A Revised Marxist Political Economy of National Education Markets

This article synthesises the social and economic dynamics of both non-market and market production in national education systems, drawing primarily on Marx's analysis of the commodity and Hirsch on positional competition. Market production has six principal aspects: a defined field of production, protocols governing entry/exit, the production of scarce and individualised commodities, monetary exchange and price-based coordination, competition between consumers, and market subjectivities/behaviours. In national systems the dominant form of education continues to be a status competition led by elite institutions that in key respects do not behave like capitalist firms. Elite universities and schools do not expand to meet demand, but remain exclusive, maximising the value of the student places they provide. Their lodestone is not revenues, but social status and power. Revenues are means to the fulfilment of status objectives. Fully commercial education is mostly conducted in lower status institutions that are subject to the price cutting of quality in a ‘race to the bottom’. Nevertheless, fully commercial forms of education are gaining ground in national education systems, and still more at the global level in the cross-border education of foreign students and trade in intellectual property. The article examines the various kinds of educational commodity.