ABSTRACT
Neoliberal and neoconservative policy differ in various national contexts, but its aims at maximising private capitalist profit, fundamental to capitalism, do not vary. This maximisation of profit is at the expense of both the social wage and the individual wage and working conditions and rights of workers, such as education workers. The chapter locates these developments more theoretically within Marxist educational analysis, referring to western Marxist reproduction and resistance theorists such as Althusser, Gramsci, Anyon, Bowles and Gintis, Bourdieu, Apple, Willis, Giroux, McLaren, Rikowski and the chapter author’s own work. It concludes by suggesting a socialist policy for education: a public education service, comprehensive in nature (what in India is called the common school), with no charges to students, that prioritises social and economic justice and critical thinking.
