Universities and the Capitalist State: Corporate Liberalism and the Reconstruction of American Higher Education, 1894-1928

The modern university has been viewed by scholars as an oasis of academic autonomy that stands above or outside society and its political conflicts. Clyde Barrow challenges that vision with his conclusion that corporations and government have been the dominant social forces shaping the goals and structure of the American university.     In particular, Barrow’s thesis is that a “scientific survey movement”—a broad political coalition led by business executives, engineers, private foundation staff members, and government officials—successfully transplanted many of the values and practices of corporate and bureaucratic administration to colleges and universities. As a result, Barrow argues that universities are best understood as a part of the state’s institutional structure designed to regulate academic intellectuals through a combination of market initiatives, bureaucratic procedures, and state coercion. In this manner, an ideological system has been constructed which is closely connected to the needs of the economic and political system.