Bought Priesthood

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Originating with the American labour press [1] in the early to mid 20th century and popularized again more recently by dissident intellectuals like Noam Chomsky, "bought priesthood" refers to the constellation of technocrats, columnists, pundits, university professors, public intellectuals, business lobbyists and so on who are said to benefit from the political status quo and use their position to defend and support it.

The bought priesthood represents the flip side of McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist, which sought to marginalize public figures whose beliefs and advocacy were deemed to threaten or undermine the political status quo.

In a 1994 essay, Chomsky defined the term this way:

The labour press also condemned what they called the "bought priesthood," referring to the media and the universities and the intellectual class, that is, the apologists who sought to justify the absolute despotism that was the new spirit of the age and to instil [sic] its sordid and demeaning values. [2]