In the introduction to Unmaking the University: The Forty Year Assault on the Middle Class Christopher Newfield asks:
…why would the university and its graduates, the supposed leaders of the knowledge society, have less cultural and economic latitude–to say nothing of influence–than they had had in the “industrial” society prior to 1980? My answer, which I lay out in the following pages, centers on the sucess of the Right in the culture wars. The Right’s culture warriors did not openly attack the economic position of the middle class, but they did attack the university, but they did attack the university. In doing so they created the conditions for repeated budget cuts to the core middle class institution. More fundamentally, they discredited the cultural conditions of mass-middle-class development, downsized the influence of its leading institution, the university, and reduced the social and political impacts of knowledge workers overall (11).
It’s always the RIght’s fault. Such is life under the guise of “fast capitalism” and let’s not forget the economic doctrine of “neo-liberalism” which views the market as the best way to determine production and meet our needs. Ahem.
Perverse Egalitarianism 