The Accumulation of Freedom by Deric Shannon Anthony J. Nocella II John Asimakopoulos

Author:Deric Shannon, Anthony J. Nocella II, John Asimakopoulos
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849350952
Publisher: AK Press

New York University students barricaded themselves inside a campus cafeteria and demanded greater budget transparency [2/18/09], tuition stabilization and divestment from Israel. Although the occupation ended in failure, defeat turned to victory when the retaliatory suspension of 18 students galvanized campus support. The subsequent protests forced the administration to reverse their punitive measures.[56]

Such occupations and student protests in the United Kingdom were relatively sustained through 2010,[57] and student resistance in the United States has since expanded to address the educational rights of immigrants. In response to draconian legislation subjecting Latino/a and indigenous populations to racial profiling and unequal treatment under the law (SB 1070), and to the cutting of “ethnic studies” programs across Arizona, students continue an aggressive campaign of civil disobedience—including the occupation of school board meetings in Tucson[58]—to demand equal access to culturally relevant public education. In the already discussed state of California, students continue to join faculty and staff unions to protest skyrocketing tuitions, shrinking enrollment, department faculty/instructor/staff layoffs, increasing classroom size, ballooning administrative pay and growth, and a refusal by state officials across the board to seek revenues from (for example) oil extraction, as done in many other states to fund public higher education.[59] These and other observations suggest that the emerging generation of workers and students are less than fond of their current predicaments, and are willing to resist their own school and state administrations to affect policy. Rather than a collection of random events, we might consider this primarily student-led resistance as part of the larger global movement against imposed austerity programs, where, as in fiscally unstable countries of the EU, young people join those near retirement in protesting massive cuts to public education, retirement pensions, public health care, and public sector employment. The false promises of education (sustainable employment with the imagined quality of life to boot) meet the false promises of wage slavery (retirement) in the post-Fordist West to create interesting and potentially powerful lines of solidarity.

Spain and Greece offer perfect illustrations of this solidarity in action. Political analysts in Greece have reported that people’s future aspirations across socio-economic status have dropped to all-time lows, along with studies from the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research suggesting that economic indices have never been so low since they began reporting in 1981.[60] Kaimaki describes the conditions of what is now being called the “700 Euro Generation,” who recently participated in the country’s anarchist and labor inspired uprisings, resulting in the municipal takeover of several cities, and what is a sustained movement against capitalism and the Greek police state:

This united front is led by a generation of the very young. There is a reason for this: daily life for most young Greeks is dominated by intensive schooling aimed at securing a university place. Selection is tough and children focus hard on it from the age of 12. But once the lucky ones get there, they soon discover the reality of life after university: at best, a job at 700 Euros ($1000) a month.[61]

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