Captured by Capital#

Consider the example of climate change. Large corporations and institutions have the ability and motivation to promote skepticism on the topic of climate change, not only because they fund research that harms their interests, but also because they control the means of mental production.

They control funding and investment, which allows them to select which questions are asked and studied by shifting resources toward preferred topics. They influence publishing and media, allowing them to support think tanks that manufacture doubt, buy media attention to amplify skepticism, lobby governments to block policy, and pressure publishers and journals to present ‘both sides’ of the ambitious climate policy even if the science were unsettled. None of this requires fabricating data but only shaping the ground where consensus is produced.

Whoever rules topics generates consensus that the public can perceive. Therefore we cannot rely solely on discussion, as Edenhofer and Kowarsch propose. We must carefully examine whose ideas are recognised in that discussion — in other words, whether the backgrounds of the scientists, or ‘cartographers’ mentioned in that chapter, are diverse not only in their fields of study but also in the industries they depend on for funding and career advancement. In this case, scientists are the minority because the system fails to support the scientific community in a manner independent of the corporations and institutes that profit from the fossil fuel industry.

In the case of tobacco, the same mechanism applies. Of course, the scientific consensus that tobacco harms health was eventually established, but the point is that it delayed the consensus for decades, and the delay itself caused enormous harm to public health. This is not an issue inside the scientific community. A single sponsor or political entity that science serves in a particular field can monopolise the means of mental production, which converges science into a premature consensus.

On Political And Social Factors#

Besides capital, sometimes scientific consensus can be corrupted by politics. In the example of many American scientists opposing continental drift theory, they accuse the theory of being a flawed hypothetico-deductive European theory reflecting authoritativeness instead of a theory built upon inductive methods mirroring American pluralism and democracy. However, this accusation reveals the institutional power of the accusers more than the issues in Wegener’s theory of continental drift. As the leading figures in geology, they controlled the means of mental production in geological research by defining preferred methods, important topics, and standards of reliable conclusions. By equating induction with democracy and deduction with authoritarianism, they turned a political preference into a methodological criterion. In this way, Wegener’s theory was excluded from discussion simply because it did not meet that criterion. In this case, it is a science community itself that monopolised the authority to decide what counts as science.

In the example of eugenics, many believed that human beings can be improved by socially controlling reproduction. That is, to encourage ‘fit’ families that commonly are wealthy and white, and to discourage the reproduction of ‘unfit’ families that commonly associate with illness and poverty. This theory was convincing because it was framed and justified as a logical deduction from scientific theories, including Darwin’s theory of evolution. Diversity seemed to exist as people and institutions supported eugenics, including writers, presidents, the Supreme Court and great figures in Eugenics Record Office (ERO). But really? These people and institutions are tied together to marginalise the dissenting voices. Diversity only existed at the organisational level, but in terms of ideology and interests except science, these entities are highly homogeneous and deeply aligned. Like what happened in the case of climate change, this alliance monopolised the means of mental production, such as funds and authority to decide what the problem is, like why eugenics is reasonable and beneficial, instead of questioning its validity and ethical compliance.

The public’s view is equally important. Eugenics was also embraced by many ordinary American people because Eugenics resonated with racial anxiety and dissatisfaction with immigration in their minds. The same fears that immigrants brought crime and disease exacerbated immigration restrictions and eventually led to the Eugenics policy. What makes it worse is that many members of the public lacked specialised training to distinguish between genuine genetic science and racist theories ‘framed as applications of biological science’. The alliance of capital, state, and scientific authority took advantage of it and thus controlled not only the means of mental production but also the emotional and ideological ground where consensus was built.

Together, climate change illustrates a top-down dynamic where capital controls funding, publishing, media, and think tanks, and thereby rules research agendas and shapes consensus. In contrast, eugenics includes a bottom-up dynamic where political movements leverage racial anxieties, fears regarding immigration, and the limitations of public understanding of science to foster public acceptance of eugenics.

To conclude, the diversity of science is built upon the plurality in the parties that control the means of mental production. That is, no single party decides where to direct funds, what the problem is and what the appropriate method is.