ABSTRACT

Referring in the context of their ruminations on EU guidelines, not surprisingly, to human capital theory, the two authors note that the European policy is reframing the notion of higher education finance in a way that legitimizes the accumulation of capital in the realm of public higher education. Policy-makers do this by identifying non-public "investors," anticipating their interests as well as their expectations, and providing rules and norms for capitalist activities in higher education. The formalization of the 2 per cent GDP benchmark certainly needs to be understood as an effort to increase the visibility of private investments and create, at the same time, a reliable and shared "testing device" to measure the level of capitalist activities in higher education. The introduction of a legitimate and common standard of capitalist behaviour thus paves the way for further capitalist action in the academic world. The harsh facts are illustrated by American Research Libraries' data for the period 1986 to 2000.