By Owen Paine on Thursday June 7, 2007 11:05 AM
I'm a sometime fan of the Lardner clan.
Here's a recent book review by James of that ilk, on the world of today as controlled by the
TNCs,
with their ghastly set of hidden bottom lines:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20275
Most Americans are troubled by the culture of dealmaking and financial engineering and insider self-enrichment.... by the callous treatment of workers and work life.... by the erosion of communities and community institutions.... Not very far below the political surface, most of us feel some version of the same vexed ambivalence toward corporate America -- dazzled by the conveniences and comforts it delivers, yet resentful of the tradeoffs that it continually demands....Not bad, eh? The piece throughout reads like its author feels that after 30 years of ever-further separation from our lower-order brothers and sisters, we precious winners, we over-rewarded few, are getting the merit-class blues. About time if so.
I think his last shot catches this moment in America well, as the brewing winds of job site rebellion start reaching higher up the class tower, toward the penthouse corporate goblins, and out into the still nominally independent offices, labs, studios, and campuses of all our wonderfully creative symbol makers and shakers.
...it is hard to imagine... a fundamental transformation of these giant institutions. It is even harder to imagine a better world in which they remain essentially what they are.
