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

Trump, the Alt-Right and Public Pedagogies of Hate and for Fascism. What is to be Done?

TRUMP, THE ALT-RIGHT AND PUBLIC PEDAGOGIES OF HATE AND FOR FASCISM. 

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

A NEW BOOK BY MIKE COLE

Routledge Focus, 2018

ISBN: 9781138607545

Trump, the Alt-Right and Public Pedagogies of Hate and for Fascism: What Is To Be Done? uses public pedagogy as a theoretical lens through which to view discourses of hate and for fascism in the era of Trump and to promote an anti-fascist and pro-socialist public pedagogy. It makes the case for re-igniting a rhetoric that goes beyond the undermining of neoliberal capitalism and the promotion of social justice, and re-aligns the left against fascism and for a socialism of the twenty-first century.

Beginning with an examination of the history of traditional fascism in the twentieth century, the book looks at the similarities and differences between the Trump regime and traditional Western post-war fascism. Cole goes on to consider the alt-right movement, the reasons for its rise, and the significance of the internet being harnessed as a tool with which to promote a fascistic public pedagogy. Finally, the book examines the resistance against these discourses and addresses the question of: what is to be done?

This topical book will be of great interest to scholars, to postgraduate students and to researchers, as well as to advanced undergraduate students in the fields of education studies, pedagogy, and sociology, as well as readers in general who are interested in the phenomenon of Trumpism.

Reviews:

'Mike Cole has written a stunning work that deserves to be read in teacher education courses, in graduate seminars, and in all classes dealing with the future of education--and of society.'

Peter McLaren, Chapman University, USA

'This incisive book, with startling clarity, is a cutting analysis of Trump and his relationship with the personnel and the rhetoric and discourse- the public pedagogy of the Proto-Fascist and Fascist movement in the USA and the implications internationally.'

Dave Hill, Anglia Ruskin University, UK

'This book provides a devastating critique and Cole brings to the fore the importance of public pedagogy in the struggle against Trump’s fascist tendencies. Nothing can be ignored in this book and much is at stake.'

Alpesh Maisuria, University of East London, UK

'This is an excellent book – it’s a highly engaging read that will be of interest to people who don’t already know a great deal about Trump and the alt-right and the various movements who oppose them, as well as those who are already well-versed in the horrors of Trumpism. The book makes good use of public pedagogy as a framing device, and it will be an important contribution to our further understanding of how dominant ideologies are enacted and perpetuated, and also how they are resisted.'

Jennifer Sandlin, Arizona State University, USA

Further details: https://www.routledge.com/Trump-the-Alt-Right-and-Public-Pedagogies-of-Hate-and-for-Fascism-What/Cole/p/book/9781138607545

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Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Pedagogy in the Post-Truth Era: An Anti-Trump Pro-Test!

Derek R Ford

PEDAGOGY IN THE POST-TRUTH ERA: AN ANTI-TRUMP PRO-TEST!

A Seminar by Derek R. Ford (Assistant Professor of Education Studies, DePauw University, USA)

University of East London

Stratford Campus

Cass School of Education & Communities

17^th October 2018

12.30 – 2.00pm

Room: ED201

Abstract: Those who are in shock that truth doesn't seem to matter in politics today miss the mark, for politics has never corresponded with truth. Instead, political struggle is about the formulation and materialization of new truths. In this sense, the "post-truth" era offers a new opportunity to articulate and fight for a new political reality. Yet rather than embrace this opportunity, the mainstream anti-Trump "resistance" aims to suture this opening and re-stabilize the political superstructure. This paper focuses instead on the left-wing resistance that's organizing and mobilizing to force a new world into being. After articulating the coordinates of our "post-truth" moment, it investigates the educational logic of the protest. Specifically, I propose that the protest is when movements test their political line, their organizational capacity, and the existing order of things.

Biographical details: Derek R. Ford is Assistant Professor of Education studies at DePauw University, USA. His research emerges from the nexus of subjectivity, pedagogy, and revolutionary struggles. He has written and edited seven books, including Communist Study and Politics and Pedagogy in the "Post-Truth" Era: Insurgent Philosophy and Praxis. He is education chair at The Hampton Institute (a working-class think tank), an organizer with the Answer Coalition, and co-editor of LiberationSchool.org.

