This off the cuff exchange at Bath University is just too good not to share:
You can do the maths, but can you do the morality?
Richard Murphy
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Managerialism as I think it is called is also one of the engines of the sort of poorly functioning capitalism we have today. Managers (especially senior ones) tend to be far too over-valued in the economy. They are extremely good at extracting value – but I have yet to understand how they actually create it.
Thankfully the public sector still has people willing to be paid less for doing a good job. Something the anti-public sector Tories seem to overlook.
Encouraging that there are young people able to do this-let’s wish them more success than our generation in fighting Thatcherism, Richard.
Gladstone on 13th february 1843:
” It is one of the most melancholy features in the social state of this country that we see, beyond the possibility of denial, that while there is at this moment a decrease in the consuming powers of the people, an increase in the pressure of privations and distress, there is at the same time a constant accumulation of wealth in the upper class, an increase of the luxuriousness of there habits, and of their means of enjoyment…
in 1863 he (Gladstone) referred to ‘this intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power…entirely confined to classes of property…’
19th Century v.2.0?
It is great to see them standing up for themselves & fighting the inequalities in Education. We might not have won many fights, in the 70’s & 80’s but we did win some of them.Thank you for posting this Richard.
A few days ago I wondered in the blog whether much of the Higher Education Sector is redundant. In this context one morality question might be whether the taxpayer should be keeping this kind of establishment going at all. In our present economic arrangements the University may well tick all the managerial buttons. What is an offence against morality is all the broke students and low paid staff effectively trapped in this system with nowhere to go.
I think what is demoralizing is the total unwillingness and/or inability of the VC to genuinely engage with the issue. This alone is, I feel, a symptom of how far the moral compass has moved over the last 35 years; no shame, no humility, no compassion, no thought, no intellect, no real debate. And from the VC of a University!!!!!!!!!