The Philanthropies of American Imperialism
Foundations and American Power
Zbigniew Brzezinski in The Grand Chessboard
(1997) noted that “Cultural domination has been an underappreciated
facet of American global power.” United States philanthropic foundations
skillfully applied this weapon during the Cold War. If we define this
war as a conflict between two ways of organizing societies, capitalist
and socialist, we can see how broad were the fronts and diverse the
weapons. We may also conclude that the Cold War is not over; targets
such as Cuba, India, and Nepal are still under attack, and the small
news we receive from Eastern Europe suggests considerable activity in
the trenches.
Knowledge networks created in the service of American global hegemony are the main subject of Inderjeet Parmar’s book Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power (Columbia
University Press, 2012). These, he argues persuasively, promote
technocratic capitalist economics while failing to eradicate poverty.
His focus is on the “big three” foundations: Ford, Carnegie and
Rockefeller, traditionally the ones most active in foreign policy. Even
given this limitation, the title and introduction are somewhat
misleading, as only a slice of their activity promoting U.S. power in
the world is discussed.
Nevertheless, the sponsorship of university programs and institutes,
think tanks, and government policy agencies (and promoting links among
them) worldwide has had dramatic results, as “intellectuals” are crucial
to the support or overthrow of regimes (note Crane Brinton and Antonio
Gramsci). Networks funded by foundations can offer status, wealth,
travel, an exciting collegial atmosphere, or simply provide a living
wage to those who wish to become or remain intellectuals. Failing to
obtain this recognition may doom one to obscurity and/or poverty.
“Intellectual” in the broadest sense includes teachers, professors,
administrators, public policy specialists, activists, non-governmental
organization staff, as well as artists, writers, philosophers and other
cultural workers.
From the other side, journalists and politicians gain credibility by
relying on the supposed “impartial, nonpartisan, scientific”
publications and spokespeople of think-tanks—often the only source of
policy ideas.
Parmar documents his theme in great detail:
The modern foundation mediated between the modern university and the state and between universities and big business. The foundation organized crucial state agencies, international corporations, and the universities behind a hegemonic project of domestic federal-state building and U.S. global expansion: Progressivism and imperialism went hand in hand (p. 66)
In addition to the incorporation of elites, mass public opinion and
propaganda were not neglected by the foundations. Before and during
World War II, The Rockefeller Foundation funded Princeton’s Office of
Public Opinion Research led by Hadley Cantril, to enhance the “case for
belligerence and to crush the case for isolation and neutrality.” “The
U.S. Army. . . even went so far as to open an office at Princeton. . . a
‘Psychological Warfare Research Bureau.’” (p. 81)
The Foreign Policy Association, a project of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (see Horace Coon, Money to Burn,
on CEIP), aimed for the second rank of intellectuals—League of Women
Voters, other local political discussion groups, organized labor et al.
It was as well an advisor to the State Department. FPA sold or
distributed thousands of books—the Headline Series—to high school
international relations clubs.
During the same period, FPA produced and distributed maps, study
guides, and bibliographies for students, teachers, and club leaders and
organized teacher-student seminars and a college students’ conference. .
. . [W]ritten . .in a style “readily understood by young people.” (p.
84)
This is the way to go. I have without any evidence of
success implored my radical colleagues to produce children’s books,
computer games, textbooks comprehensible to high school and actual
college students, videos, TV cable channels—whatever format is “in,” yet
so much energy is expended in dialectical discourses that even we
learned professors find repetitive and tedious, and not always
comprehensible.
Parmar also describes how the foundations worked abroad to fight
anti-Americanism. He mentions the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the
excellent study by Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War.
The foundation-funded Salzburg Seminar in American Studies was
“targeted at European men and women at the cusp of leadership positions
in their own society. . . a ‘Marshall Plan of the Mind.’” (p. 108) The
CCF enhanced the right wing of British Labour Party at the expense of
those in the party protesting nuclear weapons and persisting in
socialist schemes.
Bilderberg is briefly mentioned, but more description is needed. Many
don’t know what this is and others are afraid to find out, as the very
inquiry is tarred with conspiracy theory. How will we ever know if it is
a conspiracy or reject that description if we don’t know what it is?
Parmer concludes that foundations were successful in their goals; so
far, this assessment is justified. It can help to explain, for example,
the “normalization” of NATO, even among social democratic and green
parties and regimes, and the “partnership” status in NATO of “neutral”
countries—Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Austria, Switzerland.
The second half of Parmar’s book consists primarily of three case
studies, covering some of the ground earlier reported in Edward Berman’s
The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy: The Ideology of Philanthropy.
In Indonesia the Ford Foundation-sponsored knowledge networks worked
to undermine the neutralist Sukarno government that challenged U.S.
hegemony. At the same time, Ford trained economists (both at University
of Indonesia and in U.S. universities) for a future regime supportive of
capitalist imperialism.
This was a useful tactic; those on the left or right seeking to
overthrow a government had better have people who know how to manage the
new dispensation. Thus, the Fabian socialists created the London School
of Economics to train administrators of a future socialist society,
although this was considered elitist by socialists of other varieties.
However, the LSE soon strayed from its original mission, and enjoyed
Rockefeller enhancements during the early 20th century.
Parmar’s labors in the Ford archives netted him clear evidence that
Ford worked closely with the CIA in planning for the Indonesian massacre
and transition to the U.S. friendly Suharto government.
In Nigeria, the big three foundations created institutes, networks
and university departments, providing resources that were otherwise very
scarce, and thus incorporating even progressive Nigerians into the
pro-Western, pro-capitalist camp.
Parmar provides details about the transformation of economics
departments at Chilean universities (well before the military coup of
1973) under the aegis of Ford, Rockefeller and the Chicago Boys.
