ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the notion that in a complex post-industrial world permeated with inherent risk and problematic disenfranchised ‘risky’ groups with at best a vague commitment to society and considered by some to be in desperate need of some form of social control. Central to such strategies has been the increasing use of surveillance techniques which have become a pervasive part of our lives. Surveillance enables corporations and governments to manage or govern resources, activities and populations. The example cited here is one relevant to academics and their students: that of the changes instigated by neoliberalism in – what has become – the higher education industry. It is an organizational discourse which promotes and legitimizes the takeover of power by managers in public organizations that were previously run by professionals in accordance with their standards. In the now orthodox economic view students do not pay to be taught a discipline by professionals who have proven expertise and subject knowledge, but for the end product of education: a degree or other qualification, the investment of which will bring them profits in the labour market. The chapter concludes with a critical discussion of controlling the poor and neoliberal penality.
