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HIGHER INDOCTRINATION
Universities and Corporate control
David Livingstone
Introduction
Universities are viewed as institutions independent of the concerns of the
rest of society, where free inquiry, for the sake of knowledge itself, is
encouraged. However, an examination of the developments that took place in
the North American university system over the last century or so, will
reveal a situation significantly different from the one that has been
presumed to exist. A dramatic restructuring had been undertaken, between
1894 to 1929, that permanently placed policy making decisions over education
in the hands of an industrial minority. Unbeknownst to the public at large,
their very positions of power placed them in a direct conflict of interest
with the generally accepted aims of higher education.
Although Marx’s solution for the ills of capitalism have turned out to be a
political disaster, his critique of capitalism, nevertheless, was quite apt.
Our understanding of capitalism is a society that practices a policy of
free-enterprise. In actuality, the situation is closer to what Marx had
described. He defined a capitalist state as one in which the “owners of the
means of production”, that is, the industrial class, or the major
corporations, manipulate the industry, the government, the media, and the
educational system, towards their own personal ends, and at the expense of
the masses, or who he would have called the “proletariat”.
Marx predicted that, in the advanced stages of capitalism, universities
would become “factories of mental production”. What he meant was, that
universities would become tools of the state-apparatus, guided by commercial
interests, to first, coordinate necessary research projects, and second, to
exercise control over the population, through the formulation of a national
ideology designed to foster adherence and dedication to the capitalist
agenda.
Financial Groups
As late as 1860, in American industry, manufacturing was still concentrated
in small shops and factories. Following the construction of railroads, new
possibilities for growth emerged, as major markets were opened. Large
industrial establishments grew as the more successful competitors captured
large and larger shares of the national market. Small business and joint
stock companies were displaced in favor of the modern corporation as the
basic structure of business organization. Discovering unrestrained
competition to be detrimental to profits, businessmen turned to the merger
to secure control of specific markets, where the major companies would buy
out most of its competitors in a specific industry. This merger movement
came increasingly to rely on a few banks for finance.
By the turn of the century, the
bankers and other financiers held massive amounts of corporate loans, bonds
and stocks. The end result was that by 1929, the 200 largest financial
corporations owned 48 percent of the assets of all non-financial business in
the US.
What emerged from these massive operations were financial groups. The
typical financial group always included a major investment bank as its core,
which, in turn, was supported by several commercial banks and insurance
companies, all inked through a network of shared directors. Hence, every
financial group was surrounded by client satellites in a particular industry
or industries, such as heavy manufacturing, mineral extraction, railroads,
or utilities. The major groups at the turn of the century were: the
Morgan-First National; Kuhn Loeb; Rockefeller; Boston; Mellon; Chicago;
Cleveland and Dupont.
The financial groups and their client members were all among the 250 largest
corporations in the US. Among the 200 largest non-financial corporations, at
least 44% could be positively identified as members of financial groups,
clustered around 17 of the nations 50 largest financial institutions. The
vast majority of the remaining 112 largest non-financial corporations tended
to have ties, such as loans and interlocking directors, to the financial
groups.
As late as the 1890s, the educational system of higher education was still
guided by emphasis on communicating a Protestant ethic. The curriculum
consisted primarily of biblical languages, including Hebrew, Greek and
Latin; the trivium, or grammar, logic and rhetoric; and the quadrivium,
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. The governing boards of higher
American schools were drawn largely from the clergy and were also guided
mainly by ecclesiastical or devotional notions of education.
However, by the end of the nineteenth century, American colleges and
universities were coming under the governance of business and politicians.
Businessmen dominant position in the industrial and financial establishment
were often persuaded to make large contributions to higher institutions in
exchange for positions on university governing boards. In the two decades
from 1901 to 1920, almost 45% of all board members of colleges or
universities, were attached as either an officer or director to at least one
company affiliated with a major financial group. 60% of these were
affiliated through one of the core investment or commercial banks.
The Foundations
Although a great number of technical and scientific institutes were being
founded, they were simply not enough to produce the large numbers of
engineers, technicians, and scientists required by the industrial
revolution. Therefore, businessmen turned to the rapid transformation of the
university system as a solution to their problem. Although a great number of
technical and scientific institutes were being founded, they were simply not
enough to produce the large numbers of engineers, technicians, and
scientists required by the industrial revolution. Therefore, businessmen
turned to the rapid transformation of the university system as a solution to
their problem.
In 1906, Andrew Carnegie endowed a foundation with a grant of 10 million
dollars, called the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT).
From 1906 to 1929, 80% of the members of the executive committee of this
foundation maintained some direct connection with a major business or
financial corporation either as directors or executive officers. 30% of the
executive committee members were attached to companies with membership in
either the Morgan-First National or the Rockefeller group.
The General Board of Education was similarly chartered by John D.
