Rumor and reality regarding the University (the Academy)

The Free University (Özgür Üniversite) is a foundation institution that lives up to its name. In this organization, where speakers work on a voluntary basis, courses and classes are held in a wide variety of fields. During the winter term opening program of the Free University, speeches were given on the topic of “Rumor and Reality Regarding the University (the Academy).” I also gave a speech at this meeting, which was attended by a total of eight speakers, and I have provided a brief summary of it below.

When we consider the term “rumor” in the title together with the term “reality,” as I understand it, what is meant is to reveal what kind of institution the university (the academy) actually is—an institution that is seen as the highest level center for thought and scientific production in society and is rumored, that is, incorrectly spread by word of mouth or imagined as such, to enlighten society. With this understanding, I set the title of my speech as “The Problem of Epistemology in Economic Doctrine,” as it is my field. My purpose in this determination was to show what is understood by the university (academy) institution, what should be understood, and in this context, what the primary duty of the institution actually is, by revealing the difference between what is reflected to society in economic teaching/education and what is actually experienced.

Epistemology is the philosophical field that expresses, describes, and explains what is experienced or the processes in life (ontology). When we look briefly at the history of studies in this field, we first encounter René Descartes, who lived between 1596 and 1650. This system, also known as Cartesian dualism, contains a dual phenomenon in a dichotomous structure: the observed and the observer. John Locke, who lived in the late 1500s and 1600s, also established a thought system with a dual structure, arguing that the owner of the value created as a result of the combination of labor and nature is labor. Over time, the change and shaping of economic functioning directed philosophers away from a simple dual structure, or rather from psychological perception, toward a mental logic structure. Indeed, Gottlieb Frege, who lived between 1848 and 1925, argued that philosophy should be freed from the influence of psychology. According to Frege, philosophy should be based on a logical foundation. Bertrand Russell, who lived between 1872 and 1970 and was the founder of the analytical philosophy school, also argued that logic should be the basis for understanding facts (ontology). The same view was put forward by Alfred North Whitehead, who lived between 1861 and 1947. Finally, Martin Heidegger, who lived between 1889 and 1976, while putting forward the existentialist view, argued that an individual's perception of their own existence is related to the perception of the existence of a fact or formation. This argument also coincides with the view of “cryptic domination” by Pierre Bourdieu, who lived between 1930 and 2002. How impartial we can be in our perception is explained by Bourdieu's thesis that individuals are “produced products.” Thomas Kuhn, who attached importance to logic in the formation of thought, also opposed the idea that paradigm shifts would lead researchers to the truth and argued that rationalism should come to the fore. Theories are the envelope, the essence of the matter is in the contents; understanding the contents requires examining it not through rote learning or formalism, but through rationalism.

Capital had developed, the School of Political Economy had exhausted its time, and in the 1840s in England, when the horrors of the Industrial Revolution were continuing with all their intensity, Karl Marx and Engels were now on the scene. The phenomenon of epistemology is not explicitly given in Marx. However, both Marx and Engels clearly state that they owe a lot to Hegel on this subject. In this context, I think it is useful to offer Marx's famous expression as a guide: “If the appearance and the essence of things coincided, science would be entirely unnecessary.” Now capital is categorically on the scene and has brought laborers and peoples under exploitation with all its crushing effect. Thus, while the Political Economy view was turning into the subjective economic view after marginalism, in determining the value of a commodity, economics was choosing the subjective path rather than the real formation path, which is the first path, in the formation of natural elements and psychological elements. With this choice, the weight of capital on science began to increase. Although Marx's critique of Ricardo centers on the view that he could not find exploitation, the fact that political economists, including Smith, at least accepted that the producer of the commodity is labor can be seen as a privilege in the infancy period when the formation was not yet clear. Despite this, the fact that mainstream economic teaching starts not with commodity production as in Marx, but with consumer preferences, should be accepted as the most prominent imposition of capital dominance in mainstream economics. The first sentence of Capital, “The wealth of societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an ‘immense collection of commodities’...” can also be seen as a kind of polite questioning directed at the school of political economy that adopted the labor theory of value, regarding why the rights of the laborers who realized this immense commodity production were not protected.

The classical school of economics has entered into such a pro-capital stance that famous celebrities with Nobel prizes such as Paul Samuelson, Frank Hahn, and Milton Friedman have also adopted capital dominance and built their theories on this view. The teaching of these and similar mainstream economists suggests not how individuals should think, but what they should think. In other words, mainstream economic teaching suggests not analytical and resolving thought, but a scholastic and rote method, because capital has now become dominant and has brought under its exploitative influence not only labor and peoples, but also the world of science that can be effective on society, especially economic teaching.

The formation of resistance against such heavily oppressive teachings and suggestions is also a natural result of dialectics. To give a few examples on this subject, the famous Marxist John Weeks stated in a work that just as Orthodox priests prevented the development of science, mainstream economic teaching also imprisons human thought.

In the period following the 1968 Paris student movements, the work titled The Econocracy, published in the Manchester Capitalism series, included the following expression in its subtitle, which could disgrace any economist who knows themselves: “The danger of leaving economics to experts.” In this study, which contains articles by famous economists, ideas such as saving economics from monophony, destroying its autistic structure, and abandoning the view of methodological individualism were included. In private sector analyses, the determination of profit, profit maximization, and the failure to establish a relationship between profit and exploitation are very clear reflections of the capital-dominant order in economic teaching.

We can also find the pro-capital reflections of mainstream economic teaching in the public sphere in the theory and definition of the state. In mainstream teaching, the dominant classical definition of the state is processed with a triple classification based on resource allocation, income distribution, and stabilization function, with qualifications filtered partly from the German and partly from the Italian public economics field. Although the objections of both Bob Jessop and James O’Connor to this classification, which was put forward and developed by famous names such as Richard Musgrave and James Buchanan, are very appropriate and explanatory, they have not found the place they deserve in mainstream teaching.

As a result; the university is not an independent institution detached from the system, nor can it be. The university is a public institution organized under the dominance of capital through the state in the capitalist system and operating for the benefit of capital. The academic autonomy of the university is limited by Bourdieu's view of “symbolic violence.” The financial autonomy of the university means that it can sell its product like a state-owned enterprise (SOE) and make its own budget, which means the university opening up to the market with paid education. The way to prevent this is to connect the university financially to the general budget and distribute the resources transferred from the general budget according to needs within the university. However, in this solution, the state, the political agent of capital, appears before us. In this case, there is no option left other than to handle the issue as a capital system within a totality. As such, the focus should be on the system, not the university. Because capital is at the center of the matter. Focusing solely on the university (academy) without bringing capital onto the stage leads to the system being pushed into the background and whitewashed. As in all social events, it is necessary to handle the subject of the university (academy) with a holistic view and put capital at the center. When looking at the issue this way, it is understood that the rumor about the university (academy) does not stem from the university (academy) institution itself, but from those who handle the subject. Because the university (academy), like all superstructure institutions, cannot produce knowledge different from the system ideology, and it does not have such a duty in line with the system logic!