Science-mart : privatizing American science / Philip Mirowski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mirowski, Philip, 1951-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science--Economic aspects--United States.

Science.

Research--Economic aspects--United States.

Research.

Privatization--United States.

Privatization.

Science--United States--History--20th century.

Science--United States--History--21st century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (464 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This trenchant study analyzes the rise and decline in the quality and format of science in America since World War II. During the Cold War, the U.S. government amply funded basic research in science and medicine. Starting in the 1980's, however, this support began to decline and for-profit corporations became the largest funders of research. Philip Mirowski argues that a powerful neoliberal ideology promoted a radically different view of knowledge and discovery: the fruits of scientific investigation are not a public good that should be freely available to all, but are commodities that could be monetized. Consequently, patent and intellectual property laws were greatly strengthened, universities demanded patents on the discoveries of their faculty, information sharing among researchers was impeded, and the line between universities and corporations began to blur. At the same time, corporations shed their in-house research laboratories, contracting with independent firms both in the States and abroad to supply new products. Among such firms were AT&T and IBM, whose outstanding research laboratories during much of the twentieth century produced Nobel Prize-winning work in chemistry and physics, ranging from the transistor to superconductivity. Science-Mart offers a provocative, learned, and timely critique, of interest to anyone concerned that American science-once the envy of the world-must be more than just another way to make money.

Contents:

Front matter

Index

1. Viridiana Jones and the Temple of Mammon. Or, Adventures in Neoliberal Science Studies

I Why We Should Not Depend Upon the Existing Content of an "Economics of Science"

2 The "Economics of Science" as Repeat Offender

II A Modern Economic History of Science Organization

3. Regimes of American Science Organization

4 Lovin' Intellectual Property and Livin' with the MTA. Retracting Research Tools

5 Pharma's Market. New Horizons in Outsourcing in the Modern Globalized Regime

III Where We Are Headed

6 Has Science Been "Harmed" by the Modern Commercial Regime?

7 The New Production of Ignorance. The Dirty Secret of the New Knowledge Economy

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 391-447) and index.

ISBN:

9780674061132

0674061136

OCLC:

812253935