The Role of the Intellectual in the Australian Economy By Dr Neville Buch, MPHA (Qld) In 2002 Raewyn Connell and Julian Wood produced an article in the Journal of Sociology called, “Globalization and scientific labour: patterns in a life-history study of intellectual workers in the periphery.” The theme of my article is a critical question of why the role of the intellectual in the Australian economy is ignored or minimised. There have been many articles in the Journal of Sociology which have skirted around the question, but Connell returned to the question in 2006. The answer can be comprehensively answered by examining the cultural criticisms made by Donald Horne in the 1960s and by examining the sociology of philosophies from Randall Collins in the 1990s. The Australian academy has not come to grips with understanding the answer to the question why the role of the intellectual in the Australian economy is ignored or minimised. If it were the case of such change, Australian universities would be in total revolt against current higher education policies. To begin with Raewyn Connell and Julian Wood in 2002, and a few key statements (168): Through the 20th century, intellectuals and intelligentsias have been key figures in debates about hegemony, about the sociology of knowledge, about the ‘new middle class’ under capitalism and the ‘new class’ under communism, about technology and about post-industrial societies (Connell, 1997a). Thus, one would assume that the role of the intellectual in the Australian economy is to point out where the economy is making problems in social hegemony and the sociology of knowledge, and the many outcomes for the new middle classes. The world integration of economies, technologies, communications, political and military systems is now so far advanced that it is no longer useful to analyse any local ‘society’ in isolation from the whole. (168) Buch (2022a) refers to this as “comprehensive education,” and the Australian universities’ and Australian government’s obsession with ranking is what is misleading the political decision-making: