Lawrence Busch – författare

How free-market fundamentalists have shifted the focus of higher education to competition, metrics, consumer demand, and return on investment, and why we should change this.

A new philosophy of higher education has taken hold in institutions around the world. Its supporters disavow the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and argue that the only knowledge worth pursuing is that with more or less immediate market value. Every other kind of learning is downgraded, its budget cut. In Knowledge for Sale, Lawrence Busch challenges this market-driven approach.

The rationale for the current thinking, Busch explains, comes from neoliberal economics, which calls for reorganizing society around the needs of the market. The market-influenced changes to higher education include shifting the cost of education from the state to the individual, turning education from a public good to a private good subject to consumer demand; redefining higher education as a search for the highest-paying job; and turning scholarly research into a competition based on metrics including number of citations and value of grants. Students, administrators, and scholars have begun to think of themselves as economic actors rather than seekers of knowledge.

Arguing for active resistance to this takeover, Busch urges us to burst the neoliberal bubble, to imagine a future not dictated by the market, a future in which there is a more educated citizenry and in which the old dichotomies—market and state, nature and culture, and equality and liberty—break down. In this future, universities value learning and not training, scholarship grapples with society''s most pressing problems rather than quick fixes for corporate interests, and democracy is enriched by its educated and engaged citizens.

Food and agricultural standards have recently risen to the top of both national and international agendas. Popular concerns about the power of the World Trade Organization focus on the intertwined relationships between environmental protection, labor and human rights, and the standards used to produce and supply our food and fiber globally. In the developing world, agricultural grades and standards are an important part of the reconfiguration of roles and responsibilities between various public and private actors in market reform.

This original and informative collection of studies of agri-food standards in the modern economy addresses these and helps to define the scope of the emerging study of the politics of standards setting. Following an overview essay dealing with the multiple ways of thinking about, approaching and defining food and agricultural standards, eleven case studies offer a rich body of evidence that assesses the processes, dynamics and potential consequences of global agri-food standards.

For all interested in the strategic use of food and agricultural standards – from those in national and international governmental agencies, researchers and others in the academic and private sector to those in the private business sector – this volume offers a broader perspective on and will serve as an important resource.

Along with chapters that investigate agri-food in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Oceania, the book includes contributions that cover topics such as labor, science and technology, the financialization of agri-food, and supermarkets.

This Handbook will be required reading for researchers, scholars and students in the social sciences looking to learn more about agriculture and food. Policy makers and industry leaders interested in agri-food will also find this to be an insightful read.

Contributors: G. Aboites, C. Bain, J.S. Barbosa Cavalcanti, M.Belo Moreira, B. Bock, A. Bonanno, B. Brandl, L. Busch, I. Cucco, T. Dandachi, M. del Rosario Castro Bernardini, J. Dixon, M. Etxezarreta, M. Fairbairn, M. Fonte, L. Glenna, L. Horlings, K. Jones, E.E. Krone, G. Lawrence, F. Martinez, M. Miele, G. Otero, A. Patel-Campillo, G. Pechlaner, E. Ransom, J. Rosell, C. Sachs, K. Sekine, L. Viladomiu