Foundations, United States Foreign Policy, and African Education, 1945-1975

Edward Berman, in Harvard Education Review, 49, puts it more brusquely. Focusing on Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford philanthropies, he concludes that the "public rhetoric of disinterested humanitarianism was little more than a facade"[p.2] behind which the interests of the political state (not necessarily those of society) "have been actively furthered."[p.2] The rise of foundations to key positions in educational policy formation amounted to what Clarence Karier called "the development of a fourth branch of government, one that effectively represented the interest of American corporate wealth."[p.120]