YES, TAX THE
BILLIONAIRES!
My book review of ‘We Need to Tax Billionaires! by
Gabriel Zucman is now available at ResearchGate. It was published in ‘Post-16
Educator’, No.124 (July – September), 2026, pp.22-23. You can see it at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/410602470_Yes_tax_the_billionaires
Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
YES, TAX THE
BILLIONAIRES!
My book review of ‘We Need to Tax Billionaires! by
Gabriel Zucman is now available on Academia. It was published in ‘Post-16
Educator’, No.124 (July – September), 2026, pp.22-23. You can see it at: https://www.academia.edu/170487441/Yes_tax_the_billionaires_
Glenn Rikowski
This is a
new article by Ruth Rikowski that has been published in ‘Post-16 Educator’
No.123, and is now available at Academia: https://www.academia.edu/169932344/Artificial_Intelligence_AI_and_Libraries_in_Higher_Education
Posted here by Glenn Rikowski
This
is a paper I have prepared for the London Historical Materialism 22nd
Annual Conference, SOAS, 6–9 November 2025.
You can now view this paper at Academia:
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, 27th October 2025
Academia:
http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski
This
is a paper I have prepared for the London Historical Materialism 22nd
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, 27th October 2025
Academia:
http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski
ResearchGate:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-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
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
