Stigler treated the university as a threat to research elites rather than their home

Evidence

Academic elites needed to be protected from coercion by students, the state, and the faculty. Stigler regarded the university as unreliable in doing so. Stigler then proceeded to imagine how to leave aside the unproductive 96 percent and provide “care and banqueting” for the productive 4 percent. He posed the question: “Is the university a sensible base of operations for the research scholars?” — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 142

Categorization

• SEED: A possible essay: ‘When the greatest economists distrusted the university’ — how pro-market thinkers saw academia itself as a coercive institution.
• XREF: connects to: George Stigler shifted from defending trustees to wanting private institutes to direct research. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 35; Stigler proposed dismantling US universities to separate elite research from market-driven teaching — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 139; Stigler deliberately designed a contract-research institute as an authoritarian counter to university tenure. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 150 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Stigler proposed dismantling US universities to separate elite research from market-driven teaching #expands (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 139
• Stigler deliberately designed a contract-research institute as an authoritarian counter to university tenure. #expands (0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 150