Academia at the Crossroads: Indoctrination, Systemic Violence, and the Security Risks of Rentier Capitalism

ACADEMIA-KNOWLEDGE-SCHOLARSHIP, 23 Jun 2025

Koenraad Priels | TRANSCEND Media Service

Introduction

19 Jun 2025 – As the world faces an accelerating socio-ecological catastrophe, the role of academia has become both more crucial and more contested than ever before. Universities, once celebrated as sanctuaries of independent thought and engines of social progress, now stand accused of complicity in the gravest crimes of our age: systemic ecocide, genocide, and the perpetuation of systemic violence and predatory militarism. This is not mere rhetoric, but a conclusion grounded in empirical, legal, and ethical analysis, as well as my own direct experience in seeking justice through courts and international bodies.

The Polycrisis: Systemic Violence and Predatory Militarism

Today’s global polycrisis—climate breakdown, mass extinction, social fragmentation, and the erosion of democracy—is not a series of isolated events. It is the direct outcome of a financial and political system built on rentier capitalism, which systematically extracts value from land, resources, and people through ownership and control, rather than productive activity. This system is inherently violent: it destroys ecosystems, displaces communities, and erodes the foundations of peace.

Systemic violence is not just the visible brutality of war or repression, but the normalized, institutionalized harm embedded in economic, legal, and political structures. Predatory militarism—the use of military force to secure access to resources, suppress dissent, and protect the interests of the rentier class—has become a central feature of this system. Universities, far from being immune, have become deeply entangled in these dynamics, often serving as intellectual and ideological support for policies and practices that escalate global insecurity.

Academia’s Complicity: From Indoctrination to Security Risk

Through research partnerships, funding arrangements, and ideological alignment, academia increasingly functions as an indoctrination facility—legitimizing, normalizing, and sometimes directly promoting the systems that drive ecocide, genocide, and militarized extraction. The evidence is overwhelming: curricula that ignore or excuse systemic harm, research agendas shaped by corporate and military donors, and leadership that prioritizes institutional survival over ethical responsibility.

This complicity is not a victimless crime. The normalization of systemic violence and militarism within academic institutions is now a direct security risk—not only to vulnerable populations, but to global stability itself. By failing to challenge the deep structures of rentier capitalism and militarized extraction, universities are helping to escalate the very crises that threaten peace, sufficiency, and wellbeing worldwide.

Legal and Ethical Front: Seeking Justice

In January 2025, I filed a formal complaint with the public prosecutor, charging systemic crime and institutional failure within the financial system—fully substantiated by scientific, legal, and empirical evidence (see attached dossier, recognized by the United Nations Special Rapporteur). The response was telling: the prosecutor refused to investigate, passing the case to the National Bank—one of the accused parties. Other oversight bodies declared themselves incompetent or simply refused to respond.

This pattern of institutional obstruction is not unique to Belgium; it is symptomatic of a broader crisis of accountability. When those tasked with upholding justice instead shield the powerful, the burden falls on scholars, activists, and citizens to document, expose, and escalate.

The Magna Charta Observatory: A Test of Academic Integrity and Security

As the Magna Charta Observatory (MCO) marks its anniversary, it faces a defining test. The MCO was established to defend the core values of university autonomy, integrity, and responsibility. Yet, in the face of overwhelming evidence that rentier capitalism systemically produces ecocide, genocide, and fuels militarized violence—and that universities are complicit—the Observatory’s silence or neutrality risks making it an accessory to these crimes and a contributor to global insecurity.

The failure of academia to confront these realities is not only an ethical lapse but a security threat. By enabling the systems that drive ecocide, genocide, and militarized extraction, universities are undermining the very conditions for peace and wellbeing.

Open Statement to the Magna Charta Observatory

Below, I present my open statement to the MCO, issued on the occasion of its anniversary, as a call to conscience and action for all academic institutions:

Open Statement to the Magna Charta Observatory on the Occasion of Its Anniversary:
Universities Must Not Be Complicit in Systemic Ecocide and Genocide

Dear Members of the Magna Charta Observatory,
Dear Academic Leaders and Colleagues,

On the occasion of your anniversary, I write to you not with congratulations, but with an urgent call to conscience and action.

It is self-evident that the promotion or facilitation of ecocide and genocide has no place in any university or academic institution. Yet, as documented in my attached dossier—now recognized by the United Nations Special Rapporteur—there is overwhelming, irrefutable evidence that the financial architecture of rentier capitalism, with which many universities are deeply entangled, systemically produces both ecocide and genocide. This is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of scientific, legal, and empirical fact.

Universities, as key institutions in shaping global consciousness and ethical standards, bear a unique responsibility. To remain silent, neutral, or complicit in the face of such crimes is to betray the very values the Magna Charta Observatory was founded to protect: academic integrity, autonomy, and service to the common good.

Today, as the world faces a polycrisis of escalating social and ecological catastrophe, I call on the MCO and its signatories to:

1. Acknowledge the systemic harms of rentier capitalism—including ecocide and genocide—as incompatible with the mission and values of the university.
2. Commit to transparency regarding financial, corporate, and institutional entanglements that perpetuate these harms.
3. Take concrete steps to ensure that universities are not complicit in, or beneficiaries of, systems that destroy communities and ecosystems.
4. Support and protect scholars, students, and staff who expose and resist these injustices.

If the MCO cannot rise to this challenge, it risks irrelevance—or worse, complicity—in the very atrocities it claims to oppose. In such a case, new leadership and a renewed commitment to academic ethics and global justice are urgently needed.

History will record who stood up in this moment—and who turned away.

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 Koenraad Priels is an independent researcher, transformative criminologist, and founder of Free-B. He has published six peer-reviewed articles, authored a UN report, and initiated the first legal case against the global interest banking system for ecocide in Belgium. He is currently applying for an interdisciplinary PhD at KULeuven, focusing on the systemic links between financial architecture and crime, violence, ecocide and genocide.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 23 Jun 2025.

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