The structural crisis of capital in the era of the neoliberal State: implications for Educational Policy

Abstract

The article aims to discuss the structural crisis of capital in the era of the Neoliberal State, exposing its main consequences for the field of education. To this end, a bibliographical research was carried out on the theme of the crisis of structural capital, the neoliberal State and education, in the field of theoretical production of Marxism and education, produced in contemporary times. We start from the analysis that, throughout the 20th century, the logic of capital accumulation expanded in an uncontrollable way to all dimensions of life, deepening the disjunction between production aimed at human needs and that aimed at the self-reproduction of capital. Therefore, the capital crisis is structural, as it affects all dimensions of life – economy, nature, politics, social rights and culture; and global because its reach, although it covers each territory differently, is global. The neoliberal State has a subsidiary function to capital. It was found that the result of the structural crisis of capital in the educational field is the cultivation of an individualistic subjectivity, which embodies effort, dedication and generalized competition with oneself and with others as a life project. Therefore, the challenge of giving new meaning to the place of education as a formative activity in the relationship between work-nature-society is urgent.