, . - ~-- MANCHJ:LD . · :IN THE·· CORPORATE STATE U IV.E ....., JU J. 1 7 CORNELL'S 'RULING ELITE i AND THE I i I NATIONAL i I 50¢ . ECONOMY CONTENTS Preface .•...•....................•...•..............•...................•..........•. page 2 Introduction •......................................................................•.. page 3 Rockefeller Interest Group at Cornell ........................••...................... page 6 Family Interest Groups at Cornell .............................•...................... page 11 Cornell's Foreign Policy Establishment. .......................................•...... page 15 The Cornell Defense Nexus ............................................................ page 17 Cornell and Apartheid ................................................................ page 19 Cornell and Domestic Social Control .................................................. page 21 Cornell and the Ruling Class ......................................................... page 24 The Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory: A Case' Study of Military Research and Corporate Enterprise at Cornell ................................. page 29 Cornell's Top Brass .................................................................. insert Prepared by the Research Committee of Cornell Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) 308 Stewart Avenue Ithaca, New York 14850 (607) 273-0535 First Printing, April 1969 Second P~inting, June 1969 PREFACE Whatever this study says of wealth and power at Cornell is necessarily an understate­ ment. The total picture could not be described for various reasons: 1.) Our society is ruled in ways which are neither accessible nor visible to the people and therefore we have had to rely upon public sources and promotional literature for our research; 2.) When we asked President Perkins for the minutes of the Trustee meetings, he refused to show them to us; and 3.) We have not had the benefit of liberated Presidential files as did our brothers and· sisters at Columbia. The essays in this study are a first attempt to understand our place in Cornell and also Cornell's role in a repressive society. Written collectively, the essays nonetheless vary in focus and intent, and at times overlap. We hope they will be another step in a developing analysis of the system which oppresses us all, and will contribute toward the eventual overthrow of that system. -. Int-roduction "The university and the other institutions of society - including the corporation, the farm, the cultural center, and the government agency - have now been joined together by a new kind of blood stream, made up of the ideas, the trained intelligence, and the manpower which provide the driving energy for our society. And the university is the great pumping heart that keeps this system fresh, invigorated, - and in motion." (James A. Perkins, The University in Transition) It has long been a tenet of American radi­ labor force. No one corporation can afford cal thought that the universities are run by to train its own labor force, for _there is phillistine businessmen who nave nothing in no way to insure that its investment, once common with the higher learning w.hich they ad­ trained, will not seek employment else­ minister and control. From Thorstein Veblen where. The costs of training, therefore, and· Upton Sinclair to the Berkeley Free Speech have to be socialized. American colleges Movement, it has become commonplace to assert and universities, subsidized by government that the university is a knowledge factory, collected tp.xes, have taken on the social the faculty employees, the trustees disinter­ function of training skilled personnel and ested profit-takers or intellectual trolls, developing knowledge for the needs of ad­ the students raw material of production. None vanced capitalism." (James O'Connor, Levi­ of this is essentially false, but it has ef­ athan, March 1969) fectively obscured the larger and more serious aspects of the problem. These colleges and universities can be dif· Our object is not simple perception of so­ ferentiated according to the nature of their cial evils, but an evolving political economy productivity: which will enable us to see the relationship of the institution to society and to under~ "Traditional Ivy League schools shape stand the controlling dynamism of its actions. the sons and daughters of the ruling class (A political economy is a comprehensive and and the old middle class into the new rul­ integrated Marxist analysis of a society or ing and managerial elites. The state col­ its institutions;· it seeks to analyze class leges and the universities develop the structure and to focus upon the particular con­ sons and daughters of the working class flicts engendered by the monopoly of wealth and petty bourgeoisie into the highly and power inherent in a capitalist economic skilled sectors of the hew working class ... order.) finally the new community and junior col­ The initial step in deriving this politi­ leges serve the increasing educational cal economy is to place the university within needs of, for the most part, the sons and its essential social and economic context--con­ daughters of the working class." (Carl Dav­ temporary corporate capitalism. The most basic idson, The Multiversity: Crucible of the economic function served by the university in New Working Class) this context is the training of a specially qualified work force: The development of these institutions over time is related to the changing technology of "The growth of capitalism in the present this mode of production: period depends upon the availability of a large, highly skilled technical-scientific "The constant creation of new commoditi.es, INi;flTUJE,.. FflEVliKTtVE W/\R. -3- alterations of old commodities, redesign research can profitably take place. of equipment, reorganization of the work By producing a su_stained output of re­ process, and research and development in search information and_ technician/scientists, new productive processes require a con­ the "public service" university is an essen­ stantly expanding technical-scientific tial participant in U.S. economic imperialism work force. The ~xistence of this labor in the Third World/, Its research is largely force, trained by the university under the funded by State an4 Defense Departments. (In guidance of the state and at the expense Cornell's case, the largest single source of of the working class as a whole (via tax these funds is the Defense Department's Advan­ exploitation) in turn makes the creation ced Research Projects Agency). Its Bo~rd of of new commodities, renesign of equipment, Trustees is controlled by executives of multi-­ etc., more profitable."(O'Connor) national conglomerate corporations whose pro­ fitability derives from the exploitation of The essential elements in determining the foreign markets and resources. Its scientists overall educational role of the university a~e devise new weapons systems and perfect instru­ thus the economic requirements of a capital­ ments of international social control and eco­ intensive technology and the willingness of nomic hegemony. Its major non-Western studies the state to "socialize" the cost of the uni­ programs are funded almost entirely by founda­ versity's production through tax support. (In tions dedicated to investing surplus corporate 1962, of the $7.5 billion income of all insti7 wealth in expanding American capitalism abroad. tutions of higher learning in the United And its most prominent administrators and aca­ States, 45,6% were derived from federal, state demics are invariably officials or consultants and local taxes and only 13.4% from gifts and of the federal government. Because of this endowment earnings.) multifaceted involvement in the international Thus, far from occasionally "serving cor­ structure of corporate capitalism, these uni­ porate capitalism" by occasional war research versities have additionally become points of or profit-taking by individual businessmen, imperialist rule; successful revolution in the the university has become a ~asic point of Third World or a lessening of the Cold War's production in the national economy, primarily militarization would be as disastrous to them in terms of supplying a labor force trained at as to any other defense industry. public expense. The technology to which the state has com­ For the "public service" university, the mitted the university necessarily entails so­ contemporary equivalent of the conglomerate cial problems which the university meets by corporation, a second aspect of this productiv· further expanding i.ts productivity. Because it ity consists in supplying the defense estab­ is cheaper (and thus more "rational") for cor­ lishment with a crucial input of basic re­ porations to combine capital-intensive technol­ search and a significant amount of applied mil­ ogy with technical scientific labor power itary research. Over half of all university trained at public expense, the ~conomic system federal funds go to the 25 unhiersities doing is currently producing a mass of untrained, un­ the heaviest research business with the govern· skilled workers, largely blacks, who are per­ ment, and these institutions supply the vari­ manently outside of the industrial labor mar­ ous agencies with the greater part of their ba· ket and the job structure created by the new sic research requirements. These universities technology. The "post industrial proletariat" also support affiliated applied research cen­ can be supported only through under-employment ters