Rockefeller in 1903. Among the businessmen on his board, between 1903 and
1929, were some of the nation’s most prominent bankers and industrialists,
including Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller Jr. Three-quarters of the
lawyers who served on the board were also corporate officers and directors.
Among such members, 44% belonged to the Morgan group, 44% to the Rockefeller
group, and 12% to the Kuhn-Loeb group.
CFAT Trustees were concerned that, since “education was not touched by the
Constitution”, it had “no guidance from the central government looking
toward unifying and coordinating the separate State systems.” They similarly
complained that “private initiative in the field of education has been both
unguided and unrestrained by supervision on the part of State governments.”
Frederick T. Gates, of the GEB, also explained that the Rockefeller
endowment was: “not merely to encourage higher education in the United
States, but … mainly to contribute, as far as may be, toward reducing our
higher education to something like an orderly and comprehensive system.”
Ostensibly, the CFAT was established to endow a national pension fund for
professors. Access to the Pension fund, a rarity at the time, made it
possible for select institutions to offer an additional incentive that could
attract and keep prominent faculty members, gaining further prestige to the
Carnegie system universities.
Furthermore, states which
applied to the pension system were accepted only on the condition that the
state university follow specific internal reforms. Through a massive
infusion of funds into selected universities the GEB was able to elevate
certain institutions into unparalleled stature.
Centralization
World War I, like all the wars of the twentieth century, were primarily for
monetary interests. Nevertheless, it provided a unique opportunity for the
financial groups to secure control over the entire higher education, to
reorganize its research efforts for corporate ends, and to disseminate
propaganda, first, to conceal the real motives of the war, and then
secondly, to present it in such a manner as to justify participation it in
as a just cause.
A conference was called soon after the America’s declaration of war, where
all the major educational associations federated to establish the Emergency
Council on Education (ECE), whose founding charter declared its purpose “to
place the educational resources of the country more completely at the
service of the National Government and its departments.” The ECE then called
upon President Wilson “to take steps looking toward the immediate
comprehensive mobilization of the educational forces of the nation for war
purposes under centralized direction.” Among the first resolutions passed by
the new organization was a call for an “increased scientific research for
war purposes”, a demand for “educational propaganda; lectures, pamphlets,
etc.; to make clear the purposes of the war and maintain the morale of the
people,” and a request for instructions on a postwar “recasting of courses
of study in light of the lessons of the war.”
National Research
In a capitalist dictatorship, the educational system must serve two ends.
The first is to that research is properly coordinated with the needs of
industry. In order to direct national research to required ends, the
National Research Council (NCR) was formed, “whose purpose shall be to bring
into cooperation existing governmental, educational, industrial, and other
research organizations.” Primarily, the NRC would established a nationally
based priority of research priorities.
Individual research proposals, although submitted by scholars from around
the country, with a variety of independent motives, were ultimately judged
and funded with reference to a national research agenda outlined by the NCR.
Most scholars were probably not even aware that a national research agenda
existed, except to the extent that professional interest led them to respond
to indirect signals, such as what proposals were being funded and what kind
of research being published.
The guidelines formulated by the NCR Anthropology and Psychology Division,
provide an excellent example of the precision with which national research
agendas were being established:
1. Finding the “causes of labor unrest and resultant excessive high
turnover, low production, and high costs.”
2. A study of the “psychological and pathological aspects of labor problems
relative to health, efficiency, and productiveness in industry.”
3. Continued “analysis, classification, and specification of industrial
employments”,
4. A determination of ways to overcome “misapprehensions and prejudices” of
workers to capitalism.
5. Discovery of ways to counteract “similar industrial tendencies and
fallacies” from becoming prevalent in the schools.
6. A study of the “psychology and psychiatry of trouble-makers”.
Propaganda
The second fundamental purpose of education in a capitalist dictatorship is
to act as an effective means for the dissemination of propaganda, to assure
the population that national policy decisions are being carried out, not by
a handful of powerful members of the industry and for their own ends, but
that the government are representatives of the people with their better
interest in mind. In order to prevent the monopoly of certain interest
groups, the American constitution did not authorize the federal government
to exercise direct authority over education. Originally, the one federal
educational agency was the US Board of Education (USBE), established in
1867, whose only task was the collection and distribution of statistics on
education. Nevertheless, financial interests circumvented restrictions by
hiring “outside experts” or “consultants”, to interpret the ESBE’s data to
formulate recommendations published as official policy.
The formation and diffusion of
an orthodox American state-ideology, or national myth-legend, was a task
carried out by the USBE and the NHSB. The National Historical Service Board,
called together in 1917 by the Carnegie Institute, placed itself at the
service of the national government.
In a span of one and a half years, the NHSB revolutionized American social
science curriculum. The NHSB wrote several pamphlets or “teachers’ leaflets”
which were printed and distributed by the USBE. These were utilized by
professors, schoolteachers, newspapers, and a number of private agencies
promoting “education in patriotism.” The first teacher’s leaflet was careful
to warn educators that using outright lies or false information was a
“mistaken view of patriotic duty”, that was likely to be counterproductive
in the long run.