Gradually radicals and Marxists were excluded and choices of different
capitalist strategies were the only ones permitted.
When the Pinochet government took over, leftists in government
departments as well as university posts were dismissed; the resourceful
Ford Foundation created non-governmental organizations and research
institutes to harbor them. Ford was very successful in this cooptation
strategy, because by the time the military government ended and
“normalcy” returned to Chile, those harbored had become convinced of the
technocratic rationality of the Washington consensus and globalization.
Discussing current operations, Parmar identifies a new rationale for
US power: promoting democracy on the premise of “democratic peace
theory.” This argues that democracies, interpreted as nations with
“market” systems open to the globalized economy, are inherently
peaceful. Now “regime change” through subversion or violent invasion
becomes the road to peace—in our Orwellian vocabulary. Parmar does not
mention the Carnegie Endowment doctrine of “humanitarian intervention,”
proffered just in time for Clinton’s destruction of Yugoslavia.
In the service of U.S. hegemony, our wars work together with the
“soft power” of foundations. They have created huge international
philanthropy networks, and sponsor and fund the World Social Forum,
where critiques of the market system may be aired. Parmar mentions that
at the 2004 WSF in Mumbai, India, Ford money for the conference was
rejected, because of the Foundation’s role in India’s Green Revolution.
It would have been good if Parmar had included more discussion of the
Ford, Rockefeller, and now Gates Foundations’ projects for remaking the
agriculture of the world with the promise that they will end hunger.
This premise of the Green Revolution is now questioned even by the very
establishments nurtured by foundations, the United Nations agencies. In
2008, the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and
Technology for Development (IAASTD) “report concluded that modern
biotechnology would have very limited contribution to the feeding of the
world in the foreseeable future. The conclusion was that a viable food
future lies in the creative support of ecological agriculture in which
small-scale farmers will continue to play a major role.”
The evidence in Parmer’s book adequately supports his conclusion:
“The foundations remain primordially attached to the American state, a
broadly neoliberal order with a safety net, and a global rules-based
system as the basis of continued American global hegemony.” (p. 265)
However, there is much more to the story of the foundations and U.S.
global power. Its scope includes the creation of the Council on Foreign
Relations, the United Nations, and the European Union. There were vast
interventions beyond universities and think tanks into cultural and
grassroots organizations throughout the world. Parmar mentions briefly
the Ford/CIA effort to counter “anti-Americanism” in postwar Europe via
the Congress for Cultural Freedom. This was only one prong of an
intricate undertaking, as detailed in Stonor’s Cultural Cold War, and Phil Agee’s Dirty Work.
There was much regime change work to subvert Eastern European
political systems, including Helsinki Watch (now Human Rights Watch) and
subsidies to dissenters and overthrow groups via the East European
Cultural Foundation and other “ pass-throughs.” In South Africa, the
“big three” foundations played a role in the transition from capitalism
with apartheid to capitalism without apartheid, despite the African
National Congress commitment to socialism (see Roelofs, Foundations and Public Policy).
Throughout Latin America, radical protest was shepherded into NGOs
fragmented by identity politics; this is well described in the work of
James Petras. Traditional religion was employed against godless Marxism
when Ford funded rupee editions of religious tracts in India, while a
Bible translation project in South America was used by Rockefeller to
co-opt indigenous people (see G. Colby and C. Dennett’s Thy Will Be Done).
The Philippine Educational Theater Association (street theater inspired
by Brecht) was formed to question imperialism and exploitation; after
Ford funding it gradually became a theater of “empowerment,” presenting
plays about domestic violence and reproductive health.
The full story may be too large for one book and one researcher, yet
it is important to include a sketch of the larger picture for the
guidance of future investigators. Even in the university-think tank
area, there are mysteries requiring further sleuthing: Ford funding of
economics education in China prior to its embarkation on the capitalist
road, and funding of economics institutes affiliated with the Communist
Party of India.
Many U.S. and foreign foundations are partners in global knowledge
networks. However, one of those younger than the big three is so
significant that a fuller discussion would be appropriate in the context
of Parmar’s book: Soros’ Open Society Institutes, which reconstructed
Eastern European universities and had a large role in creating the
FIDESZ party in Hungary, along with a host of worldwide interventions.
As the foundations date only from the second decade of the 20th century, a more complete historical context could easily have been provided. Parmar says that in the early 20th
century the United States was a society relatively content to expand
within continental limits. Although there was an anti-imperialist
movement, and there were proponents of international law, even outlawing
war, most of the elite was not on that train. Progressives, including
the foundations, were enthusiasts of “cultural imperialism” (see Robert
Arnove’s anthology, Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism). Public-private partnerships, which have diluted democracy for the sake of efficiency, were advocated in Recent Social Trends (1933), itself a collection created by a Rockefeller Foundation-President Hoover partnership.
Nevertheless, Parmar’s book is a valuable contribution to the tiny
field of critical foundation studies. He notes that foundations are
rarely discussed by political scientists. One reason may be the enormous
support they provide to individuals and institutions in that field,
including the International Political Science Association.
The work is based on hours spent in foundation archives, where
unpublicized gleanings often make intentions clear. He reports on a few
rejected grant proposals. A comprehensive study of the rejectees might
help us to understand what happened to all that idealism that shone
throughout the world in 1945–social democracy, human rights, equality of
persons and nations, international law, and an end to imperialism and
war.
Joan Roelofs is Professor Emerita of Political Science, Keene State College, New Hampshire. She is the translator of Victor Considerant’s Principles of Socialism (Maisonneuve Press, 2006), and author of Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (SUNY Press, 2003) and Greening Cities (Rowman and Littlefield, 1996). Web site: www.joanroelofs.wordpress.com Contact: joan.roelofs@myfairpoint.net
