In focusing on the wealthy as the singular source of economic inequality, progressive politics obscures the machineries of privilege which function at all levels of society. Individuals are trapped within these mechanisms; their lives lessened in ways that are far more damaging than the actions of the βone per cent.β
Economic hierarchies are maintained not by brute force, but by strategies which rationalize the privilege of a few and the struggle of many. Within a multitude of economic contexts, structures of inequality are arduously perpetuated, even by those who consistently profess a belief in economic justice. Progressives need to analyze these contradictions and to expose the strategies which are utilized to justify hierarchy. Academia provides an excellent laboratory for this kind of analysis. Within academia, the contradictions between words and practices are particularly stark. Publicly, Professors often denounce the structures of privilege constructed by the top one per cent in this country. Privately, the small, tenured professorial class perpetuates a system through which it acquires disproportionate resources while condemning the majority of university faculty β non tenure-track adjuncts β to often live in near poverty.[1] full: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/13/progressives-and-the-economic-inequality-in-academia/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
