THE FORUM: A Section Devoted to Learned Opinion

Abstract

The American academic community is afflicted with a two-fold ideological blindness,
affecting both its social position and its internal intellectual orie ntat ion. First, it
has underestimated the role of market forces in determining the rewards and status of  higher education, rationalizing its position in terms of social service and intellectual con­ tribution. Second, it has, through the "publish or perish" syndrome, unconsciously applied an essentially market view of intellectual motiva­ tion, ignoring the Social Darwinist and  Taylorist origins of this view, and their relevance to the most onerous working-class  jobs of early industrialism .