TITLE:
The Mass Production of the Lumpen Intelligentsia: An Economic Model of the “Woke” Movement in U.S. Higher Education
AUTHORS:
João Ricardo Faria, Franklin G. Mixon Jr.
KEYWORDS:
Economics of Higher Education, Critical Theory, Intersectionality, Economic Theory, Political Correctness, Woke Ideology, Soft Graduate Programs
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.13 No.6,
December
22,
2023
ABSTRACT: This study relates the infiltration of
cultural Marxism into American colleges to the creation and growth of soft
graduate programs associated with the ideologies that form the modern
generation or wave of the critical theory movement, referred to here as the
“woke” movement. The formal economic model in this study asserts that the
growth of these soft, politically correct graduate programs leads to increasing
university costs and tuition, growing bureaucratic offices, and greater faculty
pay and employment. The spiral in costs and tuition can only be restrained
through an intertemporal optimization process.