Fresh from the Oven

 I got to see at Barnes & Noble non-fiction front table today a bunch of anti-capitalism, anti-corporation, anti-liberal, even anti-Obama mad ranting. It is as if all of the sudden writers from economy to technology to culture backgrounds had agreed to write against the status quo. And the cries are loud, real shrieks of mad-mans in the desolation camp of occupy ideology.

Take for example Chris Hedges' Death of the Liberal Class; a passionate indictment of the moral bankruptcy and intellectual cynicism of liberal America. Mr. Hedges main point is that by ceasing to fight and put into practice the principles of classical liberalism such as individualism, egalitarianism, meliorism or improvability of life, liberal America has become only a myth and a tool of corporate America, a puppet of electoral politics, and a clown of legislative deliberation that has permitted the "pillaging of the U.S. treasure on behalf of Wall Street (and) laws (that) has suspended vital civil liberties" (Hedges 8).

Hedges sniper's bullet is aimed at the likes of the New York Times and media in general, the art institutions, the church, universities, labor unions and the Democratic Party, no wild turkey escapes his fire and justly so since they all "have been bought off with corporate money and promises of scrap tossed up them by the narrow circles of power" (Ibid 10).

By kneeling to corporate money, careerism and narrow political gaming, liberal America has forsaken its function as "a safety valve (that) makes piecemeal and incremental reform possible. It offers hoipe for change and proposes gradual steps toward greater equality. It endows the state and the mechanisms of power with virtue. It also serves as an attack dog that discredit radical social movements, making the liberal class a useful component within the power elite.
But the assault of the corporate state on the democratic state has claimed the liberal class as one of its victims. Corporate power forgot that the liberal class, when it functions, gives legitimacy to the power elite. And by reducing the liberal class to courtiers or mandarins, who have nothing to offer but empty rhetoric, shut off this safety valve and forces discontent to find other outlets that often end in violence (Ibid 9).

Hedges goes on to give countless examples of how fair and transparent journalism have been tainted and corrupted, how universities have expelled critical thinking and debate, how labor union leaders and university presidents have come to enjoy the same income levels that corporate managers do, how the arts as well as the intellectuality and the media refuse to address the social and economic disparities of our time, how even Obama and the Democratic Party have offended liberalism by caving in to corporate power.

If you believe in the occupy movement and need arguments to build your conceptual points you should read this book. I recommended it along with another good book of the same kind  and by another Chris, but which I'm not going to discuss in detail : Chris Lehman's Rich People Things. If you are short in fuel supply to feed your hate of the rich and the corporations read Rich People Things: Real Life Secrets of the Predator Class. I quick glance to the index shows (again) the New York Times,  the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court, Ayn Rand, Damien Hirst, the Democratic Party (deja vu), Wired Magazine, the iPad, Social Media and many other system hares that would leave your mind-tongue licking the lips of your brain with fruition.

To better see this readings in perspective you may read today's Wall Street Journal's article by Andy Kessler The Rise of Consumption Equality. Mr. Kessler argument, in synthesis, is that lowering costs of former luxury items and widespread consumerism has narrowed the gap between the rich and the poor. Not the income gap but sure the consumer gap. But who cares about the income gap if nonetheless the poor and the rich are able to enjoy same quality level of things at different prices (from Ford Focuses for the poor and Bugatti Veyrons for the rich) and because Larry Page drives a Prius and we all have iPads and Motorola Droids. Well, we are equal. Uhum, are we? Nevertheless an enjoyable reading from a former hedge-fund manager turned writer.


Work Cited:

Hedges, Chris. Death of the Liberal Class. Nation Books, 2010.

Lehman, Chris. Rich People Things: Real Life Secrets of the Predator Class. Haymarker Books, 2011.