argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Competitiveness in education
Tere Maldonado @teremaldon 2024ko ekainaren 19a
DOM CAMPISTRON.

Selling and buying are fundamentally human activities. Markets and small fairs are bustling and lively public spaces, sociability places where we find valuable things we need (food, clothing, utensils) in exchange for a fair price. There is a luminous and fleeting encounter between known and unknown human beings. Can I try this skirt? The good look of these peppers. Who's the last one? Put me so much from here. Do you take the nice window? Do not wait. Your change. Thank you very much. There is no better than going to the market on Saturday morning or to the plaza (attention synonymous). But, fascinated by the devil, we started to call the market very unfortunate things: stock markets, the labor market, the financial markets, the residential market. The great economist and thinker Karl Polanyi told us that work, land and money cannot be goods (because goods are objects produced for sale on the market). Work is not a commodity, it is the ILO's motto. But late capitalism has turned everything into merchandise. And as much as air pollution, we're drowned by the billboard that covers the world.

Someday, when all this has happened, someone will write an amazing story explaining how advertising and propaganda invaded all the intricacies of life in the latest capitalism. The fascinated readers of a better future tell them that everything was a commodity to be bought for sale. And in environments of strong competition, advertising and propaganda became lords. They were about to bring about an anthropological change they had ever seen: all human beings who didn't become despicable waste, who did what they did, were buying and selling without realizing, relentlessly, immersed in marketing. All day of Saint doing cherpolari 7/24, without breaks.

We are not a group of hungry dogs, we are companions. No enemies, not even close friends: companions. We've been put into the competition, and our affinity is starting to disappear.

Apparently, more than one philosophy teacher is concerned about the commodification of hyper. I just found out that I'm writing this, that Iñigo Martínez Peña's question in ARGIA is: Can you buy everything? Hartmut Rosa invites us to read to help us say no. I will add to the thinker Michael Sandel that, although I do not always like, I highly recommend his book What cannot buy the money.

Our concern has to come from somewhere. Perhaps we can see that the teachers have already become mere commercials. Regulated education is about to become a supermarket. Our work centres (large areas) have set up a propaganda machine from the time of enrollment to attract students and customers. The customer service offices will be located below. I
will seeis.En against what some student associations claim, competition among students through grades is not the main problem. A lot of high notes can be available to everyone. Competition is between scarce goods. For example, the acquisition of student clients in elective subjects: I'm going to Disney, brilliant notes, having classes playing with gomets, being very happy. Come to us, enroll in our subject (you wouldn't believe the name of some subjects), what small deals and discounts we offer!

We've been thrown with bits of morcilla on the ground, and we fly, at full speed, to remove everything we can bite, showing tusks to other hungry dogs. But we're not a hungry group of dogs, we're partners. No enemies, not even close friends: companions. We've been put into the competition, and our affinity is starting to disappear. The dignity that corresponded to us as workers will go down the same drain. If they don't stop it.