Paul Starr > Quotes

“Herrschaft (variously translated as authority or domination) is the probability that people will obey a command recognized as legitimate according to the prevailing rules in their society.”
― Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise Of A Sovereign Profession And The Making Of A Vast Industry

“the past had other possibilities, and so do we today.”
― Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise Of A Sovereign Profession And The Making Of A Vast Industry

“American scientists before the war generally opposed any large-scale federal financing or coordination of research.* Between 1900 and 1940, the primary sources of financing for medical research were private. Private foundations and universities were the principal sponsors and hosts of basic research. The most richly endowed research center, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, was established in New York in 1902 and by 1928 had received from John D. Rockefeller $65 million in endowment funds. In that same period, wealthy donors set up several other independent institutes, but most medical research was conducted by scientists in universities, supported by endowment income, special research funds, and foundation grants.”
― Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry

“The medical profession has had an especially persuasive claim to authority. Unlike the law and the clergy, it enjoys close bonds with modern science, and at least for most of the last century, scientific knowledge has held a privileged status in the hierarchy of belief.”
― Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise Of A Sovereign Profession And The Making Of A Vast Industry

“No state classified oral sex as a crime against nature until 1879”
― Paul Starr, American Contradiction: Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to Now