America’s New Mandarins

By EmmaZahn on Sun, 02/24/2013 - 12:29pm |

I’m hinting at the final problem, which is that this ostensibly meritocratic system increasingly selects from those with enough wealth and connections to first, understand the system, and second, prepare the right credentials to enter it—as I believe it also did in Imperial China.

And like all elites, they believe that they not only rule because they can, but because they should. Even many quite left-wing folks do not fundamentally question the idea that the world should be run by highly verbal people who test well and turn their work in on time. They may think that machine operators should have more power and money in the workplace, and salesmen and accountants should have less. But if they think there's anything wrong with the balance of power in the system we all live under, it is that clever mandarins do not have enough power to bend that system to their will. For the good of everyone else, of course. Not that they spend much time with everyone else, but they have excellent imaginations.

URL:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/21/america-s-new-mandarins.html

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Excellent article. MCardle is obviously brilliant, I agree with everything she said.

by A Guy Called LULU on Sun, 02/24/2013 - 4:46pm

Yes, Jane Galt can at times be quite insightful. And labeling those bubble boys and girls New Mandarins was a good choice. Maybe they will pay attention to the flattery, spoonfuls of sugar and all that. Doubt they would respond well to how I have in the past cataloged them. To me they are Antoinettes because quite often they seem as clueless as the fictional Marie and her cake.

by EmmaZahn on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 12:01pm

Yeah, this is one of those times. I did start to add some caveats about agreeing with everything Ms. Galt said. [Actually, she comes across to me as a much more likeable and sensible person than I could imagine J.G. being] The extent of my familiarity with her comes from watching her in discussions on Bloggingheads TV. I have watched a fair number of them. There too I thought her smart and informative but too dedicated to fitting every solution into her libertarian political science paradigm. I just checked, she has been on that program more than sixty times with a lot of different people including one in April of 2008 with Glenn Greenwald which I missed but will go back soon to watch. I'm sure all his many other fans here will jump to do the same.

http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/1540

by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 02/25/2013 - 12:55pm

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