There is an interesting article in Salon today, entitled "The Kim Kardashian Exception: Why her Empire is Constantly Questioned -- and Donald Trump's Isn't." First, a confession. I have never seen so much as five nano-seconds of Kim Kardashian on any screen. Though YouTube, in their infinite algorithmic wisdom, has recommended her to me a couple of times, I have not clicked on the link. Likewise, Donald Trump. I have never watched, nor do I intend to watch, so much as a nano-second of the "Apprentice." I have no way of judging whether either the Kardashians or Trump were worth watching.
That said, the writer, Silpa Kovveli, quotes a producer from the Trump show saying, “It’s guys like him, narcissists with dark Machiavellian traits, who dominate in our culture, on TV, and in the political realm.” I could suggest the producer doesn't get around much, because "narcissists with dark Machiavellian traits" dominate the top rungs of just about any substantial enterprise. My last collegiate boss would fit the description. She (yes, she -- neither narcissim nor dark Machiavellian traits are gender specific) couldn't be wrong, on even the most trivial matter, and once bullied a VP into admitting that Emerson wrote Walden, though he, and I, and almost everyone else at the table absolutely knew better. Not, I admit, one of my better moments. Having been there, we all maintained a "wise silence" heads bowed. One can imagine the "wise silence" around many executive tables. It shouldn't be surprising that narcissists want to be in top positions, nor should it be surprising that some do actually have the "dark skills" necessary to achieve or maintain those positions. Indeed, "narcissism with dark Machiavellian traits" may be a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for attaining high level success in our "market dominated" culture.
Here's the thing. We have all heard the lament that those who do the most "good" in our culture are the one's often least rewarded -- the dedicated elementary school teacher who transforms the lives of inner city kids earns less than ... well, almost everyone, including those elementary school teachers in more posh suburban districts. Money, however, isn't everything. Although I have no doubt that the dedicated elementary school teacher would like to earn a better living, and hopes that her union is successful in the next round of negotiations, one doubts that she entered the profession with visions of great wealth. Indeed, if there were suddenly the possibility of great wealth, it would quickly dissipate the aura of moral and ethical superiority the profession because it would begin to attract "narcissists with dark Machiavellian traits." It is probably "good" that those professions that do the most "good" are poorly compensated, and that we have reserved the highest compensation for those professions where "dark Machiavellian traits" may do the least harm -- professional athletes, entertainers ...
I almost said "corporate executives, and politicians," but of course both can do considerable "harm." The last recession is a case in point. The corporate executives of some of the biggest banks in the nation almost brought the economy to its knees, and were it not for good old socialism, in the form of Keynesian economics and the bail out, we might likely be discussing the current presidential run in the midst of a real depression. It probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, those same corporate executives were not harmed in quite the same way or to quite the same extent as those they scammed with unsustainable mortgages. Indeed, they came out of it rather well, thank you very much, and the bail out may well have been the biggest corporate scam of all, one in which any number of politicians, including our President, may well have been tacitly, if not explicitly, complicit. Of course, that is now ancient history, almost a decade old, but there you have it, "evidence to the contrary" -- that is to say, to quote Kovelli, "despite every indication to the contrary, many continue to believe that if people are rewarded for behaviors then those behaviors have inherent value to our society. This kind of circular reasoning has pundits tying themselves up in knots to give Trump credit for savvily exploiting our political system, when Trump has never given us any indication that he possesses any savvy at all."
This "inherent value to our society" is the foundational myth of the so-called "free market." As I have written elsewhere, "free markets" is not "free for all." They resemble games, with well defined rules, and those who can "play within (or around) the rules most successfully" will achieve the most "success." Again, I confess, I am a Cubs fan. I watch each and every one of their games, and I know that a very select few of the athletes will earn more in a game than most will earn in a life time, but I cannot help myself. It's an addiction of sorts. I tune in the game, knowing that few if any of the attributes necessary to hit 30 home runs in a season has much in the way of "inherent value to our society." I suppose, likewise, that many follow the Kardashians for much the same reason. They have become an addiction of sorts, and they tune into their antics, knowing that few if any of the attributes necessary to be a "Kardashian" have much in the way of "inherent value to society." One could argue, of course, that "entertainment" may have some "inherent value"-- that literature, cinema, music, even television can be "edifying," challenging us to better understand ourselves and others -- but the same "income" disparity exists. Good literature, good cinema, good music, even good television -- that with the most potential for "edification," that which actually does challenge our vision of the world -- often is rather poorly compensated compared to the Kardashians. There are exceptions, but here again, for the sake of its moral and ethical "superiority," it's probably a good thing that good entertainment is poorly compensated in comparison to athletics and trash TV.
