Abstract
Critiques of capitalism have constituted the backbone of political economies addressing living, working, and learning conditions in a variety of forms of capitalism. This paper explores different approaches to representations of the future of (adult) education in capitalist Europe. It examines the 1960s and 1970s as a period when rapid technological change was addressed in studies of the future in Europe by proponents of post-industrial society, New Left public intellectuals, professional futurologists, and critics of late capitalism, envisaged quite different futures for both society and organised adult learning. Attention is subsequently focused on the pan-European project Educating Man for the 21st Century during the early 1970s which envisaged the future as ‘neo-industrial/neo-capitalist society’ in the year 2000. In conclusion, the paper offers a critical account of early encounters with neoliberal politics during the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly the cultural materialist work of Raymond Williams.
Highlights
From a historical perspective, the oft-forgotten world of utopias and dystopias as cultural narratives of the future has been a continuing source of collective inspiration for creating and sustaining radical cultural repertoires, those of organised workers’ and women’s movements, in envisaging possible emancipatory or repressive consequences of future developments, including organised adult learning
The history of organised adult learning has been characterised by repertoires that constituted critical, if not radically subversive, reflexive cultural practices (Allison, 2018; Bellamy, 1888; Hake, 2017; Morris, 1890; Peters & Freeman- Moir, 2006; Thompson, 1963; Williams, 1978, 1981, 1983)
[32] Hake addresses these richly diverse cultural practices in terms of a political economy of communication and learning during the ‘long revolution’ of modernisation (Fuchs, 2017; Shapiro, 1982; Williams, 1961, 1966, 1981). These cultural practices have been socially organised in diverse cultural formations, movements, and institutions only some of which are readily recognised as institutionalised ‘adult education’ provision (Williams, 1961, 1977, 1981; 2011, 2018)
Summary
This document is published under following Creative Commons-License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en - You may copy, distribute and render this document accessible, make adaptations of this work or its contents accessible to the public as long as you attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. By using this particular document, you accept the above-stated conditions of use. European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, Vol., No.1, 2021, pp. Looking forward backwards: Varieties of capitalisms, alternative futures, and learning landscapes
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