A Continuing Critique

An open letter to President Bok:

An interesting idea has emerged from the debate on divestiture, Mr. President, the idea that excellence in research and teaching depends on the exploitation of black South Africans, that the financial costs of divestiture might impair what you termed in your open letter of March 9 our "special mission" in "the discovery and transmission of knowledge." Now this notion will not surprise those radical critics of capitalism who have long argued the dependence of corporate profits on racism and imperialism. It is more surprising to hear this argument from more respectable sources, indeed from the very establishment itself.

But my purpose is not to affirm or deny a link between profits derived from exploitation and the financial well-being of this university. It is rather, Mr. President, to express my surprise that a university dedicated, in your words, to a "continuing critique of our values, our behavior, our institutions, and our social practices" commits so little of its resources to study and instruction on this question. The Economics Department, where one might logically expect to find this continuing critique, is rather more committed to making capitalism work smoothly that to subjecting it to basic critical evaluation. The economics of institutional racism, imperialism, and much else that might go into such a critique figure as little in the economics curriculum as you would have them figure in the investment policy of the University.

Mr. President, let me speak frankly. I could accept your argument for political neutrality more easily if our teaching and research really gave the weight to a "continuing critique" of our society that your open letter suggests.

Let me conclude, Mr. President, with a statement of my own views on the specific question of divestiture. I have heard it said that divestiture is but a gesture, an empty statement. Gestures are not to be dismissed as merely symbolic. We live by symbols and the symbolic value of this university's collective gestures is orders of magnitude greater than the value of individual gestures we might make. We can choose, Mr. President, collective silence that implies either collective consent or collective indifference. Or we can take a stand that publicizes our collective opposition to the institutional racism of apartheid. Stephen A. Marglin   Professor of Economics