Marx's Sausage Factory and Marx's Road: Education and the General Class of Commodities

Marx's Sausage Factory and Marx's Road: Education and the General Class of Commodities

This is a paper I have prepared for the London Historical Materialism 22^nd Annual Conference, SOAS, 6–9 November 2025.

You can now view this paper at Academia:  

https://www.academia.edu/144648586/Marxs_Sausage_Factory_and_Marxs_Road_Education_and_the_General_Class_of_Commodities

 

Abstract

This paper complements the presentation I gave at HM London Conference 2024 where the focus was on labour-power and its social re/production. Labour-power is the unique commodity, the ‘class of one’; the only commodity that has the capacity to generate more value – surplus-value – than what it takes to reproduce itself when it is transformed into labour in capitalist labour processes. For this 2025 presentation, the focus is on the general class of commodities; that is, all commodities excluding labour-power. In particular, educational commodification and value production in educational institutions are explored. Can education be a commodity? Is education productive of value? If education is a commodity why does it matter? These perennial questions regarding educational commodification, questions that bedevil mainstream sociology and liberal thought as much as Marxist educational theory, are at the centre of this presentation. The first section of the paper lays the ground by drawing from Marx’s ideas on the commodity and value production. It also presents some of the hand-wringing statements and nebulous arguments regarding whether education can be a commodity, or not. Section two visits Marx’s metaphor of education as a ‘sausage factory’ in Capital. It indicates how, under certain conditions, what goes on in educational institutions results in commodity and value-production. The third section focuses on ‘Marx’s road’; his discussion on the roles of State, Money and ‘capital as capital’ in the production of value in Notebook V from the Grundrisse. The conclusions from this section are then dragged back to the ‘sausage factory’ to give a fuller account of educational commodification and value production. The Conclusion revisits questions of whether education is, or can be, a commodity, if it produces value, and why such questions are important. This last point draws on the work of Mike Neary.    

Glenn Rikowski, Forest Gate, London, 27^th October 2025

Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski  

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski

Marx's Sausage Factory and Marx's Road: Education and the General Class of Commodities

Marx's Sausage Factory and Marx's Road: Education and the General Class of Commodities

This is a paper I have prepared for the London Historical Materialism 22^nd Annual Conference, SOAS, 6–9 November 2025.

 

You can now view this paper at ResearchGate, at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/396921162_Marx's_Sausage_Factory_and_Marx's_Road_Education_and_the_General_Class_of_Commodities   

 

Abstract

This paper complements the presentation I gave at HM London Conference 2024 where the focus was on labour-power and its social re/production. Labour-power is the unique commodity, the ‘class of one’; the only commodity that has the capacity to generate more value – surplus-value – than what it takes to reproduce itself when it is transformed into labour in capitalist labour processes. For this 2025 presentation, the focus is on the general class of commodities; that is, all commodities excluding labour-power. In particular, educational commodification and value production in educational institutions are explored. Can education be a commodity? Is education productive of value? If education is a commodity why does it matter? These perennial questions regarding educational commodification, questions that bedevil mainstream sociology and liberal thought as much as Marxist educational theory, are at the centre of this presentation. The first section of the paper lays the ground by drawing from Marx’s ideas on the commodity and value production. It also presents some of the hand-wringing statements and nebulous arguments regarding whether education can be a commodity, or not. Section two visits Marx’s metaphor of education as a ‘sausage factory’ in Capital. It indicates how, under certain conditions, what goes on in educational institutions results in commodity and value-production. The third section focuses on ‘Marx’s road’; his discussion on the roles of State, Money and ‘capital as capital’ in the production of value in Notebook V from the Grundrisse. The conclusions from this section are then dragged back to the ‘sausage factory’ to give a fuller account of educational commodification and value production. The Conclusion revisits questions of whether education is, or can be, a commodity, if it produces value, and why such questions are important. This last point draws on the work of Mike Neary.    

