Higher Education: A Solution to, or Problem in, Rising Social Inequalities Susan L. Robertson Centre for Globalisation, Education and Social Futures, University of Bristol SRHE Annual Conference, Newport, 2015

Piketty’s arguments 1.A critique of ‘Kuznet’s Curve’ 2.First law of capitalism – capital income ratio is high, then the owners of capital will earn a larger piece of the pie 3.Second law of capitalism - high savings and low growth will result in an enormous amount of capital relative to income 4.Rise of the rentier class, super- salaries and new forms of patrimony

Politics matters.. Piketty points to the relationship between long-run evolution of income and wealth in capitalist economies and the importance of politics and policy in shaping governance frameworks, institutional arrangements (tax, labour laws) and of social norms in mediating outcomes.

Lacunae 1 Education is a technical rather than a social and political process

And the solution is….? “The best way to reduce inequalities with respect to labour …is to invest in education….” Piketty, 2014: pp

But education is also part of the problem..

A class war… Sure there is a class war, and it is my class, the rich, who are making it, and we are winning (Stein, 2006: 1)

Lacunae 2 A methodological nationalist lens

Global division of labour..

Lacunae 3 Education and the culture of the new capitalism

a. declining tax receipts, education and debt

b. education a new frontier for commodification…

c. new social norms – individualism, entrepreneurship and normalisation of greed

Conclusions By way of an agenda for change…

Social justice in education…not only concerns equality in distribution of an education service (important as fair distribution is). Social justice concerns the nature of the service itself, and the consequences for society through time (Connell, 2012: 681)

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