Introduction

The US economy with its increasing inequalities has failed to sustain the belief in the power of education and the ability of America’s economic machine to create prosperity for all. So much so, that it is even asserted by some that social class inequality is not inherently wrong as long as “everybody has an opportunity to climb up the ladder” and to achieve the American dream. The consequence is a tendency to live out a tacit resignation to the logic of capital, which interferes with the ability of even progressive or “woke” educators to counter the devastating impact of neoliberalism as a project of extraction and accumulation in this country and abroad. For most Americans, education is heralded as an indisputably “good thing.” Parents frequently mortgage their homes and lives and work inhumanely long hours to finance a “good education” for their children, so they will be able to compete in the “new economy”.