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

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, and published by Peter Lang.

This book is now out and available from the publishers, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, and many other booksellers.

Abstract (for my 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, Gary Saunders and Joss Winn

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

For more on Glenn Rikowski's work, see:

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

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

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

Labour-Power-Points

 LABOUR-POWER-POINTS

Labour-Power-Points is the paper I presented at the Twenty-First Historical Materialism London Conference, SOAS, 7-12 2024.

ABSTRACT

Following a brief outline of labour-power through Marx, Ciccarelli (2021) and my own work, it is argued that the fragmentation of Marxist work on labour-power undermines what is critical for its understanding in contemporary society: the notion that labour-power is a ‘unity of the diverse’ (Marx). In Marxist theory and empirical work today, labour-power as ‘unity’, as a unified social force within humans, is sacrificed to its ‘diversity’. The result is theorisations and empirical research that split the study of labour-power into seemingly competing projects; either as arguments regarding whether the key focus should be on the social production of labour-power through education and training, or the social reproduction of labour-power through the family and domestic labour. This paper argues that labour–power is better viewed through its various diversities that constitute its unity. Each of these diversities is a spectral (but real) point in analysis of labour-power, but its unity blends the pinpointing analysis of its diversities. These labour-power diversities are social forms of its social re/production that are manifested in and through various institutions in capitalist society. In this light, the following diversities of labour-power and their institutional forms can be viewed directly through the work of Marx: the social production of labour-power (e.g. in education and training); its social reproduction 1 (e.g. through the family and domestic labour); social reproduction 2 (e.g. through state pensions, unemployment benefits); maintenance of labourers 1 (e.g. through consumption, food); maintenance of labourers 2 (e.g. through health, and mental health services). These labour-power diversities constitute a web of social forms shaping labour-power in contemporary capitalism. The paper ends by exploring some recent empirical examples illustrating how moving between the spectral points of labour–power and its diversities solidifies their unity in analysis.   

The paper is now available at:

Paper at Academia: https://www.academia.edu/124791066/Labour_Power_Points

and at:

Paper at ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384971765_LABOUR-POWER-POINTS

Glenn Rikowski

      

Interview with Glenn Rikowski - Marxism and Sciences

Interview with Glenn Rikowski – Marxism & Sciences

 

This interview is now available at:

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368654826_Interview_with_Glenn_Rikowski_-_Marxism_Sciences

Academia: https://www.academia.edu/97210925/Interview_with_Glenn_Rikowski_Marxism_and_Sciences   

 

Glenn Rikowski is interviewed by Siyaveş Azeri and Ali C. Gedik

Marxism & Sciences: A Journal of Nature, Culture, Human and Society, Volume 2 Issue 1 (2023), pp.178-184.

 

For a PDF of all of the interviews, see: https://marxismandsciences.org/interviews-rethinking-the-foundations-of-marxism-and-ilyenkovian-contributions/ and https://marxismandsciences.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/interviews_ms_230102107.pdf  

 

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2023), The Foundations of Marxism II: Ilyenkovian Contributions – see: https://marxismandsciences.org/volume-2-issue-1/  

 

Marxism & Sciences: A Journal of Nature, Culture, Human and Society – see: https://marxismandsciences.org/

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education

Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education

Edited by Alpesh Maisuria

Published by Brill: Leiden

ISBN: 978-90-04-50560-5

Published: 6 January 2022

For those concerned with exploring education through Marx and Marxism this is an important book. Alpesh Maisuria has assembled a tremendous international array of authors to address the significance of Marx and Marxism for education today.

Introduction by the Publisher:

This encyclopaedia showcases the explanatory power of Marxist educational theory and practice. The entries have been written by 51 leading authors from across the globe. The 39 entries cover an impressive range of contemporary issues and historical problematics. The editor has designed the book to appeal to readers within the Marxism and education intellectual tradition, and also those who are curious newcomers, as well as critics of Marxism.

The Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education is the first of its kind. It is a landmark text with relevance for years to come for the productive dialogue between Marxism and education for transformational thinking and practice.

For Table of Contents, see: https://brill.com/view/title/61529?language=en

My chapter in the book is: Marxism and Education: [Closed] and …Open… pp.421-438.