Seminar details: This seminar is organised by Dr Alpesh Maisuria, Senior Lecturer Education Studies, part of the International Centre for Public Pedagogy (ICuP) and the Marxism and Education and Education: Renewing Dialogues Series (MERD Co-Convenors Alpesh Maisuria and Tony Green).

Links:

Derek Ford's book: Politics and Pedagogy in the “Post-Truth” Era: https://www.bloomsbury.com/…/politics-and-pedagogy-in-the-…/

Dr. Alpesh Maisuria: https://alpeshmaisuria.academia.edu/

ICPuP: https://www.uel.ac.uk/…/the-international-centre-for-public…

MERD facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/202497469816639/?fb_dtsg_ag=AdyC300tngNeUAmV0YiduaY9LBrsFhpfgYWjBZ2UgPpmVQ%3AAdxyQFjUkbZvsBPJUuFuTTHZ2ccCxx-oTjFqw4SAjWZD1g

Tony Green's Marxism and Education Palgrave book series https://www.palgrave.com/gb/series/14811

All welcome. No registration required.

Please share widely.

END*****

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Privatisation in Education and Commodity Forms @ Academia and ResearchGate

Glenn Rikowski

PRIVATISATION IN EDUCATION AND COMMODITY FORMS @ ACADEMIA AND RESEARCHGATE

My article, Privatisation in Education and Commodity Forms (Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, Volume 15 Number 3, December 2017, pp.29-56) is now available at Academia and at ResearchGate.

For Academia, see: https://www.academia.edu/35540404/Privatisation_in_Education_and_Commodity_Forms

For ResearchGate, see: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322144355_Privatisation_in_Education_and_Commodity_Forms

***END***

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Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski 

Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Critique of the Classical Theory of Education Crisis

Glenn Rikowski

CRITIQUE OF THE CLASSICAL THEORY OF EDUCATION CRISIS

Glenn Rikowski

Visiting Fellow, College of Social Science, University of Lincoln, UK

This is a paper prepared for the International Centre for Public Pedagogies (ICPuP), International Seminar for Public Pedagogies at the University of East London for 21^st February 2018. See the post below for details.

The paper is now available on Academia, see: https://www.academia.edu/35164258/Critique_of_the_Classical_Theory_of_Education_Crisis

ABSTRACT

The Classical Theory of Education Crisis is the default theory utilised by educational theorists for understanding the constitution and explanation of education crises in contemporary society. Following a brief outline of the concept of crisis, and the histiography of the notion of education crisis from the Second World War to the neoliberal recession of 1980-82, there is a an outline of The Classical Theory of Education Crisis as most fully expressed in Madan Sarup's classic Education, State and Crisis: A Marxist Perspective (1982). The key aspect of the Classical Theory is that education crises are derivative of economic crises. This is followed by the main event: critique of the Classical Theory. Its reliance on structuralist thought (with associated determinism, functionalism and reductionism) and the inflow of economics imperialism are some of its key deficiencies. The Conclusion outlines ground still to be covered and the need to move beyond the Classical Theory of Education Crisis.

***END***

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Glenn Rikowski @ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn_Rikowski

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Pedagogy of Hate

Mike Neary

PEDAGOGY OF HATE

Cass School of Education and Communities Seminar

Date: Monday 12 June 2017, 16.00-18.00

Venue: Room ED2.03, The Cass School of Education and Communities, University of East London, Stratford Campus, London E16 4LZ

Convenor: Dr. Rhiannon Firth

Seminar title: Pedagogy of Hate

Seminar speaker: Professor Mike Neary, Professor of Sociology, School of Social and Political Sciences,

The University of Lincoln

Abstract

The paper recovers the concept of hate as a critical political category. Not a personal, psychological or pathological hate, but a radical hate for what capitalist civilisation has become. Radical hate is set alongside radical love so the dynamic of negative dialectics can be put in motion. This exposition of radical hate is elaborated through a critical engagement with the work of Peter McLaren, a significant figure in the field of critical pedagogy, whose recent work has called for a pedagogy of resurrection based on the affirmation of holy love, Christian socialism and the life of historical Jesus. The paper provides studies of how negative dialectics can move within higher education, as ‘Student as Producer’, the Social Science Centre, Lincoln and as a co-operative university.

Mike Neary is Professor of Sociology at the University of Lincoln in the School of Social and Political Sciences.

