1. PHILANTHROPIC FOUNDATIONS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY: A REPLY TO DONALD FISHER.
- Author
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Bulmer, Martin
- Subjects
- *
CHARITIES , *RULING class , *SOCIAL sciences , *SOCIOLOGY , *ENDOWMENTS - Abstract
This article presents author's remarks on the paper "The Role of Philanthropic Foundations in the Reproduction and Production of Hegemony: Rockefeller Foundation and Social Sciences," by Donald Fisher. The history of the large American private philanthropic foundations is of particular significance for the history of the social sciences, both in the U.S. and Great Britain, as they developed in the first half of the twentieth century. Applied to the social sciences, foundations are held to have perverted the course of development of a number of disciplines, including sociology, in the capitalist interests of their founders and the technocratic interests of foundation officials. Donald Fisher has performed a major service in documenting in considerable empirical detail the range and scope of activities of the major philanthropic foundations. One of the Fisher's central propositions is that foundations have represented interests of the ruling class. His interpretation of the key McKenzie-King affair of 1914-15, when the Rockefeller Family was publicly censured for using foundation funds to further their business interests, demonstrates the tendentious nature of his approach.
- Published
- 1984
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