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

 

 

Artificial Intelligence in the Capitalist University

Artificial Intelligence in the Capitalist University: Academic Labour, Commodification, and Value

A new book by John Preston

New York: Routledge

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003081654

eBook ISBN9781003081654

 

ABSTRACT

Using Marxist critique, this book explores manifestations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Higher Education and demonstrates how it contributes to the functioning and existence of the capitalist university.

Challenging the idea that AI is a break from previous capitalist technologies, the book offers nuanced examination of the impacts of AI on the control and regulation of academic work and labour, on digital learning and remote teaching, and on the value of learning and knowledge. Applying a Marxist perspective, Preston argues that commodity fetishism, surveillance, and increasing productivity ushered in by the growth of AI, further alienates and exploits academic labour and commodifies learning and research. The text puts forward a solid theoretical framework and methodology for thinking about AI to inform critical and revolutionary pedagogies.

Offering an impactful and timely analysis, this book provides a critical engagement and application of key Marxist concepts in the study of AI’s role in Higher Education. It will be of interest to those working or researching in Higher Education.

 

The book is free to read on Creative Commons, @ https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003081654/artificial-intelligence-capitalist-university-john-preston

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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

Schools of War

 

SCHOOLS OF WAR

 This is an article I have written with Alisson  Slider do Nascimento de Paula, and it was published today in the ‘Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology’. You can see, and download the article (free, open access) at: https://www.j-psp.com/article/schools-of-war-10993.

ABSTRACT: In his classic ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England’ (1845), Friedrich Engels argued that workers engaged in industrial action gained knowledge of economic processes, tactical awareness in struggles and grasped the value of solidarity in the face of employers‟ assaults on pay and working conditions. These struggles constituted “schools of war”; significant learning experiences for workers, argued Engels. Yet schools of war can take other forms, such as struggles against the capitalisation of education; educational institutions becoming sites of capital accumulation and preparation for capitalist work. In this sense, education has become a battleground as its privatisation, commodification, marketisation, commercialisation and monetisation have gathered pace in many countries since the second half of the twentieth century. This article argues that there are two main fronts in the war over the penetration of education by capital in contemporary society: the business takeover of education, as educational institutions become value- and profit-making sites; and the reduction of education to labour-power production. It explores these two fronts of war in terms of education policies in England and Brazil and argues for the establishment of forms of education beyond capitalist states and capital’s commodity forms.

Glenn Rikowski

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

SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS

 

SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS

 

These recent publications can be found at ResearchGate and Academia:

 

Rikowski, G. (2021) An Interview with Glenn Rikowski. Rethinking Critical Pedagogy, Vol.2 Issue 1, March.

At ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350487423_An_Interview_with_Glenn_Rikowski

At Academia: https://www.academia.edu/45641960/An_Interview_with_Glenn_Rikowski

 

Rikowski, G. (2021) Crisis. In: S. Themelis (ed.) Critical Reflections on the Language of Neoliberalism in Education: Dangerous Words and Discourses of Possibility. London: Routledge.

At ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347109171_Crisis

At Academia: https://www.academia.edu/45079016/Crisis

 

Rikowski, G. (2020) Critique of the Classical Theory of Education Crisis (Critica de Theoria Clássica de Crise da Educação). Trabalho & Educação, Vol.29 No.3, pp.16-67, September-December. (English with Portuguese Abstract).

At ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348349675_Critique_of_the_Classical_Theory_of_Education_Crisis_Critica_de_Theoria_Classica_de_Crise_da_Educacao

At Academia: https://www.academia.edu/44897543/Critica_de_Theoria_Cl%C3%A1ssica_de_Crise_da_Educa%C3%A7%C3%A3o_Critique_of_the_Classical_Theory_of_Education_Crisis_  

 

Rikowski, G. (2020) The Psychology of Capital. In: Stankovic Pejnović, V. & Matić, I. (Eds.) New Understanding of Capital in the 21^st Century. Belgrade: Institute for Political Studies.

At ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346627387_The_Psychology_of_Capital

At Academia: https://www.academia.edu/44634483/The_Psychology_of_Capital

 

Rikowski, G. (2020) Educação e Tragédia do Trabalho. In: A. Slider do Nascimento de Paula, F. Ferreira Costa, Kátia Rodrigues Lima & K. Costa Pereira (Eds.) CRÍTICA, TRABALHO E POLÍTICAS EDUCACIONAIS NO CENÁRIO DO CAPITALISMO MUNDIALIZADO, Chapter 6, Marilia: Lutus Anticapital. (Portuguese).

At ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345747254_Educacao_e_Tragedia_do_Trabalho

At Academia: https://www.academia.edu/44480217/Educacao_e_Tragedia_do_Trabalho

 

Glenn Rikowski

London, 10^th May 2021

 

 

CRÍTICA, TRABALHO E POLÍTICAS EDUCACIONAIS NO CENÁRIO DO CAPITALISMO MUNDIALIZADO

 

CRÍTICA, TRABALHO E POLÍTICAS EDUCACIONAIS NO CENÁRIO DO CAPITALISMO MUNDIALIZADO

 

 Alisson Slider do Nascimento de Paula

Frederico Jorge Ferreira Costa

Kátia Regina Rodrigues Lima

Karla Raphaella Costa Pereira

(Organizadores)

 

1ª edição

LUTAS ANTICAPITAL

Marília – 2020

 

ISBN 978-65-86620-27-6

 

Agercicleiton Coelho Guerra

Alisson Slider do Nascimento de Paula

Ana Carolina Galvão

Antônia Rozimar Machado e Rocha

Antonio Marcondes dos Santos Pereira

Bruno Gawryszewski

Camila Kipper Putzke

Carina Alves da Silva Darcoleto

Dave Hill

Emmanoel Lima Ferreira

Frederico Jorge Ferreira Costa

Glenn Rikowski

Ivan dos Santos Oliveira

José Carlos Rothen

Karla Raphaella Costa Pereira

Kátia Regina Rodrigues Lima

Marcela Figueira Ferreira

Pauliane Gonçalves Moraes

Simone de Fátima Flach

Vânia Cardoso da Motta

 

 

SUMÁRIO

 

Geografia crítica, pedagogia histórico-crítica e o currículo escolar de geografia .....................................13

Pauliane Gonçalves Moraes

Ana Carolina Galvão

 

A expansão especulativa parasitária do capital na educação: o aprofundamento da tendência à mercoaprendizagem ...................................................43

Alisson Slider do Nascimento de Paula

Kátia Regina Rodrigues Lima

Emmanoel Lima Ferreira

 

Elementos para a compreensão da defesa da escola pública no contexto do capitalismo periférico brasileiro ..................................................................................69

Frederico Jorge Ferreira Costa

 

O complexo da educação nos ensaios de Lukács: Makarenko, Goethe, Lenin e Keller .............................97

Karla Raphaella Costa Pereira

 

Projetos educacionais em disputa e o papel da avaliação enquanto possibilidade de emancipação ...................125

Ivan dos Santos Oliveira

José Carlos Rothen

 

Educação e tragédia do trabalho................................151

Glenn Rikowski

 

Os bons, os maus e os feios: coronavírus, capitalismo e socialismo: uma resposta marxista ...........................185

Dave Hill

 

Relações entre ideologia e fascismo: a destruição dos princípios educacionais no Brasil ..............................213

Carina Alves da Silva Darcoleto

Simone de Fátima Flach

 

O trabalho como o ponto de partida da socialização do ser social e suas determinações constitutivas: uma introdução................................................................239

Antonio Marcondes dos Santos Pereira

 

A universidade pública no atual contexto de contrarre-forma do estado brasileiro: Future-se e o desmonte da ciência a serviço do mercado......................................269

Agercicleiton Coelho Guerra

Antônia Rozimar Machado e Rocha

Marcela Figueira Ferreira

 

Vida e morte da ampliação da jornada escolar nos programas Mais Educação: mais do quê?...................303

Bruno Gawryszewski

Camila Kipper Putzke

Vânia Cardoso da Motta

 

Sobre os autores .......................................................341

 

https://lutasanticapital.com.br/products/critica-trabalho-e-politicas-educacionais-no-cenario-do-capitalismo-mundializado

 

***END***

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

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

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