,” reflects the status character of their appropriation of knowledge. For them, what matters is not so much what they study as the very fact of obtaining higher education. ↩