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“People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.” – Emma Goldman
The rise of the Welfare State and institutional education across these islands has allowed for record levels of literacy, numeracy, further and higher education qualifications, and has contributed to curbing some of the worst examples of poverty. Education is always presented as a gateway to a better life - a good job, decent housing, the opportunity to see the world and access greater things. But that education system has become more and more commodified, marketised and rigid. The point, ultimately, in formal education has been to create a productive member of society, one which can ask the right questions and repeat the correct answers. We grew up under the Blair Government’s mantra of “Education, Education, Education” where we were made to believe the increasing further and higher education opportunities (and associated debt) was always going to be a means of personal betterment.
With that came less and less space for ‘education for education’s sake’ and more room given to ‘the employer’s prerogative’ of a need for vocational skills which drives growth in the market. The outcome is that critical analysis, philosophy, arts and humanities, and social sciences – the areas which allow more questioning of the status quo – have been cut, ridiculed, and forced to apologise for their existence. This is not the mark of an education system designed to liberate.
The point of political education, instead, is to give people the opportunity to expand their intelligence in less formal ways, grow their courage and liberate themselves. The point may be different now from the workers’ schools of the past, which often began with basic literacy and numeracy lessons, but the substantive purpose remains the same.
“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” - Keynes
Thatcher understood the importance of political education (as well as controlling the curriculum in state schools and academies) which is why she hitched her wagon, and the course of our economy and society, to the ‘educational charity and free market think-tank’, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). Whilst following Hayek and Friedman’s neoliberal programme, Thatcher and the IEA seemed to have a constant reserve of fully formulated and articulated policies. The role of the IEA, according to its website, is ‘to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems.’ They do this through the same means as any other, left-wing, political education programme – by analysing and communicating ideas with a central, key, focus and goal: to normalise the notion that the free-market is a natural phenomenon not to be tampered with. They are, of course, a lot better funded than all other attempts at political education and their ideas have shaped many ‘common-sense’ views, politics and policies across every institution, field and area of our society in the past 60 years.
Political education from an anti-capitalist perspective is rooted in the collective. It can take many forms but at its core it provides critical analysis of capitalism and more crucially opens a space for reimagining the type of world that could be possible (economically, socially, culturally, methodologically). Workers often begin to understand the injustice of the capitalist system through the workplace; or through the rise of social movements. Why are wages shrinking whilst company profits soar? What causes war? What is driving privatisation in the NHS and education system? Why are people struggling to secure decent housing? It is crucial to harness action with the bigger discussions on ‘why, how, who, when’ etc. Political education is a means of connecting the struggles, connecting the dots, and understanding the world around us, empowering us to take control.
Through the social movement of Stop the War, and socialist organisation around that social movement, we came to understand the politics of imperialism underpinning the anti-war actions. Linking the struggles against the war abroad, with the understanding of the forces of the British state at home, was a fundamental and irrevocable shift in our understanding of the global economic system, the part we play in it, and the need for liberation. For all the critiques often labelled at socialist organisations, the basic (and often dogmatic) political education we received grounded us with an understanding of what capitalism is and the role of the organised working class as the agent of change.
“You have to educate, twenty-four hours a day, to learn how to discuss, to learn how to decide collectively. You have to reject the idea that you have to wait for some leader to come and tell the people what to do, and instead learn to exercise self-rule as a collective practice. . . . The people themselves educate each other. When you put ten people together and ask them for a solution to a problem or propose them a question, they collectively look for an answer. I believe in this way they will find the right one. This collective discussion will make them politicized.”—Salih Muslim, PYD co-president.
However, often ‘political education programmes’ in this country are too similar to formal education. They take place in the form of lectures, seminars and reading lists. Whilst popular education methods spread through social movements in the past, they are not the favoured method of socialist and communist organisations in this country. This alienates and disenfranchises. It restricts debate, discussion and the ability to question by pitting the lecturer – usually a man – as the great expert and authority on whichever subject he feels able to wax lyrical on. Whilst new members are often encouraged to lead a discussion, they are given a reading list to prepare from and it is clear that modernising Marxist or anti-capitalist concepts is best left to the academics.
Instead, political education should be accessible and enjoyable. It should boost confidence, not destroy it. The pedagogical approach of Freire and others encourages the process of learning together in an open and collective way which fosters a genuine bond between people which is both powerful and necessary. It requires educators to understand that they too are learners and that learners must also become educators. There is an innate need for self-reflection. If we are to challenge, disrupt and dismantle the power of capitalist hegemony, then we too need to be organised. Those engaged in political education need to carry with them a level of discipline which recognises that education, and a space to discuss and debate ideas, is absolute key to ensure the Overton window doesn’t shift forever to the right. How we carry out political education is just as important as why we do political education. Political education needs to be interactive, colloquial, and rooted in a sense of comradeship which is underpinned by honesty, trust, respect, and genuine solidarity. Comradeship is built through a collective process of learning together, of asking questions of each other, through shared struggle and through an exploration of liberation.
“If we remember those times and places – and there are so many – where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.” – Howard Zinn
Political education gives us the ability to take control and provides inspiration. It gives us the opportunity to learn from people and places already engaged in struggle in different spheres. It gives people the tools to challenge the deep inequality they see and experience, the isolation they feel, the desperation, and the depression of the capitalist system. Learning to unpick history through a programme of anti-capitalist education strengthens our understanding of the weapons used by an imperialist, patriarchal, capitalist class to attack the power of the organised working class globally.
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