Intellectuals in Uniform: The Selling of an Ideology

Abstract

Intellectuals serve power: that has been a truism for some time. How do they do it? Mostly by offering advice to advance the interests of the powerful and/or by offering rationales justifying the accumulation of wealth and concentration of power by the dominant classes. A special category of intellectuals — policy oriented ones — have proliferated in recent years, drawn by the economic rewards and social status associated with being part of elite policy circles. In this chapter we discuss a particular instance of the intellectuals as servants of power — those who have supported and offered helpful advice to the political and economic elites imposing structural adjustment policies (SAPs) in the Third World.