George, as usual is looking out for my interests and sends me West's intellectual PR for his next book 'Democracy Matters'. An exerpt of West-speak:
Free-market fundamentalism—just as dangerous as the religious fundamentalisms of our day—trivializes the concern for public interest. The overwhelming power and influence of plutocrats and oligarchs in the economy put fear and insecurity in the hearts of anxiety-ridden workers and render money-driven, poll-obsessed elected officials deferential to corporate goals of profit, often at the cost of the common good. This illicit marriage of corporate and political elites—so blatant and flagrant in our time—not only undermines the trust of informed citizens in those who rule over them. It also promotes the pervasive sleepwalking of the populace, who see that the false prophets are handsomely rewarded with money, status, and access to more power. This profit-driven vision is sucking the democratic life out of American society.
It's amazing. I'm starting to see through Cornel West. 10 years is a long time.
I think his assumptions about the responsibilities of the market are misplaced as well, exactly where the DOJ is failing us. He should be watching the difference between people like Rudy Giuliani who come from the prosecutorial side law and order guys who get government power and Michael Bloomberg, who comes from the corporate side to get government power.
You can depend on the former to exercise toughness wrt law and order and are not going to be punked by corporate elites. Eliot Spitzer is a good example. You can depend on the latter to make governement actually more efficient, effective and responsible to the public. Although somebody needs to follow up on Bloomberg's initiative to have a centralized call center to handle all complaints of New Yorkers.
None of these are democratic in the way I think West wants to see democracy, which is more of a call of social justice in all things which depends too much on outsized symbolism for my taste. Enron is no more. Plus it took out Arthur Andersen. You cannot think of a more incredible story of justice, and yet West would harp on that as exemplifying what's wrong. He simply has no respect for the intelligence and probity of investors, nor the flatly undemocratic prosecutorial powers of the DOJ. And he doesn't seem to give organizations like FASB the time of day but rather lumps them indistinguished as agents of 'market fundamentalists'. He simply doesnt' bother to give any value to the elements of trust that businessmen must establish one to the other, nor the institutions that make this possible.
In the end, his noises about King, Coltrane, Mobley and Douglass are non-sequiturs, and I think he's bitten off more than he can chew as he talks about empire and geopolitics. But then so do we all.
I would like to send West on a mission to that great creator of profits: Johnson & Johnson and see how well his rhetoric stands up to reality. The fact of the matter is most of the largest corporations who are the most influential in our society operate in relatively thin profit margins. And yet like moths to a flame, or perhaps deer in the headlights, we find Leftists completely overwhelmed by two words 'corporate profits'. They cannot fathom how it motivates people in any but corrupt ways. I daresay it is because of their complete lack of experience and understanding of how small folks become big folks and how 30% profit margins on 10 million is a completely different animal than 3% margins on 100 million.
Maybe we expect too much of them.
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