158. Fountains Of Business Wealth: The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org

158. Fountains Of Business Wealth: The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org

Fountains Of Business Wealth  

     The new American establishment of the twentieth century was organized around the  fountains of wealth international corporate business provides. By 1900 huge businesses  had begun already to dominate American schooling, and the

metropolitan clubs where  business was transacted lay at the core of upper-class authority in every major city in the  nation. The men's club emerged as the principal agency where business agreements were  struck and, indirectly, where school policy was forged.   

     In 1959, Fortune magazine shocked a portion of our still innocent nation by announcing  where national policy and important deals really were made in New York City. If the  matter was relatively minor, the venue would be the Metropolitan, the Union League, or  the University; if it were a middling matter it would be determined at the Knickerbocker  or the Racquet; and if it required the utmost attention of powerful men, Brook or Links.  Nothing happened in boardrooms or executive suites where it could be overheard by  outlanders. Each city had this private ground where aristocracy met quietly out of the  reach of prying eyes or unwelcome attendants. In San Francisco, the Pacific Union; in  Washington, Cosmos or the Chevy Chase Club; the Sommerset in Boston; Duquesne in  Pittsburgh; the Philadelphia Club in Philadelphia; the Chicago Club in Chicago. Once  hands were shaken in these places, the process of public debate and certification was  choreographed elsewhere for public and press. Government business came to be done this  way, too.  

     The entire web of affiliations among insiders in business, government, and the nonprofit  sector operates through interpersonal and institutional ties which interconnect at the  highest levels of finance, politics, commerce, school affairs, social work, the arts, and the  media. Continuing conflicts of value within the leadership community give an appearance  of adversarial proceedings, but each passing decade brings more and more harmony to  the unseen community which plans the fate of schools and work.  

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