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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Contrary to those social scientists who posit a close relationship between corporate interests, the capitalist state, and the nonpartisan research establishment, this paper challenges the linkage thesis through an examination of the early history of the Brookings Institution. As the nation's oldest and most prestigious “think tank,” the Brookings Institution played a multidimensional role in the public policy process. Robert S. Brookings, the capitalist who founded the institution in the aftermath of World War I, played little role in the subsequent history of the institution. Instead, the less reform-minded professional social scientists who staffed the organization shaped the character of the institution. In their defense of the market economy, Brookings economists emerged as leading opponents of the new liberal state.
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9 “Efficiency” remains an ambiguous concept. At least three meanings have been imparted to this word by social scientists in the twentieth century. First, “efficiency and economy” experts often use efficiency to mean managerial and administrative competency. In turn, economists use efficiency in the sense of opportunity costs or resource input compared with product outcome, ofter measured in dollars. At the same time, some economists discuss efficiency in terms of human costs incurred and human satisfactions and benefits produced.
Therefore, efficiency can be used in a myriad of ways. Thus every system, as Jacques Ellul correctly observes in The Technological Society (New York, 1964),Google Scholar seeks efficiency. Nevertheless, efficiency, with its multiple meanings, will be defined by the institutional context of each organization within the sociopolitical or technological system.
See Slichter, Sumner, “Efficiency,” The Encyclopedia of Social Science, 5 (New York, 1937), 437–39.Google Scholar Also, Haber, Samuel, Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era, 1890–1920 (Chicago, 1964).Google Scholar
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11 For Carnegie see Wall, Joseph Frazier, Andrew Carnegie (New York, 1970).Google Scholar The following discussion of Robert S. Brookings is drawn from two unpublished autobiographies, one dated 1920 and the other 11 April 1932, found in the Chancellor Files, Washington University Archives. Also, see Hagedorn, Herman, Robert S. Brookings: A Biography (New York, 1937).Google Scholar
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Willoughby's twin brother, Westel, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins, took the elitism of many social scientists a step further when he proposed in 1921 that “the vote of each individual be given a weight proportionate to his intelligence” (Willoughby, Westel W. and Rogers, Lindsay, An Introduction to the Problem of Government [New York, 1921]).Google Scholar
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19 “Proposal to the Carnegie Foundation,” quoted in full in Board of Trustees, Minutes, 5 January 1922, BIF.
20 John D. Rockefeller to Jerome P. Green, 8 November 1920, BIF.
21 Harold G. Moulton to Robert S. Brookings, 21 January 1922 and Moulton to Brookings, 8 May 1922, BIF.
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23 Brookings, Robert S., Industrial Ownership: Its Economic and Social Significance (New York, 1925).Google Scholar
24 Ibid., pp. 58–64
25 Ibid., pp. 54–55
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27 Robert S. Brookings to Harold G. Moulton, 26 March 1932, BIF.
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For the Brookings Institution's work with Indians see Meriam, Lewis et al. , The Problem of Indian Administration in the United States (Washington, D.C., 1927).Google Scholar
30 Lyon, Leverett et al. , The National Recovery Administration: An Analysis and Appraisal (Washington, D.C., 1935);Google ScholarLyon, Leverett, The Economics of Free Deals: With Suggestions for Code-Making Under the NRA (Washington, D.C., 1933);Google ScholarMoulton, Harold G., The Recovery Problem in the United States (Washington, D.C., 1938).Google Scholar
31 Moulton, Harold G. and Schlotterbeck, Karl T., Should Price Controls Be Retained? (Washington, D.C., 1945);Google ScholarBachman, George W. and Meriam, Lewis, The Issue of Compulsory Health Insurance (Washington, D.C., 1948);Google Scholar and Meriam, Lewis and Schlotterbeck, Karl, The Cost and Finances of Social Security (Washington, D.C., 1950).Google Scholar
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33 Moulton, Harold G., Controlling Factors in Economic Development (Washington, D.C., 1949).Google Scholar
34 Delano in fact resigned from the board of trustees after prolonged confrontations with Moulton.
35 Standard works on government reorganization in the Roosevelt administration include Polenberg, Richard, Reorganizing Roosevelt's Government: The Controversy Over Executive Reorganization, 1936–1939 (Cambridge, 1966);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Karl's, Barry Dean excellent Executive Reorganization and Reform in the New Deal (Cambridge, 1963).Google Scholar
Also see President's Committee on Government Administration and Management, The Reorganization of the Executive Branch of Government (Washington, D.C. 1937).Google Scholar
36 The Brookings Institution's relations with the Brownlow Committee are found in Moulton, H. G., “Memorandum to Louis Brownlow,” (24 March 1937);Google Scholar and Brownlow, Louis, “Memorandum for Moulton,” (11 March 1937) in President's Reorganization Committee Files, FDR Library, Hyde Park, New York.Google Scholar Also, Seiko, Daniel, Memorandum, “Financial Administration of the Federal Government,” (n.d.) in the Brookings Institution Archives, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
37 Senator Byrd to W. F. Powell, 25 February 1937; H. G. Moulton to Senator Byrd, 2 March 1937; and Moulton to Senator Byrd, 23 March 1937, in the Brookings Institution Archives, Washington, D.C.
38 Memorandum, “State and County Surveys Made by the Institute for Government Research, 1929–1941,” (n.d.) in the Brookings Institution Archives.
39 U.S. Congress, Hearings Before the Joint Committee on Government Organization (Washington, D.C., 1937), pp. 276–94, 307–310.Google Scholar
40 Edwin Gay to Harold G. Moulton, 3 August 1943.
41 See Harold G. Moulton's speeches to the Foreign Policy Association, Philadelphia, 16 December 1944; American Finance Conference, 17 November 1943; American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers, 18 November 1940; the Ohio Public Expenditures Conference, 3 November 1949, BIF.
42 Quoted in Alexander, , Theoretical Logic in Sociology, 2: 93.Google Scholar
