June 27, 2009
The process through which a principal is captured by his servants is familiar to students of bureaucracy and even business. Once capture is consummated, the master and servant exchange places. The enterprise is run thereafter not for the benefit of the principal, but for those of the agents, such as when a country is run for the benefit of a government, or when a government is run for the benefit of its officials. In the case of Jackson, he may have been working -- and made to keep working -- for the benefit of the vast swarm of creditors, suppliers and hangers-on who attached themselves like parasites to failing host.
But how many people, reflecting on the King of Pop’s fantasies, will ask themselves whether subprime mortgages, unfunded social security or borrowing our way out of debt makes any more sense than that last shot of Demerol? On a day when the House has passed the climate change bill, wouldn’t it be good to ask how much of what the public is being made spend is for the public’s own benefit, and how much for the continued livelihood of the armies of special pleaders who surround society with their policy pills and needles? Good, but unlikely. It is far easier to believe in promises and rely feel-good nostrums than it is to look in the mirror, even though we know what it will show. Jackson’s death when it came, wasn’t a surprise; probably not even to him. And the crash of public policy fantasy, when it arrives, will not be wholly unexpected.
Posted by Vanderleun at June 27, 2009 12:04 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.