AROUND RICHARD MÜNCH’S ACADEMIC CAPITALISM THEORY
AROUND RICHARD MÜNCH’S ACADEMIC CAPITALISM THEORY

Summary/Abstract: The author reviews the main elements of Richard Münch’s academic capitalism the- ory. By introducing categories like “audit university” or “entrepreneurial university,” the German sociologist critically sets today’s academic management model against the earlier, modern-era conception of academic work as an “exchange of gifts.” In the soci- ological and psychological sense, he sees the latter’s roots in traditional social lore, for instance the potlatch ceremonies celebrated by some North-American Indian tribes and described by Marcel Mauss. Münch shows the similarities between the old, “gift ex- changing” model and the contemporary one with its focus on the psycho-social funda- mentals of scientific praxis, and from this gradually derives the academic capitalism conception. He concludes with the critical claim that science possesses its own, inalien- able axiological autonomy and anthropological dimension, which degenerate as capital- ism proceeds to “colonise” science by means of state authority and money (here Münch mentions Jürgen Habermas and his philosophical argumentation).The author also offers a somewhat broader view of Münch’s analyses in the context of his own reflections on the problem.

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