SCHOLARSHIP AND IDEOLOGY 21 this examination will reveal that just as 'dispassionate behaviourism' has been perverted, quite readily, into an instrument of ideology, coercion and control,3 so 'the liberal neutral attitude' in research in fact often disguises service to power in a form more subtle and indirect than presumably intended by Conyers Read in the cited remarks. The phenomenon is all the more important in the light of the fact that American intellectuals are as free from direct controls as any in the world, and that the range of opportunities available to them for free research and expression, in the universities and outside, is without parallel anywhere. Therefore, the elements of narrow dogmatism that can, I believe, be identified, are remarkably interesting as an illustration of how intellectuals come to serve as 'experts in legitimation', in Gramsci's phrase. To illustrate what Hans Morgenthau has called 'our conformist subservience to those in power', let us begin by considering the following facts : 1) There is an ongoing process of concentration of decision-making power over foreign policy in the hands of the state executive, generally with bipartisan support. 2) There is a parallel process of concentration of decision-making power over the economy in a small and much intertwined class of corporate owners and managers, banking and investment empires, and the like ; and again, in the state executive, which CDmmands vast resources of capital and powerful tools of economic management. 3) The state executive is largely staffed by members of the corporate elite and those closely associated with them, and is subject to the powerful influence of .the owners of the basic institutions and major capital resources of American society. That is, the two processes of centralisation of power are closely related ; it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that they reduce to one. While one may introduce qualifications and refinements, these three observations seem beyond serious controversy. Taken together, they m'ght lead a neutral, dispassionate investigator to entertain the hypothesis that corporate interests influence foreign policy. This not particularly surprising hypothesis gains in plausibility when we consider a number of further facts. The corporate elite is concerned with profit and growth. There has been a vast growth in the overseas operations of US corporations since World War II. To give a few figures, US investments in manufacturing abroad amounted to $3800 million in 1950, $1200 million in 1960, $32,200 million in 1970, with a growth of about 10 per cent a year, the biggest impulse being the establishment of the European Common Market. From World War II, total overseas investment has grown from about $10,000 million to $86,000 million in 1971. Investment is highly concentrated in major corporations. Earnings from foreign operations amount to about 20-25 per cent of corporate profits after taxes. Some corporations,such as IBM, have already passed the 50 per cent m ark