Nevertheless, the "inherent value to our society" is a foundational myth. When the bail out occurred and people were somewhat aghast that the very corporate executives received "big bonuses," one hears it in the assertion that the high salaries and exorbitant bonuses are necessary to attract and retain the "best and the brightest," those with the most "inherent value" to the game being played. In a very limited sense, of course, this may well be true. Anyone capable of hitting .350 with 30 home runs and over 90 RBIs will command an enormous salary, in part because people like me will want to watch him play, driving up gate receipts and advertising revenue. They are a valuable commodity, their agents know they are a valuable commodity, and so the salaries climb because they are "worth it." I am sure, in a very limited sense, that the same holds true for bankers and other corporate executives, though one suspects (I suspect) that it is more a matter of self perpetuating culture and demeanor than anything quite so demonstrable as actually hitting 30 home runs or driving up corporate profits. There are those to the manor born, and those who do not have (as one college president put it of me) the right pedigree. This pedigree comes with all the attitudinal pheromones that signal one's attractiveness -- a strong sense of one's inherent superiority, followed by a equally strong sense of entitlement that overwhelms normal compassion. All it takes from there is a sufficient machiavellian cunning that leads one to desire personal profit within a game that values personal profit above all else, and you have a rising star within the corporate heavens. The dark machiavellian cunning without the pedigree gives you Gatsby, the perpetual wanna be despite his ostentatious accumulation of wealth, while the pedigree and the cunning together give you Tom and Daisy, the unacknowledged American aristocracy, "careless people ... [who] smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness ... and let other people clean up the mess they had made." The corporate executives of the banking industry, who did so much to smash up the economy, retreated back into their money, demanding even greater scope for their carelessness, and left the American people to clean up the mess they had made while they went on playing on the fields of the lord.
The shift, for those who caught it, between "inherent value to our society" and "inherent value to the game being played" is subtle but important, and the one shouldn't be mistaken for the other. Democracy, for all its imperfections, leans toward that which has "inherent value to our society." Capitalism leans toward those that have "inherent value to the game being played," and the wealth producing game of capitalism is inherently predatory. I have often thought that capitalism is epitomized by the drug cartels. In their defense, the drug cartels are not so much immoral as amoral, a distinction captured in the ubiquitous phrase, "it's not personal, it's business." They have a product and that product is desirable despite the social damage caused by that product. The drug cartel exists for one purpose and one purpose only -- to increase the wealth of the cartel owners by maximizing profits from the sale and distribution of that desirable product. There are those who "share" in the profits, those associated with the production and distribution of the drugs, but their "share," per individual, is substantially less than those who control the cartel. Although the cartel owners flout the legal impositions on their product, they don't actually abhor them as one might suppose, in part because those same legal restrictions insure that demand will outstrip supply and drive up prices. The cartel business is nasty and competitive, and leaves a trail of smashed up lives in its wake as they seek to monopolize and eliminate competition. It is perhaps not surprising that the "leadership" of most cartels are sociopaths with "dark machiavellian traits," but almost all of the risk generated by that brutish competition is borne, not by the cartel owners themselves, not by those who profit from it so enormously, but rather by those who do go about doing its day to day business, by those who those who produce and distribute and ultimately consume the product. Again, although the cartel owners flout the legal impositions on their "business," they do not abhor them with one exception -- the tax code. Taxes are a direct imposition on profits, an expense unrelated to the actual cost of doing business, and an impediment to the singular purpose of the cartel -- to increase the wealth of the cartel owners by maximizing profits from the sale and distribution of that desirable product.
