Word: veblen
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...This tension between the goals of the university as a business and the university as a place for education and research is nothing new. Indeed, Thorstein Veblen described the university in 1957 as “a compromise between the scholar’s ideals and those of business, in such a way that the ideals of scholarship are yielding ground...before the pressure of businesslike exigencies...
...Unlike Veblen, I do not argue that the exigencies of business have no place in a university. Such practical considerations are necessary to sustain centers of higher education as precisely that: institutions of learning. In this way, donations from men like Harkness and Rockefeller are crucial. Rather, the problem lies in an irrational glorification of these ideals—naming opportunities or a demand for unreasonable results, for example—that imposes the values and accomplishments of the philanthropist upon the beneficiary...
...Unlike some protesters in the audience who were just rude and childish, Rohe was respectful. And saying that McCain didn't reflect the values of The New School seems undebatable. The school was founded in 1919 by philosopher John Dewey, historian Charles Beard and social commentator Thorstein Veblen, all of whom were deeply disillusioned by World War I and gave the school a pacifist streak that seems hopelessly naive in retrospect. Beard, best known as co-author with his wife, Mary, of An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, which argued that the founders were operating more out of monetary self...
Forget Wall Street. More than 75 years ago, a Stanford University economist named Thorstein Veblen predicted that one day, engineers would be the true masters of the financial universe. It's technology that drives the economy, he argued, and since engineers create the stuff, it'll only be a matter of time before they come to their senses, seize power and undercut the venture capitalists and corporate bigwigs who make so much dough from other people's brilliant ideas. Veblen was right, it turns out. And though they never met, the man who would lead the revolution was a more...
Clark went on to found Silicon Graphics, Netscape and Healtheon, creating three multibillion-dollar companies. (So far.) I learned about Veblen--and loads about Clark--in Michael Lewis' new book, The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story (Norton; $25.95). It's a superb book and explains how engineers are the greatest creators of wealth in history and why Silicon Valley is the center of the universe (and how Clark came to be the center of the Valley). I tend to dislike most nonfiction, since so many writers approach their work as if they were doing the reader a favor...