Glenn Rikowski, Forest Gate, London, 27^th October 2025

Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski  

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Libraries: A PowerPoint Presentation by Ruth Rikowski for CILIP-in-London

 

                                                                        Ruth Rikowski

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Libraries

A talk by Ruth Rikowski at CILIP-in-London

The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professional (CILIP)

Wednesday 11th September 2024

This presentation critically explores consequences of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for libraries, library organisation and library staff development and employment

Ruth's talk is now on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OleU9tvuPoc

For more on Ruth's work, see: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Libraries: A Presentation at CILIP-in-London by Ruth Rikowski

 

Ruth Rikowski

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Libraries

A Presentation at CILIP-in-London 

Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP)

By Ruth Rikowski

Wednesday, 11th September 2024

The full PowerPoint for Ruth's presentation is now available at Academia: https://www.academia.edu/127417862/Artificial_Intelligence_AI_and_Libraries_for_CILIP_in_London

For more on Ruth's work, see: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Value Vortex Weavings: Karl Marx's Social Time, Labour-Power and Education

 

Mike Neary

This is my chapter in Stammering as Dada: Mike Neary and Critical Education, edited by Stephen Cowden, Gary Saunders and Joss Winn (2025, Peter Lang):

Rikowski, G. (2025) Value Vortex Weavings: Karl Marx’s Social Time, Labour-Power and Education, in: S. Cowden, G. Saunders and J. Winn (eds.) Stammering as Dada: Mike Neary and Critical Education, pp.263-282. Oxford: Peter Lang.

Abstract (for this chapter):

In 1993, Time, Labor and Social Domination: A reinterpretation of Marx’s critical theory, by Moishe Postone was published. In 1996, I purchased a paperback version. After alerting Mike Neary to Postone’s book, for the next eight years, at particular moments, Mike and I discussed salient issues within it: e.g. value, labour, abstract labour, and Postone’s critique of traditional Marxism – but most of all, we discussed Postone’s views on time. The autobiographical Introduction provides the context for the focus on Marx’s socially necessary labour-time. Part 1 explores Mike’s conception of the Value Vortex, referred to in Neary (2020a). Part 2 examines the notion of weaving and its relation to the Value Vortex and social form. This brings into play Mike’s appreciation of the works of Lucretius and Thomas Nail in the last five years of his life. Part 3 reveals Karl Marx’s social time; what appears as capital’s time based on Marx’s concept of socially necessary labour-time (SNLT). Part 4 examines some implications of labour-power production in education as a machine for speeding up social time. The Conclusion draws ideas from the previous sections together and invokes Mike’s commitment to unravelling value and capital’s social time through critique and practice.       

Summary of the book (from the publishers):

Mike Neary was a renowned critical educator, Professor of Sociology at the University of Lincoln, and a founding member of the Social Science Centre, Lincoln. He died in January 2023, and in the months prior to his death, the editors of this book met with Mike and, with his guidance, worked with him on a collection of his writings. Mike was once asked why he wrote and he responded, “I write for the future” This book gathers some of his key writings to keep alive the critical legacy which Mike’s life and work embodied. It contains a body of work written by Mike on his own, with his close collaborators, as well as contributions written about him. The work gathered here in this book attests to Mike’s lifelong critical engagement with the work of Karl Marx, and as his work shows, this is an engagement on terms which are uniquely his own, reflecting Mike’s unique vision, his deep egalitarianism, his personal warmth, and his critical intellect.

Contents

Series Editors’ Preface – Stammering as Dada: Mike Neary and Critical Education

Jones Erwin and Stephen Cowden

 

Mike Neary interviewed by Stephen Cowden: The Thinginess of Things

Mike Neary and Stephen Cowden

 

An Introduction to the Work of Karl Marx: Science of Revolution and Revolutionary Science

Mike Neary

 

Critical Theory as the Critique of Labour

Mike Neary

 

Pedagogy in Paradise: Higher Learning and the Metamorphosis of a Derelict City – a Rhythmanalysis

Mike Neary

 

 

Student as Producer and the Politics of Abolition: Making a New Form of Dissident Institution?