Readings

Neary, Mike (2017) Pedagogy of Hate. Pre-print of article to appear in Policy Futures in Education: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/26793/3/__network.uni_staff_S2_mneary_Pedagogy%20of%20Hate.pdf

Neary, Mike & Saunders, Gary (2016) Student as Producer and the Politics of Abolition: making a new form of dissident institution. Critical Education http://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/article/view/186127

***END***

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The 4th International Conference on Critical Pedagogies and Philosophies of Education

THE 4^th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CRITICAL PEDAGOGIES AND PHILOSOPHIES OF EDUCATION

27th - 28th July 2017

University of Winchester, UK 

Conveners: Dr Alex Guilherme (PUCRS, Brazil) and Dr Emile Bojesen (Winchester, UK)

Keynote Speakers:
Professor Ruth Irwin, University of Aberdeen.
Professor Marc Depaepe, University of Leuven.
Professor Aislinn O’Donnell, University of Maynooth.
Professor John Petrovic, University of Alabama.

Building on the successes of the 1st, 2nd and 3^rd International Conferences on Critical Pedagogies and Philosophies of Education, this conference will bring together international scholars in philosophy of education to consider the significance of critical pedagogy and philosophy of education to international contemporary debates across educational theory and practice.

We welcome proposals for 20 minutes papers (plus 10 minutes discussion) on any aspect of critical pedagogies and philosophies of education from any discipline, including, Philosophy, Ethics, Educational Studies, Cultural Studies, Social Theory, Theology, Sociology and History.

The deadline for receiving abstracts is 27^th May 2017
Please send proposals for individual papers (250 words) and a short CV to Alexandre Guilherme
(alexandre.guilherme@pucrs.br)

Costs:
£150 conference fee without accommodation.
£270 conference fee with two nights of on-campus accommodation.

To book your place, copy the link below:
http://store.winchester.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/academic-conferences/faculty-of-education-healthsocial-care/the-4th-international-conference-on-critical-pedagogies-and-philosophies-of-education

Enquiries:
emile.bojesen@winchester.ac.uk
Poster available here – or here: https://gallery.mailchimp.com/884bd4ab8bd9964e2855c7409/files/71949ca4-3ef5-4a1b-b3fd-81d9a3d8fe59/4th_International_Conference_poster.01.pdf

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‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

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Crises, Commodities and Education: Disruptions, Eruptions, Interruptions and Ruptions

Dr. Glenn Rikowski

CRISES, COMMODITIES AND EDUCATION: DISRUPTIONS, ERUPTIONS, INTERRUPTIONS AND RUPTIONS

Glenn Rikowski

This is my first writing in over a year.

It is paper prepared for the ‘Research in Critical Education Studies’ (RiCES) Seminar that I will be speaking to tomorrow in the School of Education, University of Lincoln.

It is on Academia, at: http://www.academia.edu/18511424/Crises_Commodities_and_Education_Disruptions_Eruptions_Interruptions_and_Ruptions 

CONTENTS:

Introduction

PART I

1. Preliminary Investigations

Marxism, Fragility and Crisis – John Holloway

Crisis

Crisis – and Janet Roitman

2 Two Theories of Education Crisis

The Classical Theory of Education Crisis – Crises in Education

Critique of the Classical Theory of Education Crisis

The Autogenous Theory of Education Crisis

PART II

3. Social Forms, Commodities and Capitalist Education

Social Forms

Commodity Forms and Education

       

4. Crises in Labour Power Production

Primitive Socialisation

Crises of Labour-Power Production in Education As Crises for Capital

5. Crises in the Production of General Commodities in Education

Another Bundle of Commodities

Crises in the Production of General Commodities in Education

6. Interlude: Four Forms of Crisis Recognition

Disruption

Eruption

Interruption

Ruption (Rupture)

Mergation

       

7. Crises of Labour-power Production and Education (Revisited)

Disruption

Eruption

Interruption

Ruption (Rupture)

8. Crises of Production of General Commodities in Education (Revisited)

Disruption

Eruption

Interruption

Ruption (Rupture)

9. Comparative and Relative Moments

Comparative Moments

The Relative Moment

Conclusion

References

***END***

‘Human Herbs’ – a song by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski @ Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski 

Ruth Rikowski @ Academia: http://lsbu.academia.edu/RuthRikowski

Ruth Rikowski at Serendipitous Moments: http://ruthrikowskiim.blogspot.co.uk/