The Sociological Imagination by C. Wright Mills

The new practicality leads to new images of social science-and of social scientists. New institutions have arisen in which this illiberal practicality is installed: industrial relations centers, research bureaus of universities, new research branches of corporation, air force and government. They are not concerned with the battered human beings living at the bottom of society-the bad boy, the loose woman, the migrant worker, the un-Americanized immigrant. On the contrary, they are connected, in fact and in fantasy, with the top levels of society, in particular, with enlightened circles of business executives and with generals having sizable budgets. For the first time in the history of their disciplines, social scientists have come into professional relations with private and public powers well above the level of the welfare agency and the county agent.

Their positions change-from the academic to the bureaucratic; their publics change-from movements of reformers to circles of decision-makers; and their problems change-from those of their own choice to those of their new clients. The scholars themselves tend to become less intellectually insurgent and more administratively practical. Generally accepting the status quo, they tend to formulate problems out of the troubles and issues that administrators believe they face. They study, as we have seen, workers who are restless and without morale, and managers who ‘do not understand' the art of managing human relations. They also diligently serve the commercial and corporate ends of the communications and advertising industries.