Hullabaloo

Monday, July 23, 2012

 

The heroic capitalists vs the pointy heads

by digby

Making a humiliating attempt at reconstructing this piece by Dylan Matthews explaining the philosophy underlying Obama's claim that businessmen didn't do it all on their own (a real treat if you've got the stomach for it) Rush proves he's not very bright and, in the process, fumbles one of the fundamental explanations as to why conservatives hate liberals:

Intellectuals hate capitalism because intellectuals are egomaniacs; they think they're smarter than everybody else. And if capitalism were just, they would be the ones who are rich, because they're the ones who smarter. And because they're the ones who are smarter than everybody else, they're the ones that deserve it! But capitalism hasn't seen fit to reward college professors and academics with billionaire status.

And so, there's something wrong with capitalism.

It's pure ego, folks. Nothing more than that. It's not hard to understand. Intellectuals don't like capitalism, and they don't like America, because they resent it. They're the smartest people in the world, and yet capitalism doesn't take care of them -- and that's why it's gotta be changed. That's Obama; that's his professors; that's the people who've mentored him. That's who they are. Hard work doesn't count for squat. It's how smart you are. In fact, in their world the smarter you are, the less hard you have to work. And that ought to be rewarded. It's a neat perversion of so many American traditions and ethics.

It's a perversion, that much is true.

Oddly, Rush seems to be claiming that smart people aren't rich and rich people aren't smart, but I don't think that's what he means. (After all, if that's the formula, at 40 million a year he would be proclaiming himself one of the stupidest men on earth.)

What he's trying to articulate is what a fair number of conservatives believe: "if you're so smart how come you're not a billionaire?" That's what any really smart person would do, right? So, you must not really be that smart. In fact, you can't possibly be any smarter than I am! You're just a lazy egomaniac speaking gibberish and trying to give all my hard earned money to the wrong people. Who wouldn't want to be rich more than anything?

Hating on the intellectuals has a long pedigree, of course. (It's one of the motivating factors in a number of revolutions, both left and right.) But the idea that the billionaire is a just a workin' guy like you and me is an idea that only exists among conservatives. Especially American conservatives.

I can understand being skeptical of elites. Especially now. What I don't get is why these John Galts and Masters of the Universe continue to get a pass despite the fact that they caused our depression and are still strutting around as if they created the world with their own two hands. Lots of elites failed in recent years, but none so obviously and catastrophically as the keepers of our capitalistic system. It's a testament to the heroic place they hold in the American popular imagination (and our fetish for individualism) that anyone has the chutzpah to argue that they literally did it all on their own.

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digby 7/23/2012 03:30:00 PM