Taibbi rips Brooks’ moral relativism – it’s not about class, it’s about crime!
In his expletive-laden, take-no-prisoners style, Matt Taibbi rips David Brooks’ latest NYT column trying to defend the indefensible behavior of the big banks. I love that Taibbi admits (unlike most journalists) to being a part of the same upper class as Brooks and the bankers – he writes: “I look at these people as my cultural peers and what angers me about them is that, with many coming from backgrounds similar to mine, these guys chose to go into a life of crime and did so in a way that is going to fuck things up for everyone, rich and poor, for a generation.”
Clipped from trueslant.com
The propagandistic argument he makes about the dangers of “populism” is spelled out here as clearly as you’ll ever see it expressed in print, and this exact thing is a key reason why so much of the corruption that went on on Wall Street in the past few decades was allowed to spread unchecked.
If Brooks disagrees with criticism of banks like Goldman, he has a fantastic platform to point out where those criticisms are incorrect. The best platform there is, in fact. But not only does he not go in that direction, he does just the opposite — he concedes that these criticisms are basically true, and chooses instead to argue against the wisdom of making those criticisms, apparently because “bashing the rich” will make them less inclined to “channel opportunity to new groups.”
That’s basically Brooks’s entire argument here. Yes, the rich and powerful do rig the game in their own favor, and yes, they are guilty of “excesses” — but fucking deal with it, if you want to eat.