Decifer me or i will devour you! – the socioeconomic-cultural foundations of the capitalist production mode and its implications in the history of education and educational work

Abstract

This work intends to discuss the philosophical and political foundations of education, from the dialectical-historical materialist perspective, as a worldview, method of analysis and praxis. We live in a paradoxical historical situation in relation to socioeconomic and cultural conditions: on the one hand, the discourse that we are in the best of possible worlds, of constant technical and scientific progress and, on the other hand, the reality of exploration of the clear majority of human beings. Our objective is to present a reflection to challenge the discourses and practices and their defense of the current state of things, which is based on political liberalism and the capitalist mode of production, specifically the question of alienation and ideology and its implications on education. Hence, we start from an reflection-action on the concrete circumstances, inseparable from a reflection-action on the consciences, since we understand that education is an activity of interpretation-understanding, as well as intervention-action in the world of concrete and contradictory relations. We propose the recognition of the actuality of dialectical-historical materialism and its scientific, historical, philosophical and political potentiality as a possibility of construction of the unilateral man, capable of being aware of the real and of an interventionist and transforming praxis, in overcoming and abolishing all forms of purely operational, technical, instrumental, exploratory and mercantilist education. It is necessary to think of an “education beyond capital” that does not submit or adapt to the interests of the capital, of the “labor market”. Our aim is to discuss the possibility and objective necessity of the construction of politically emancipated society and man.