Instead, it argued for the virtues of patriotic “interpretation” by
emphasizing certain events as opposed to others, or by developing a “moral”
theme. The pamphlet noted that “history, properly studied or taught, is
constantly reminding the individual of the lager life of the community… This
common life and the ideals which guide it have been built up through the
sacrifice of individuals in the past, and it is only by such sacrifices in
the present that this generation can do its part in the continuing life of
the local community, the State, and the Nation.”
Clyde Barrow commented that “the full-scale rewriting of history under state
supervision not only facilitated a short-term justification of American
participation in the war, but also helped to institutionalize a much broader
and more permanent ideological conception of the United States in the social
sciences and humanities.” (Universities and the Capitalist State, p. 144)
The pamphlet went on to provide detailed suggestions on what to teach and
how to teach history “properly” . It urged teachers to stress the difference
between Germany on the one hand, and France, Britain, and the United Sates
on the other, as a conflict originating in the struggle between absolutism
and democracy. This was a continuation of the same revolutionary struggle
for liberty which America had initiated in the American Revolution of 1776.
If it had been America’s destiny to perfect democracy, it was now America’s
responsibility to defend democracy wherever it was threatened and bring it
to the rest of the world.
The first teachers’ leaflet made recommendations on how to interpret and
reinterpret events in ancient, mediaeval, and modern history; from the time
of Hammurabi, king of ancient Mesopotamia, and the origin of government by
law, to Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm, its direct antithesis; to using the
struggle between Sparta and Athens in the Peloponessian War of ancient
Greece as a historical metaphor for the present war.
The leaflet even suggested that
in teaching English history, the Germanic element of English civilization,
derived from the Saxons, be de-emphasized as unimportant. As well as other
suggestions on how to interpret specific events in history, this series of
pamphlets subsequently provided official biographies of historical figures,
course outlines, textbook recommendations.
Western History
Essentially, if we were to have been brought up in the Soviet Union, we
would have been taught that first the world was subjected to feudalism. This
period was followed by the industrial revolution, in which the capitalist
class brutally exploited the workers. Fortunately, we would have been
taught, a workers’ revolution took place in 1918, when the people removed
the evil capitalists from power, and erected a benevolent proletarian
dictatorship, which has been safeguarding the rights of the people ever
since.
This is national myth-legend necessary to fostering adherence to the
state-apparatus, no matter how unjust. However, the Soviet Union was not a
communistic state, not that such a state were desirable, but rather, a
system of state-capitalism, dominated by the elite at the expense of the
masses.
There was as much communism in the Soviet Union as there is democracy in the
United States. Nevertheless, we are taught the illusion that, by going to
the polls every four years, and choosing from least despicable of two or
three candidates, somehow we are participating in the process of decision
making. Instead, through campaign funding and lobbying, the industrial
class, or the capitalists, as Marx would have referred to them, manipulate
the government for their own objectives. Similarly, as Noam Chomsky has
pointed out, when we talk of corporate control of the media, we have to
remember that the media are corporations, and therefore, tout their agenda.
We are taught that our prosperity is due to both our technical ingenuity, as
well as to the superiority of our institutions. We learn that the Third
World, on the other hand, according to the propaganda of the IMF and the
World Bank, is in a primitive stage of development, in need of our
investment. In reality, corporate interests have recognized they must
proffer some degree of benefits to the citizens of the countries in which
they are headquartered. In the Third World however, where their activities
are beyond the jurisdictions of their local governments, Western capitalists
have established dictatorships, or puppet governments willing to used
brutality, to ensure the continuous flow of cheap labor and raw materials.
Then, pointing the relative prosperity and “freedoms” of their own
countries, they assure their citizens of their good fortune.
Essentially, we live in a society where corporate interests have wrested
power from the Church, and who have sought to rewrite history to legitimize
their takeover. Therefore, we are taught the myth that it was the Greek
philosophers who through their cleverness first devised the idea of
democracy, a system which has been evolved through the centuries, first by
the Romans, then the parliamentary system of the Middle Ages, and through
the continuing effort of intellectuals against the dogmatism of the Church,
has culminated in our modern secular state system.
Bibliography
Barrow, Clyde W. Universities and the Capitalist State:
Corporate Liberalism and the Reconstruction of American Higher Education.
1894-1928. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.
Blum, William. Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since WW II.
Common Courage, 1995.
Chomsky, Noam and Herman, Edward. Manufacturing Consent. The Political
Economy of the Mass Media. Pantheon Books, 2002.
Chomsky, Noam and Herman, Edward. The Washington Connection and Third-World
Fascism. South End Press, 1980.
Korten, David. When Corporations Rule the World. West Hartford and San
Francisco: Kumarian Press and Berret-Koehler Publishers, 1995
Livingstone, David. The Dying God: The Hidden History of Western
Civilization, www.thedyinggod.com |
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