Thinking Like a Corporate Lawyer
I've been waiting for one of the discussants to really attack Daniel's fine book so I could leap to its defense. But in the absence of that, I want to make just one small, important point about the political effect of the Trap that Daniel describes. The book includes a number of excerpts from interviews with people working in "the system" who are closet progressives, like the "universal healthcare-advocate-turned-consultant for Big Pharma" he cites in his post.
In my travels through young adult-hood, I've run into dozens, even hundreds, of such characters myself. But I've also found that one of the most pernicious effects of this kind of "selling out" is that people's politics change from the outside in. If you are, say, a corporate lawyer who spends all days writing briefs defending a big corporation from burdensome regulations, you can't help but begin to think that the regulations actually are burdensome. You'd have to be a kind of sociopath not to.
What ends up happening, I think, and this is based in part on Daniel's book and in part on my own observations, is that these erstwhile campus radicals and progressives who end up in corporate America remain self-identified liberals and Democrats, but their worldview shifts to the right. They begin to imbibe some of the blithe assumptions of neo-liberalism and market superiority that form the basis of corporate/elite consensus. This, then ends up having an effect on where the center of the Democratic party is when it comes to issues of political economy.
If these same people were working in the schools or at non-profits, their politics would remain, I think, more robustly progressive, even radical in some instances. But instead they end up being shaped by the beliefs of those around whom they work, and when it comes time to donate to candidates they support those who share their economic views.
This is a self-reinforcing process, because it's many of the elite consensus, "free market," anti-social democratic views that result in the policies which create the Trap in the first place.
How, then, to break the cycle?
One obvious reason for this is that many government regulations are in fact irrational even for the some of the best programs. I have had experience both as an citizen environmentalist and a professional toxicoligist in the laws for regulating toxic chemicals. I have not changed my basic position that those regulations that began to come on line in the 70's were in general highly beneficial to society. However there were a couple that produced real damage to many companies without really benefiting the environment. For example the superfund law, coupled with the ealier DeLaney clause has turned out to be extremely inefficient. I could see a good progressive lawyer representing these kind of cases for corporate clients without any problem. I have been involved in debates with environmental activists and I have seen many that are moved by much emotion and very little technical understanding resulting in real junk science. I have never been a paid consultant in any of these cases so I can't be accused of selling out but I have seen colleagues viciously attacked who have. It does not surprise me in the slightest that they moved to the right in this process.
October 16, 2007 5:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps this is one more side effect of making "work/our jobs" central in defining our identities here in America. Our jobs are now an important indicator of our value. This value is seen as important more in terms of being beneficial to the economy rather than anything as altruistic as beneficial to the nation/community/family. But if your job is essentially to spend all day screwing people over in order to make a buck (professions such as the insurance industry for example...) then just how fulfilling is that going to be to you personally and what does it ultimately say about who you are as a person? Maybe that's being too harsh but isn't it something to think about? It seems to me that maybe what we have is a breakdown in "values" where money and peer ranking based on the perceived importance of a person's job take precedence over other more personal thoughts or beliefs. In that environment there's very little room left for a person's conscience to find a foothold.
Perhaps because we've made "work" such a specialized and impersonal task there's a complete disconnect with our evolving and sometimes distorted sense of right and wrong. In our nation today, words like artisan and craftsman have virtually lost all of their traditional meaning and are now quaintly used in corporate logos and branding in order to capture the "good old days". Gone is any real tangible sense of ownership or pride in one's "job". After all how can a person take pride in their job when they do one small inane part of a large, sterile and impersonal process? I think in the end it eventually sucks all of the creativity and inspiration from us and leads us into situations where we find ourselves in contradiction with our own beliefs. And at the end of the day we simply find our selves asking - we have to pay the bills somehow right?
Now I know we can never go back to small towns with mom & pop shops run by our neighbors. Our nation and the world has grown too much for that to ever occur. But maybe we need to reevaluate what really is important. What truly is valuable, not only to each one of us personally but also to our families, communities and our nation as a whole. Yes this is idealistic and contrary to American capitalism. But it sure seems like a healthier direction.
October 16, 2007 5:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Based on my own experiences over the past 20 years, it's less the nature of the work you do than the fact that you spend 8+ hours per day working with people who generally are not particularly liberal. So it's important to keep those influences separate.
And you do see the other side, so you can end up more open-minded. The problem is not ending up so "open-minded" that your brains fall out!
October 16, 2007 9:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
What cycle is there to break?
It seems that what you are describing is the exposure of a radical progressive to the real world. If her political beliefs cannot survive exposure to their application, did she really seriously hold those beliefs in the first place?
October 16, 2007 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess that's why they call it "selling out." You lose some of your soul and work does change the way you think.
I guess the tougher question is -- do you like the job? If you do, then you want it to change you. If you really like manufacturing handguns, to take an extreme example, then you're going to be happy to change your mind about the 2nd Ammendment.
It's only bad if you hate making handguns and learn to like it because it's the only way to pay your bills.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 16, 2007 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
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September 17, 2008 1:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
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May 26, 2009 8:06 AM | Reply | Permalink