ILPC 2026

As long as higher education as a means of life is only available for the bourgeoisie and the wealthy strata of the petty bourgeoisie as a way of reproducing their class position, it also mainly functions as the grounds of a title under which these strata can appropriate a part of the social wealth. The possibility that this association is no longer restrictive might be an indicator of some degree of social decomposition of intellectual workers as part of these groups. This situation is more apparent in the possibility of unemployment among higher graduates, although it could also be extended to all those situations in which the categories that were trained to perform intellectual functions cannot be effectively employed in those activities. The generation of a surplus of these characteristics might be associated with a process of expropriation of their conditions of existence, and therefore, of proletarianization.

As a part of our research on the proletarianization of intellectual workers in Argentina, we have observed, at least in the last two decades, the existence of a significant volume of higher graduates inserted in typical occupations of, either the lower strata of the small bourgeoisie or the proletariat (especially as small traders or low-level clerks), if not directly unemployed. We have provisionally conceptualized this population as a "mass of reserve" for intellectual functions in relation to the immediate needs of capital.

However, this characterization must necessarily correspond with the appearance of elements that place them as such from the perspective of the bourgeoisie. Is it possible to find these elements in recent Argentina? One possible way of operationally detecting this need of the bourgeoisie is through those who express their general interests, that is, their organic intellectuals.

For that reason, we prepared a first exploratory approach, based on the compilation and ordering of journalistic material, attempting to detect there elements that either account for the levels of demand on higher graduates, especially university graduates, or that characterize a part of them as surplus.

We have selected articles in which we could find some of the following subjects:

-          Overt characterization of the existence of a surplus of professionals, higher graduates or university students (“overproduction”, “education for unemployment”, etc.)

-          Supply and demand of professionals either in general terms or specifically referred to some occupations: engineers, physicians, etc.

-          Educational politics in higher education especially those either fostering or preventing an increase of new higher graduates and its consequences to the supply of professionals.

For this first compilation we have focused mainly on “La Nación”, national newspaper of daily publication and where the interests of the upper echelons of the great bourgeoisie of Argentina are often expressed, not only in the opinions that the newspaper itself spreads through the voice of its leader writers, but also in those of the intellectuals to whom this newspaper gives room to express their points of view. We have focused on those articles, about the problem that we are dealing with, published during the period after the crisis of 2001, although we have paid special attention to certain conjunctural moments of conflict, such as the controversy around the creation of new universities or the debate about modifications to the law that governs higher education, moments when these opinions acquired more presence.

This first exploration will allow us to establish an initial ordering of the information that could be further enriched through the analysis of more material and even of documents elaborated by the intellectuals of the different quoted "think tanks".