This paper claimes that neo-liberalism is a period that
capitalism calls and brings back some archaic forms of class
domination depending on the results of marketisation
policies in education. Marketisation policies in education are
accompanied by specific shifts in ideological discourses,
such as meritocracy that were valid only under the welfare
state.
Meritocracy, as an ideology at the heart of capitalist
society, claims that allocation of social status in modern
societies depends on merit which is obtained through
educational success, unlike in feudalism that depends on
family background. In fact, family background, through its
effect on educational success, had continued to be an
important factor in the allocation of status in modern
societies. This effect was only compansated for to a certain
extent by the idea of welfare state. The welfare state is a
relatively equalitarian agent for it provides widespread
educational opportunities and for it intervenes in the
education-market relationship onbehalf of public interest.
However, the liquidation of the welfare state in the neoliberal
era with the help of marketisation policies in
education, caused the family background to step forward on
the allocation of the status.
That the family background is again the one and only
determinant of social status, meritocratic ideology totally
declines. The only difference in terms of the allocation of
social status between feudalism and neo-liberal capitalism
is that the family background takes effect thanks to the
education system in capitalism. This is a distinctive kind of
social segregation mechanism in the neo-liberal era that
could be named as “neo-feudalism”. Under neo-feudalism,
family background does not affect the process directly but it
does indirectly through its effect on education. The neofeudal
segregation is a distinctive kind of reproduction of
social inequalities through education.