Table Of ContentKnowledge for Sale
Infrastructures Series
edited by Geoffrey C. Bowker and Paul N. Edwards
Paul N. Edwards, A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the
Politics of Global Warming
Lawrence Busch, Standards: Recipes for Reality
Lisa Gitelman, ed., “Raw Data” Is an Oxymoron
Finn Brunton, Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet
Nil Disco and Eda Kranakis, eds., Cosmopolitan Commons: Sharing
Resources and Risks across Borders
Casper Bruun Jensen and Brit Ross Winthereik, Monitoring Movements in
Development Aid: Recursive Partnerships and Infrastructures
James Leach and Lee Wilson, eds., Subversion, Conversion, Development:
Cross-Cultural Knowledge Exchange and the Politics of Design
Olga Kuchinskaya, The Politics of Invisibility: Public Knowledge about
Radiation Health Effects after Chernobyl
Ashley Carse, Beyond the Big Ditch: Politics, Ecology, and Infrastructure at
the Panama Canal
Alexander Klose, translated by Charles Marcrum II, The Container
Principle: How a Box Changes the Way We Think
Eric T. Meyer and Ralph Schroeder, Knowledge Machines: Digital Transfor-
mations of the Sciences and Humanities
Geoffrey C. Bowker, Stefan Timmermans, Adele E. Clarke, and Ellen
Balka, eds., Boundary Objects and Beyond: Working with Leigh Star
Clifford Siskin, System: The Shape of Knowledge from the Enlightenment
Bill Maurer and Lana Swartz, eds., Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks, and
Other Money Stuff
Lawrence Busch, Knowledge for Sale: The Neoliberal Takeover of Higher
Education
Knowledge for Sale
The Neoliberal Takeover of Higher Education
Lawrence Busch
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2014 Éditions Quae. © 2017 Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Introduction.
First English language edition published by the MIT Press.
Originally published as Le marché aux connaissances by Lawrence Busch,
© 2014 Éditions Quae
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying,
recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in
writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Stone Sans and Stone Serif by Toppan Best-set
Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Busch, Lawrence, author.
Title: Knowledge for sale : the neoliberal takeover of higher education /
Lawrence Busch.
Description: Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, 2017. | Series:
Infrastructures series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016031906 | ISBN 9780262036078 (hardcover : alk.
paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Education, Higher--Economic aspects. | Education,
Higher--Aims and objectives. | Universities and colleges--
Administration. | Neoliberalism. | Capitalism and education.
Classification: LCC LC67.6 .B87 2017 | DDC 338.43378--dc23 LC record
available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016031906
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of Susan Leigh Star, mentor and friend
Contents
Preface to the English Language Edition xi
Acknowledgments xix
The Market for Knowledge 1
Crises 3
Climate change 3
Rising and more volatile food prices 4
Water shortages 5
Rising energy costs 5
Widespread obesity 6
Financial crises 7
Liberalisms and Neoliberalisms 11
Human knowledge is always limited 15
An irrefutable logical model can transcend the limits of human
knowledge 15
Institutions must be reshaped so as to fit the logical model 17
The ability of States to intervene in markets must be limited 17
Social justice as both a concept and a set of policies is rejected as
a mirage 18
Selves are to be reconstructed as isolated and entrepreneurial 18
viii Contents
Beyond Neoliberalisms 21
The self is social 21
Each institution promotes certain kinds of selves and rejects other
kinds 22
People, institutions, and things make society together 23
Communities of scholars and invisible colleges are essential to the
creation of knowledge 24
Markets are forms of governance 24
Educated citizens are essential for democracy; without democracy,
liberty is illusory 26
Addressing the crises that confront us requires that we imagine,
debate, and enact new futures 26
Administration 31
Changing roles and increasing numbers of administrators 32
Shift from academics to managers as administrators 39
Creation of administrative careers 39
Growth in salaries of top administrators 39
Growth in advertising and marketing of universities and research
institutes 40
Growth in numbers of part-time and temporary (adjunct)
faculty 41
Changing sources of university and research institute financial
support 42
Universities by the numbers 43
Education 49
From public good to private good 49
Shift from public support for higher education to individual
support 52
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) 55
Contents ix
A decline in foreign language instruction 56
Education solely as a means of maximizing one’s salary 57
Growth in testing and standardizing of knowledge 58
Plagiarism 61
Dumbing down higher education 62
Research 65
Counting publications 65
Counting citations 67
Checking prestige of journals 71
Downgrading of books and book chapters 74
Competing for grants 75
Greater incidence of fraud 77
Ghost and honorary authorship 78
Forced citations by journal editors 79
Rising costs of journals as a few publishers corner the market 80
Conflicts of interest in research 81
Changes in intellectual property rights 84
Public Engagement and Extension 91
Decline in public support 92
Growth of private extension-like services 93
Wider gap between research and extension 93
Decline of public interest research 94
Rise of strongly ideological think tanks 94
Consequences 97
Higher education is being rapidly altered 97
Research is more and more dominated by immediate (often
economic) ends 98
Increasing corporate domination of the research enterprise 99
Discouraging innovation and high-risk research 100
