Tom Friedman - Again

In a recent column, our struggling propagandist for globalization claims that on the new Flat Earth, "individuals have more freedom." This is freedom defined as the "flexibility to develop their own identities." In other words, if you are a straight man and you want to be a lesbian, Go For It! Who is stopping you? Thank God Almighty, Free at last!

The problem lies not, therefore, in freedom, but in an essential conflict between those who are "ambitious, gifted, dynamic, talented" vs "people who lack social capital", you know, losers. I guess I just assumed that was why they were building those FEMA camps, to house the "innovatively Challenged" (the new PC term). Tom worries about this stuff, bless his liberal heart. Meritocracy is his Church, the Temple where he worships.

Thomas Edsall asks some big questions on his NYTimes blog including this one straight out of Occupy: "Has surging income of the 1% reached a point where the political leverage of the very affluent outweighs the electorate at large?" Sincere but again, look at the underlying assumption of a viable "political" system. It's an illusion.It's Senator Russ Feingold and Colbert Super Pac and Citizens United Move to Amend blah blah.A house of mirrors, a diversion, a smokescreen. But what if you asked: ..a point where the cultural productive capacity of the 1% determines the conditions of possibility? Or has achieved hegemonic dominance?

In a critique of classic economic theory Michael Spence points out: "Market incentives are good at efficiency, growth and innovation. They are proving weak or deficient in stability, equity and sustainability." Here we should question the real value of innovation. Aren't we just locked in a cycle of trying to innovate away the problems the last innovations caused? This is not an anti-technology critique, but a question of how and where it is directed. What if we concentrated on already known, basic stuff like food, water, medicine, education, governance? Oh yeah, I forgot, not much profit margin. Sorry.

Last but certainly not least, we have Francis "End of History" Fukuyama asking; Can Liberal Democracy Survive the Decline of the Middle Class? Again, wrong question. If poor Francis could ever catch up he might ask; Can the Planet Survive the Global Middle Class? Full of innovations and "ambitious, gifted, talented" trans-gender innovators?