The Hapsbush Dynasty


Glenn Greenwald interviews Hullabaloo/Digby:

D: Well in some ways, it's actually feudalism. You find this: that we're operating as the country, the taxpayers operating as the serfs for the aristocracy, and basically our job is to prop them up when they need propping up, and to buy their products when they tell us they want to sell it to us. We've had this -- I think a lot of this goes back to -- I've written quite a bit about this, there's a certain heroic Randian myth in America over the last 25 years or so. You see it today; I just wrote a thing about Chris Matthews yesterday talking about King Henry, King Henry Paulson, who is going to come along and save us. Where this heroic capitalist is, we must allow him unfettered freedom, to do what he does, because we all benefit from it. It's important that we do it. And when the heroic capitalist fails, it's our job to support him, because essentially, in the Randian myth, we're parasites on these guys, we are existing only because of the great work that they do. You always hear Republicans talking about how they're the most productive members of society so...

GG: Right.

D: ...they shouldn't be penalized for their...

GG: No, that is the premise, that we can't allow them to fail because our minimal prosperity depends upon on their fantastical wealth. And the worst thing that can ever happen is that they suffer, because if they suffer, we too suffer, and therefore our priority ought to be to make sure that they're protected at all costs. That is the twisted economic philosophy that is being invoked and as you say it's grounded in this mythology.

One of the things that I find creepiest, and we both wrote about this actually, you wrote about it yesterday in the context of that horrific discussion that Chris Matthews had with Richard Wolfe of Newsweek, and was it, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Tribune, and I wrote about it this morning in the context of the David Brooks column, which is even more overt, and basically, what they, what our political class fears more than anything else, is the involvement on the part of the masses in how we end up being governed. And what they really do believe is that there's this tiny handful of supermen, who have this towering wisdom, and this unimpeachable integrity, who ought to be vested really with what is authoritarian or monarchical power and then we will rely upon what David Brooks called their public-spiritedness, to rule over us as a benevolent oligarchy. That really is their core premise, whether they realize that or not.

It would be one thing if the oligarchs that were being recruited were truly talented and trustworthy people -- there would still be profound anti-democratic problems with that, but at least then it would have some pragmatic chance of success -- but the people that they're talking about vesting this dictatorial power in are the exact people who have been plundering the Treasury...

Here's the complete transcript.