Don't misunderstand me. There are differences between legitimate business and the drug cartels, but they are ultimately differences of degree, not kind. Every capitalist enterprise exists for one purpose and one purpose only -- to increase the wealth of the owners by maximizing profits from the sale and distribution of a desirable product. Different "products" differ as well in the nature and degree of social damage they might cause. Most might even be benign, but some are not -- the internal combustion engine and the burning of fossil fuels provide an obvious example of an "addiction" that causes considerable environmental damage -- the sale of guns provides another example of an "addiction" that causes considerable social damage -- the list goes on. There are those who "share" in the enterprise, those who fill the various "jobs" that make it possible, the purpose of the enterprise is not "sharing" or "job creation." Increasing the wealth of owners might create jobs, but it is an unfortunate side effect, not the purpose of the enterprise. The purpose of the capitalist enterprise is to increase the wealth of the owners by maximizing profits, and any "sharing" through "jobs," particularly "high paying jobs," cuts into those profits. Although most legitimate businesses do not flout legal impositions, if those restrictions impede the owner's ability to increase wealth by maximizing profits, they will do all they can to "legally" circumvent those same regulations and lobby to have them removed, to include the imposition of paying taxes. Ultimately, of course, regulation and taxation are not intended to impede business, but to mitigate the damage. The Department of Labor and its "overtime requirements," the EPA and its "emission standards," among others, are not intended to impede business, though they might have that effect, but to insist upon the broader social responsibility of business. Democracy and the government institutions it puts into place are the ultimate restraint on unchecked capitalism, and so of course the taxes that fund such institutions are particularly onerous to business.
Don't misunderstand me. Democracy is indeed flawed. On the one side, there is nothing sexy about government bureaucracy and the policy wonks who control it. Despite Trumps assertions that Clinton is "crooked," when fact checked, she does have her moments, but she seems considerably less mendacious than most politicians. Trump is simply projecting when he calls her "crooked," in the hopes perhaps that most voters won't notice his own crookedness. No, Clinton is not crooked, at least not in the traditional sense. She is a policy wonk, and while some of her positions might be argued, they are, in the end, simply modifications within an existing government bureaucracy that provide, yawn, checks on the rapacity of capitalism. The real objection to Clinton is not that she "lies," as Trump would have it, but that she commits the ultimate sin of being, well, boring. Nor is she in bed with the "big money" of Wall Street, at least not in the traditional sense of anything resembling quid pro quo. If she were, I'm sure after thirty years in the public eye, the revelations would be more substantial than shadowy musings of tabloid conspiracy theorists. No, if she is in bed with the "big money," it is more in the sense of the status quo, which, yawn, research indicates tends to favor those in positions of wealth and power because they have learned to work the existing system. One can tilt the boat to the left, one can tilt the boat to the right, but one shouldn't rock the boat. Unlike Bernie Sanders, or for that matter Elizabeth Warren, both of whom seem quite willing to be ostentatious in their own ways, she is a bureaucratic snooze -- a c-span feed of the latest EPA hearing where dialogue is replaced with the rustling of papers and the occasional reference to sub-paragraph 3(d) of chapter IV on page 3,682.
On the other side, on the dark machiavellian side, unlike the herd he defeated in the primaries, unlike Clinton, Trump does not commit the post-modernist sin of lacking entertainment value. Watching his campaign is like watching Saw IV, the latest episode in the horror franchise that consistently receives negative reviews, is socially and morally and aesthetically repugnant, but has enough appeal to somehow come out ahead at the box office. The Federalist Papers recognized without wholly resolving its flaws, and one could argue along with Plato and Andrew Sullivan, that a true philosopher king, a wise and compassionate elite, could correct for the outright stupidity that often emerges within the majoritarian mob -- the "selfie-celebrity" that becomes a "sensation" -- an angry binge at the polls that leaves one the next day hung-over, in bed with a lout, wondering how one will ever recover anything resembling self-respect. Surely, the philosophical elite would save us from ourselves, from the likes of a Brexit vote, or the likes of a Trump presidency. In the end, however, there must be a way to crown the philosopher king. As Plato recognized, the true philosopher would have little desire to be king, and I have been around enough doctors of philosophy to suggest that each and every PhD knows, with absolute certainty, with unwavering conviction, that they would be a "better" college president or king, if only they could be bothered. Those who actually aspire to be king, those who can be "bothered," are more likely to be "narcissists with dark machiavellian traits" than not, and so it is that so many of our elections are between dark and darker, the worst possible choice and an even worse choice, but it is nevertheless a choice. It is an opportunity to "check" the carelessness of careless people, or at least an opportunity to minimize damage as they go about smashing things up, and on rare occasions it is an opportunity to "balance" the books, to get paid at least a maid's salary as we the people, the other 99%, go about cleaning up the mess they make.
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