WEDNESDAY, AUG 21, 2013 11:30 PM +0900
The rich, summed up: Nepotism, cronyism, narcissism
The New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin defends corrupt hiring practices
BY ALEX PAREENE
Here’s what we know about the rich: They have a lot more money than everyone else, and they have more money than everyone else by a larger margin than they used to. Why is that? They like to tell themselves it’s because they are morally and intellectually superior, but there is not a whole lot of evidence to back that up. People usually end up rich because that they were born or raised with certain environmental advantages. One of the biggest advantages you can be born with, these days, is rich parents. And one of the biggest advantages rich parents pass on to their offspring ― let’s say the second-biggest, after “money” ― is the sense of entitlement necessary for an entirely unaccomplished rich person to coast through life without constantly feeling crippling guilt.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, in other words, that rich people ― specifically rich young college-aged Americans ― exhibit narcissistic tendencies, as a new study says.
The rich get jobs through family connections. What else are these kids supposed to do? After you’ve gone to whatever elite university your father attended, thanks to admissions offices that are still very much comfortable taking that into consideration, getting a job at whatever firm he worked at is only natural.
And here comes Andrew Ross Sorkin, the superstar New York Times finance reporter behind “Too Big To Fail,” with a “DealBook” column about how it is no big deal that this happens. Sorkin’s column isn’t strictly about direct nepotism in the hiring process, but about the hiring of the children of all varieties of rich people by giant financial firms. The “news hook” is the SEC investigation of JPMorgan Chase for hiring the children of powerful Chinese officials, including the son of a former bank regulator and the daughter of a railway official already suspected of accepting bribes. The SEC calls these hires bribery. Sorkin calls them just how things work on Wall Street.
But hiring the sons and daughters of powerful executives and politicians is hardly just the province of banks doing business in China: it has been a time-tested practice here in the United States.
Sorkin doesn’t seem to understand ― or he doesn’t care, I guess ― that the issue isn’t whether or not these hires meet the legal definition of “bribery,” but that they are plain-as-day examples of how rigged the entire game of finance capitalism is. Sorkin, who has thoroughly internalized the Titan of Wall Street mindset, only judges the actions of massive financial firms based on whether or not those actions are profitable or likely to end up profitable. So, yes, by that standard, hiring the children of both Communist Party officials and successful capitalist elites makes sense. That’s why firms do it! Does doing so also strengthen or perpetuate a deeply unjust social order or repressive political regime? Who knows!
金持が金持なのは頭がいいとか、道義的に立派な人だとかではなく、大抵の場合金持父さんをもっていて、そのコネでいいところに就職したから。
中国では共産党幹部の子弟が、アメリカでは資本家の子弟がコネで優遇されている。でも、それで企業がもうかるというならそれでいいじゃないか!というアメリカの主流のメディアの風潮に対して、それでは、社会の暗い不正が永久に改まらないのではないか、と。
そういえばーーー間違っていたら教えてもらいたいのだがーーーー以前NYTに記事を寄稿していた女性は日本の大企業家の娘さんで、現在のタブチさんのおばあちゃんは芦屋あたりのひとで、お父さんは大学の歴史の先生か、なにかだったんじゃないかな。
育ちってのは、あって、金持のおぼっちゃまやおじょうちゃまには、貧乏人のこせがれの気持ちがわからないし、あるいは、NYTのファクラーさんやタブチさん、WSJハヤシさんや、APのヤマグチさんにとって、
日本や韓国、ベトナムで貧困から米兵の相手をさせられた性奴隷たちに同情をよせるなんてことは想像もできないわけです。
ここらへん非常にギャップを感じるところであります。