Another Penn is Possible

Penn Radical Working Group:

Penn has become essential to preserving the present state of affairs. Not only does it literally reproduce America’s ruling class, sending more graduates off to Wall Street than any other university, it plays the far more important function of ensuring the reproduction of capitalism as a whole. Whatever its intentions, Penn’s structural function, like those of all educational institutions, is to transform students into precisely the kind of subject – trained with certain skills, molded for certain roles, guided by certain values, blindly wedded to certain ideological assumptions – needed to keep the exploitative gears of class society turning. So although it cultivates an image of civic entrepreneurialism, pathbreaking innovation, and social opportunity, Penn ultimately works to prop up a failing society. With its institutional values completely dominated by Wharton, the university boasts a “pre-professional” atmosphere: students compete like rats for the internships that will put them on the fast track to helping this society stay the same, or are shaped into the professional ideologues who will go on to craft capitalism’s next media soundbite or justify America’s next imperialist war.