Sinclair writes, “Our educational system is not a public service, but an instrument of special privilege; its purpose is not to further the welfare of mankind, but merely to keep America capitalist."
The series also includes The Profits of Religion, The Brass Check (journalism), The Goslings (elementary and high school education), Mammonart (great literature, art and music) and Money Writes!
On the right, the anti-German jingoism and florid patriotism of the war years had stirred up passions against pacifism and ‘foreign’ ideas such as Socialism and Communism.
The Palmer raids against suspected radicals occurred in 1919, and superpatriotic organizations like the business-sponsored, anti-union Better America Foundation worked to shape public opinion.
Sinclair originally intended to also critique elementary and high schools, but because of length he saved that material for another book, published in 1924 as The Goslings.
Contemporary readers would have recognized the title, The Goose-step, as referring to the authoritarian Prussian culture of Germany, which the United States had recently helped to defeat in World War I.
“Everyone (sic) of them learned the Goose-step under the Kaiser!” (p. 115) To explain how higher education is controlled by financial interests, Sinclair quotes from a report of the 1913 Pujo Committee of the United States House of Representatives.
Bankers and powerful local businessmen dominate the boards, ensuring that school policies support their class interest.
He also wanted college students to experience real life: they should visit jails and work in factories, or alternatively have prisoners and labor leaders speak at their schools.
"[4] While they rarely if ever find errors of fact,[4] they criticize Sinclair's interpretation as oversimplified: plutocrats are not responsible for all the problems with higher education.
College (Springfield, MA), Harvard Law, Amherst, Swarthmore, University of North Carolina, New School for Social Research All page numbers refer to the second edition (1923).