ABSTRACT
It is in the nature of the case that a school founded by the business community and largely financed by it, albeit formally endowed and legitimized by the government as a university, in one way or another takes into account the financiers’ wishes and expectations of how their money should be used. So, it has been since the Stockholm School of Economics was formed. The business and industry’s spiritual and practical influence over the teaching, where the discipline of business administration dominates in practical terms and where economics’ main function is to offer the institution symbolic capital, has been significant ever since the school was planned and founded. In this chapter, how this comes about is described: Overall, the teaching offered is closely related to the industries and corporations where the students at both the bachelor’s and master’s level end up after graduation, namely the hypercapitalist consulting and finance industries. Through the content of the courses, many of which consist of case studies of “challenges” in corporations, the kind of literature proposed, and the seminars and lectures, including recurrent guest lectures from the corporate world and students learn to think about themselves as a future corporate elite. Overall, the school teaches business and finance, which is not so much about learning-specific practices and techniques but more about embracing a market-oriented thinking approach to society from the standpoint of future command positions.
