America’s first elite scholarly institutions grew out of accumulated commercial capital.

Evidence

“THE FIRST DRUDGERY of settling new colonies is now pretty well over,” Benjamin Franklin observed in 1743, “and there are many in every province in circumstances that set them at ease, and afford leisure to cultivate the finer arts, and improve the common stock of knowledge.” At thirty-seven, Franklin’s circumstances certainly set him at ease. Since fleeing Boston, he had built an empire of stores, almanacs, and newspapers in Philadelphia. For men like him, who leisured about as their capital literally or figuratively worked for them, his observations about living at ease were no doubt true. Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society (APS) in 1743 in Philadelphia. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 198

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the theme that intellectual culture (including racist ideas) is produced by those with capital to spare — relevant to Kendi’s self-interest driver. — connects to: Economists drove and profited from the commercialization of universities — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 587; The Mont Pèlerin Society shifted from elite academia toward business interests — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 374
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Economists drove and profited from the commercialization of universities — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 587; The Mont Pèlerin Society shifted from elite academia toward business interests — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 374