Mike Neary and Gary Saunders

 

Pedagogy of Hate

Mike Neary

 

The Social Science Centre, Lincoln: The Theory and Practice of a Radical Idea

Mike Neary and Joss Winn

 

Beyond Public and Private: A Framework for Co- operative Higher Education

Mike Neary and Joss Winn

 

Civic University or University of the Earth? A Call for Intellectual Insurgency

Mike Neary

 

We Stammer (To Be Read Aloud)

Mike Neary

 

‘Student as Producer’: A Disruptive Theory for Our Times

Cath Lambert

 

Value Vortex Weavings: Karl Marx’s Social Time, Labour-Power and Education

Glenn Rikowski

 

Afterword: Mike Neary and the Power of Revolutionary Optimism

Antonia Darder and Gordon Asher

Details

Stammering as Dada: Mike Neary and Critical Education

Edited by Stephen Cowden, Joss Winn and Gary Saunders

Peter Lang (publishers): https://www.peterlang.com/document/1493241

Series: New Disciplinary Perspectives on Education, Volume 9

Pages                          XII, 302

Publication Year        2025

ISBN (PDF)                 9781803741161

ISBN (ePUB)              9781803741178

ISBN (Softcover)       9781803741154

DOI                        10.3726/b20611

Language                   English

Keywords                   Critical Pedagogy, Marxism, Education

   

Stammering as Dada: Mike Neary and Critical Education

 STAMMERING AS DADA

MIKE NEARY AND CRITICAL EDUCATION

STAMMERING AS DADA: MIKE NEARY AND CRITICAL EDUCATION.

Edited by Stephen Cowden, Joss Winn, and Gary Saunders.

Published by Peter Lang, in the 'New Disciplinary Perspectives on Education' Series, Volume 9.

This book will be available from 11 December 2024.

From the Peter Lang (publishers): https://www.peterlang.com/document/1493241

Available also from Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble and !ndigo.

Publisher's Summary:

Mike Neary was a renowned critical educator, Professor of Sociology at the University of Lincoln, and a founding member of the Social Science Centre, Lincoln. He died in January 2023, and in the months prior to his death, the editors of this book met with Mike and, with his guidance, worked with him on a collection of his writings. Mike was once asked why he wrote and he responded, “I write for the future” This book gathers some of his key writings to keep alive the critical legacy which Mike’s life and work embodied. It contains a body of work written by Mike on his own, with his close collaborators, as well as contributions written about him. The work gathered here in this book attests to Mike’s lifelong critical engagement with the work of Karl Marx, and as his work shows, this is an engagement on terms which are uniquely his own, reflecting Mike’s unique vision, his deep egalitarianism, his personal warmth, and his critical intellect.

My chapter is: "Value Vortex Weavings: Karl Marx's Social Time, Labour-Power and Education".

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Academia: https://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski

Aphorisms on the Critique of Pedagogy

APHORISMS ON THE CRITIQUE OF PEDAGOGY 

Aphorisms on the Critique of Pedagogy

This is a paper I prepared for the International Congress on Educational Sciences and Effective Practices Conference, Kapadokya University, Nevşehir, Cappadocia, Turkey, 12–17 November 2024.

Preface

(i).    What is presented in this paper is not a critique of critical pedagogy, but a critique of pedagogy itself.

(ii).    Yet this critique is not an idealist, transhistorical, instrumental or analytical philosophical concoction.

(iii).   Rather, it is a critique of pedagogy in its historically capitalist form; or, critique of the specifically capitalist form of pedagogy.

(iv).   All this is undertaken through Marxist science.

It is now available at:

Academia: https://www.academia.edu/125194423/Aphorisms_on_the_Critique_of_Pedagogy

and at: 

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385417744_Aphorisms_on_the_Critique_of_Pedagogy

Glenn Rikowski