From the Foreword: However, that institutional autonomy has also made them vulnerable to the pathologies which economists term ?principal-agent problems,? particularly when they enjoy secure funding and insulation from competition. Diagnosing those problems is at the heart of many of this book?s essays; while the assessments differ, the seriousness of the condition, and the urgency of dealing with it, are palpable. Somewhere Marx remarks that the bourgeoisie in its decline reproduces every irrationality against which it once fought. And the universities, he might have added, become the vehicle by which the rot is legitimised, spread and entrenched ? not least by those who proclaim themselves Marxists. We should be grateful to this book?s authors, and particularly to its editor, William Coleman, for so clearly sounding the alarm.
